School of Management

Royal Holloway, University of London

IRP title:

INFLUENCE OF CSR ON EMPLOYEE ENGAGEMENT

MSc International Management

Student Name: Aysenur Kinoglu

Candidate Number:1508574

Supervisor: Prof. Jos Gamble

Date of Submission: 21.08.2015

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Declaration

This independent research paper has been prepared on the

basis of my own work and that where other published and

unpublished source materials have been used, these have

been acknowledged.

Word Count: 9.998 (Cover page, table of contents,

abstract and references are not included)

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Abstract

In recent years, Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR)

has become a hot topic for many companies’ agenda. Most

of the researches focus on financial returns of CSR in

terms of profit, sales, customer retention. However, CSR

has also become an important tool to engage employees in

organizations. Many young individuals in the first step

of their careers eager to work for organizations

contributing the society by improving welfare in their

internal and external environment. CSR strategies of

Human Resources (HR) in companies have various impacts on

employee engagement. Previous researches on CSR and HR

relation are mainly based on organizational commitment.

Engagement and commitment are relevant to a certain

extent but different concepts to use in the same context;

therefore, CSR effect on these concepts should be

addressed distinctively. This paper aims to discuss the

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impact of CSR on employee engagement and on

“Organizational Citizenship Behavior” (OCB). The IRP

follows qualitative analysis and uses secondary data to

explain the main research questions. The research uses

interpretivism as a research philosophy and deductive

approach as a research methodology. The key findings of

this IRP are that firstly, CSR affects employee

engagement through organizational identification and

trust. Secondly, even though CSR is influential on

engagement, there can be less engaged or disengaged

employees due to differences in the perceptions of CSR.

This research paper proposes that by increasing awareness

about CSR, embedding CSR into organizational culture and

involving employees in CSR programs can enhance the

engagement levels in the organizations. Therefore, it is

important for organizations to incorporate their

employees into CSR activities to boost their performance

and motivation. The CSR influence on engagement

contributes the overall performance of companies by

decreasing employee turnover and increasing efficiency

and also by bringing in willing and innovative

individuals to workforce.

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Table of Contents

1. INTRODUCTION..............................................52. LITERATURE REVIEW.........................................62.1 THE DEFINITION OF EMPLOYEE ENGAGEMENT........................62.2 SOCIAL EXCHANGE THEORY AND EMPLOYEE ENGAGEMENT................132.3 HOW EMPLOYEE ENGAGEMENT CONTRIBUTES TO ORGANIZATIONS?..........132.4 CSR AND EMPLOYEE PERCEPTION...............................152.5 CSR INFLUENCE ON EMPLOYEE ENGAGEMENT........................18

3. METHODOLOGY..............................................203.1 RESEARCH QUESTIONS.......................................203.2 RESEARCH DESIGN..........................................213.3 DATA EVALUATION..........................................24

4. FINDINGS & DISCUSSION....................................264.1 HOW DOES CSR AFFECT THE EMPLOYEE ENGAGEMENT?.................264.2 HOW CSR CONTRIBUTES ORGANIZATIONAL CITIZENSHIP BEHAVIOR (OCB) OF EMPLOYEES IN THE ORGANIZATIONS?.................................294.3 HOW CAN ORGANIZATIONS ENGAGE “LESS ENGAGED EMPLOYEES” THROUGH CSR?..........................................................32

5. CONCLUSION...............................................346. LIMITATIONS & FURTHER RESEARCH AREAS.....................357. REFERENCES...............................................36

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1. Introduction

Over the last decades, CSR has been discussed by media

and academics that arouse the interest of the society.

Many organizations have started to consider CSR as a

competitive advantage towards their competitors (Slack

et.al, 2014). The motivation behind the competitive

advantage is that CSR is influential tool for profit

goals, customer retention and reputation (Choi and Yu,

2014). However, it is insufficient argument to explain

the gains of organizations solely through organizations’

CSR activities. There is a significant relation between

CSR activities and employee engagement that enhances the

profitability and organizational performance (Cooper and

Wagman, 2009). Previous research have examined the

relationship of CSR and organizational commitment but

comprised limited information about employee engagement.

This paper aims to contribute this research area by

differentiating engagement from some similar concepts in

literature and examining its relationship with CSR.

Commitment, satisfaction, involvement and engagement

concepts are used interchangeably in some contexts;

however, they take place in the different scopes of the

literature (Hallberg and Schaufeli, 2006).

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Engagement can be defined as an emotional connection to

the organization, which affects employees’ behaviors and

performance level in work-related activities (ibid).

Engagement covers the nature of job itself since if

employees realize that organization supports the trust

and communication between employees and management,

employees become aware of their contributions to

organizational performance (ibid). They can perceive that

organization works for its employees to have better

growth opportunities in the organization (ibid). There

are significant contributions of engaged employees in

organizations in terms of social-well being in workplace

environment and achieving the business goals (ibid). High

level of employee engagement gives rise to good quality

of service, which results in higher customer

satisfaction, sales, profit and shareholder returns

(ibid). Employee engagement is a non-eligible factor for

organizations in order to increase their business

outcomes. Therefore, organizations need to find out

drivers of engagement and consider as a part of corporate

culture.

Several researches point out particular evidence that CSR

activities of organizations are one of the drivers of

employee engagement (Mirvis, 2012). CSR contributes

engagement in a way that the feeling of working for a

good company attracts employees, which results in long

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term loyalty and lower turnover rates (Ferreira and Real

de Oliveira, 2014). CSR enhances employee engagement by

display discretionary and extra-role behaviors, defined

as “Organizational Citizenship Behavior” (OCB) (Newman

et.al, 2014). OCB is based on “Social Exchange Theory”,

which explains the effect of organizational practices on

employee engagement from a theoretical perspective based

on reciprocity norm (Choi and Yu, 2014).

This paper aims to explore CSR as a driver of employee

engagement and contribute this under-researched topic

through qualitative research methodology. The objective

of research is to answer following questions: (a) How

does CSR affect the employee engagement? (b) How CSR

contributes organizational citizenship behavior (OCB) of

employees in organizations? (c) How should organizations

engage less engaged employees through CSR? The research

is organized as follows: Section II-Literature review,

Section-III Methodology, Section-IV Findings and

Discussion, Section-V Conclusion and Section-VI

Limitations and Further Research areas.

2. Literature Review

In this chapter, firstly detailed definition of employee

engagement concept and its evolution will be explained.

Then different scholars’ perspectives will be discussed

and the reasons behind the benefits of employee

engagement to organizations will be explained. Then,

ever-growing definitions of CSR and employees’ response

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to CSR will be discussed. Thereafter as a main discussion

topic, CSR and employee engagement relation will be

examined.

2.1 The Definition of Employee Engagement

The employee engagement concept has no single dominant

definition in the literature. During its evolution

period, practitioners and academicians have come up with

several distinctive definitions (Shuck, 2011).

Practitioners approach employee engagement from

performance perspectives whereas academicians put

emphasis mainly on psychological state of an individual

(ibid). It is important to evaluate employee engagement

from both aspects since it can be ill-defined denotation

to address solely on psychological or on performance

angles (Macey and Schneider, 2008). Firstly, evolution of

the concept will be examined by four different

perspectives and more recent conceptualization of

employee engagement will be discussed in the following

section.

2.1.1 Evolution of Employee Engagement Concept

In the literature, Kahn, Maslach, Harter and Sacks are

seen as pioneers of the employee engagement concept

(Shuck, 2011). Therefore, in this section I will discuss

their different perspectives on engagement.

Kahn (1990):

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Kahn has contributed the definition of employee

engagement by defining the different models such as

cognitively engaged, physically engaged and emotionally

engaged (Shuck, 2011). He structures these models on

psychological domains, which are meaningfulness, safety

and availability (ibid). Meaningfulness is the extra

value and effort put on work performance when employees

feel themselves that they are significant and valuable

for the organization (Kular et al., 2008). Safety is the

degree of trust towards organization in terms of clear-

cut specification of an employee’s task at the work

(ibid). Each employee needs to feel confident in work

environment and to be aware of what is expected of

her/him at the work (ibid). Lastly, availability is the

possessing the necessary sources in full in order to

maintain their tasks at the work (ibid). These resources

can be considered as monetary policies, social benefits,

training and workplace environment (ibid). Briefly,

according to Kahn, employees ask whether it is meaningful

or not to display this performance and they question that

is it safe to do so? Lastly, asks how they are available

to perform the task. Since 1990s, Kahn’s framework has

been one of the most popular frameworks for developing

employee engagement in organizations (Shuck, 2011).

Maslach (2001):

Maslach contributes the definition of engagement by

defining opposite of negative and disintegrated state of

an individual (Shuck, 2011). According to Maslach,

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engagement is opposite of “burnout”, which implies the

one’s disintegration with his/her job (ibid). He defines

three different concepts opposite to engagement such as

exhaustion, cynicism and ineffectiveness (Kular et al.,

2008). Exhaustion is the feeling of both psychologically

and physically overextended (ibid). Cynicism is the

discouragement and dispassionate behaviors of an employee

towards his/her job (ibid). Ineffectiveness is that when

employees feel ineffective, they have a sense of

professional inadequacy (ibid). However, the main

criticism for Maslach’s approach is that it is lack of

cognitive perspective projected by Kahn since he

predominantly focuses on emotional and physical parts of

burnout (Shuck, 2011).

Harter (2002):

Harter enhances the definition of employee engagement by

using the Gallup organization’s data on different

industry fields (Kular et al., 2008). Harter defines

employee engagement as the degree of involvement and

satisfaction of an employee at the work (ibid). Job

involvement is defined as degree to which job is central

to employees’ identity (Krishnan et.al, 2009). Whereas

job satisfaction is considered as a positive emotional

state due to the appraisal of one’s job experiences

(ibid). Harter also found out a positive relationship

between employee engagement and business outcomes since

according to him; engaged employees brings efficiency and

productivity to organizations (ibid).

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Sacks (2006):

Sacks is the first academician to differentiate the job

engagement and organizational engagement concepts by

developing social exchange model (Shuck, 2011). Sacks

describes employee engagement in three elements as

cognitive, emotional and behavioral that are mainly

integrated with the work performance (ibid). He argues

that since the resources and benefits are offered to

employees, they are willing to pay back their

organizations to express their satisfaction and

engagement with their organization (Kular et al., 2008).

As Kahn (1990) states, employees adjust their engagement

levels by depending on amount of resources dedicated to

them since they look for reciprocal relationships.

In this part, I explained the various important

perspectives and evolution about the definition of

employee engagement by different scholars. Each scholar

approaches the engagement concept from similar

perspectives but builds arguments by extending the

definitions of previous concepts. In next part, I will

focus on the constituent concepts of engagement in order

to have clear understanding of employee engagement.

2.1.2 Understanding of Employee Engagement and Its Main Components

Macey and Schneider (2008) constitute a framework for

employee engagement by depending on antecedent

discussions and perspectives about the concept. According

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to their research, engagement has been used to connote

involvement, commitment and mood as a psychological state

or OCB and role expansion as a performance criterion.

In this chapter, the insight of the concept will be

discussed and its components will be examined. The stated

conceptualization of engagement will be taken as a basis

throughout the paper.

Engagement consists of three main elements (Macey and

Schneider, 2008) as shown in Figure 2.1.1. State

engagement covers satisfaction, involvement, commitment

and empowerment and behavioral engagement includes OCB,

role expansion whereas trait engagement contains

personality and conscientiousness (ibid). Psychological

aspects of engagement mostly take place in state

engagement (Maslach, 2004). Behavioral engagement

explains mainly extra-role behaviors of individuals and

trait engagement discusses positive perception of

employees towards their work (Macey and Schneider, 2008).

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Figure 2.1.1

State Engagement

Terms satisfaction, work engagement and commitment in

state engagement cause confusion since they can be used

interchangeably. However, these constructs have different

explanations (Shuck, Reio and Rocco, 2011).

Work Engagement:

Work engagement is considered as full dedication and

energy of an employee towards his or her task (Schaufeli,

2006). Utrecht Work Engagement Scale determines three

dimensions for work engagement such as vigor, absorption

and dedication (Bakker et.al, 2011). Vigor is described

EMPLOYEE ENGAGEMENT

TRAIT ENGAGEMENT

STATE ENGAGEMENT

BEHAVIORAL ENGAGEMENT

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as high levels of energy while working, one’s willingness

to put effort in his or her task and persistence in case

of any difficulty (ibid). Absorption is the state of

full engagement and high concentration about work that

one cannot separate his or herself from work (ibid).

Lastly, dedication can be described as a sense of pride,

enthusiasm for being employed by organization and a

belief that each employee’s effort and endeavor is

significant for organization (ibid).

Organizational Commitment:

Tiwari and Singh (2014) define organizational commitment

as individual’s ability to identify his/herself with

organizational goals and values. Organizational

commitment is based on three-component model as affective

commitment, continuance commitment and normative

commitment (Dick et.al, 2007). Affective commitment is

the emotional attachment to the organization (ibid).

Employees enjoy the relationship; therefore, they want to

stay in the organization (ibid). Affective commitment is

related with the high level of performance since

employees having affective commitment are more likely to

engage in OCB (ibid). Continuance commitment is that

employees prefer to stay in the organization since

leaving the organization may be costly and they may feel

that they will lose their social status. Employee’s

perception is shaped that they must not leave their

organizations (ibid). Lastly, normative commitment is

that employees feel under an obligation because they

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believe that staying in the organization is the right

thing (ibid). Therefore, employees think that they have to

stay in the organization (ibid).

For instance; an employee works in one of the top

pharmaceutical companies, which presents decent

opportunities and salary. Employee feels happy and

important in the organization. Employee has affective

commitment since he or she feels happy and wants to stay.

Employee also has continuance commitment since he or she

works in one of the best companies, earning good amount

of money and having prestige. Lastly, employee may have

normative commitment since he or she may be the key

person due to the nature of his or her job in the

organization. Therefore, he or she feels obliged to stay

in order to contribute particular research for the

benefit of society. Therefore, these three components are

considered to be influential on employee turnover rates

and work performance in the organizations (Dick et.al,

2007).

Job Satisfaction:

Weiss (2002) states that job satisfaction is an emotional

state. He defines as one’s valuation of his/her job as an

accomplishment for attaining individual goals. It is

positive or negative feeling due to the outcome of

overall individual evaluation of experiences during the

work time (Weiss, 2002). However, although satisfaction

is related with engagement, it mainly connotes the

feeling of contentment and prosperity during the action;

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therefore, measuring satisfaction by itself does not give

healthy results for engagement (Hallberg and Schaufeli,

2006).

Behavioral Engagement

Behavioral engagement is the deliver of performance

beyond the expected average level (Kahn, 1990).

Behavioral engagement is not only putting superior

physical performance but also being innovative, efficient

(ibid). OCB is one of the main elements of behavioral

engagement, which occupy an important place in literature

(Borman, 2004).

Organizational Citizenship Behavior (OCB):

Although OCB has not had considerable effect in practice

yet, organizations have started to be interested in

(Podsakoff, 2000). Since 1960s, OCB has been defined as

“extra-role behavior”, which expresses the discretionary

behavior of an individual without recognizing any reward

system (ibid). Organ (1997) defines discretionary

behavior as follows:

“By discretionary, we mean that the behavior is not an enforceablerequirement of the role or the job description, that is the clearlyspecifiable terms of the person's employment contract with theorganization; the behavior is rather a matter of personal choice, suchthat its omission is not generally understood as punishable” (Humanperformance, 10(2), pp.85-97)

Organ’s definition of OCB is widely taken as a basis in

literature. According to him; OCB contributes

organizational effectiveness not only by boosting

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innovations and productivity but also by decent

relationships with co-workers at the work (Dicke et.al,

2007). Engaged employees involve more in OCB compare to

disengaged employees (Newman et.al, 2014). Employees can

show their OCB in five different ways such as

sportsmanship, altruism, courtesy, conscientiousness and

civic virtue (ibid). These five dimensions are

categorized under two main branches as OCB-0 and OCB-I

(Jahangir et.al, 2006). OCB-I behavior is for the benefit

of individuals, which includes courtesy and altruism

whereas OCB-0 behavior is for the benefit of

organizations with sportsmanship, civic virtue and

conscientiousness (ibid).

Altruism connotes to enthusiasm to assist people in

organization with no thought of personal gain (Dicke

et.al, 2007). Conscientiousness is to perform above

minimum or expected level in the organization (ibid).

Sportsmanship is the displaying no negative behavior when

he/she experiences with difficult tasks or things that do

not go as planned (ibid). Courtesy is to exhibit polite

and thoughtful behaviors towards colleagues, which

enhances the social interactions in workplace environment

(ibid). Lastly, civic virtue is the representation of

organization by employees outside of the organization

(ibid). Civic virtue enables employees to feel strongly

connected to their organization, which leads to increased

productivity and efficiency in the organization (Dicke

et.al, 2007). Within the scope of this research,

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organizational dimension of OCB (OCB-0) will be discussed

in line with employee engagement.

Trait Engagement

Trait engagement covers the personality dimension of

engagement such as proactive personality,

conscientiousness (Macey and Schneider, 2008). Trait

engagement refers to having positive approach and

constructive experience at work (ibid). Trait engagement

has a connection with behavioral and state engagement

since it enables individuals to go beyond their normal

tasks and outperform while having job satisfaction.

Proactive personality is defined as the ability of

establishing or influencing work environment in terms of

boosting performance and increasing productivity (ibid).

According to Kahn (1990) and Maslach (2004) these

dimensions point out the necessary elements of

engagement, however, they do not give full evidence about

why different individuals have varying levels of

engagement. They bring forward that social exchange

theory constitutes solid ground and gives the reasoning

behind being less or more engaged. The following chapter

will discuss the relation between engagement and social

exchange theory.

2.2 Social Exchange Theory and Employee Engagement

Social exchange theory is a widely used framework to

establish theoretical ground for employee engagement with

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regards to norm of reciprocity (Settoo et.al, 1996).

Social exchange theory points out that when employees

have positive and helpful relationship, they feel

obligated to reciprocate in the same manner (ibid).

Eisenberger et al. (2001) support this argument depending

on his research and adds that employees’ perceptions of

organizational support make them contribute the

organizational goals. Perceived organizational support is

emphasized in social exchange theory, which connotes that

employees believe that organization values their well-

being and tries to fulfill their needs (ibid).

However, this situation varies from person to person

since employees having weak exchange ideology, who values

the reciprocity norm less, do not have the feeling of

obligation as employees having powerful exchange ideology

(Eisenberger et al., 2001).

Konovsky and Pugh (1994) point out that trust is the most

important factor for the first step of social exchange

formation. Relational trust enables employees to involve

in tasks, which are not mandatory and to contribute

organizations continuously (Konovsky and Pugh, 1994).

Therefore, when trust is established, perceived

organizational support reaches higher level, which

motivates employees to go beyond their expected tasks.

2.3 How Employee Engagement Contributes to Organizations?

In order to understand why employee engagement is an

important topic for organizations, we should understand

how it avails to organizations. I discussed the OCB

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concept in the explanation of employee engagement

definition and its components. I explained how employee

engagement is beneficial through discretionary efforts

and extra role behaviors of employees. In this chapter,

the contribution of engagement to organizations will be

examined on the basis of OCB.

The concept of organizational effectiveness can be

defined as the degree which organizations achieve their

goals (Kataria et.al, 2013). Efficient organizations have

three different characteristics such as productivity,

adaptability and flexibility (ibid). In order to fulfill

these dimensions, employees’ contributions are essential

for two reasons (Albrecht et al., 2015). Firstly, engaged

employees display innovative and proactive behavior and

affect their environment in this direction (ibid). Since

engaged employees are flexible enough to external changes

or difficulties, they make their organizations flexible

as well as a feature of efficient organizations (ibid).

Secondly, engaged employees work with passion, they try

to produce high quality goods in order to take their

organizations further (ibid).

Engaged employees are inclined to display OCB such as

more brain-power, extra time and energy for their task

(Kataria et.al, 2013). In the frame of OCB, engaged

employees are more positive to use their personal

resources and more confident to perform extra-role

behavior (ibid). The research of Kataria et.al (2013)

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suggests a relationship between efficient organizations

and employee engagement can be visualized as shown in

Figure 2.3.1

Figure 2.3.1

There is a link with between organizational efficiency

and engagement that leads organizations to have high

level of productivity, competitive advantage and low

level of turnovers (Slåtten and Mehmetoglu, 2011). It is

an important competitive advantage since it is a unique

internal resource of organizations that competitors

cannot imitate or adopt easily (ibid). Therefore,

organizations need to improve the level of employee

engagement and embed into organizational culture in order

to take an advantage of OCB for their business goals

(Albrecht et al., 2015).

2.4 CSR and Employee Perception

2.4.1 Evolution of CSR Definition

E m p l o y e e E n g a g e m e ntB e h a v i o r alT r a i tS t a t e

O C BS p o r t s m a n s h i pC i v i c V i r t u eC o n s c i e n t i o u sn e s s

O r g a n i z a t i on a l E f f e c t i v e n es sF l e x i b i l i t yA d a p t a b i l i tyP r o d u c t i v i ty

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CSR has become mainstream in businesses in current years

(Baker, 2004). Organizations and people has started to

revise their priorities for next years and most of them

denote that specially the environmental well-being will

be the heart of our future (ibid). On the other hand,

there are many debates about how organizations perceive

and represent CSR activities in line with definition of

CSR (ibid). Most of the debates go around financial

aspects of CSR that some of the companies are hopeful

about profit return due to the consumer attraction

(ibid). In consequence of many discussions and

organizations’ decent and unpleasant experiences,

definition of CSR and its dimensions have been altered

since 1950s (Rahman, 2011). In this chapter, previous

conceptualizations and more recent definition of CSR will

be discussed.

1950s:

In 1950s, discussions about CSR began with questioning

the responsibilities of businessmen towards society

(Rahman, 2011). According to Bowen (1954), it is a

mandatory task of businessmen to follow CSR practices and

take decisions accordingly, which are beneficial for

welfare of the society. In same period, Heald (1957)

constructs an enhanced definition that CSR should be

mandatory at the management level and the overall goals

should not only be based on financial returns but also

society well being.

1970s:

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During 1970s, Friedman approached CSR from distinctive

perspective compare to previous scholars. According to

Friedman (1970), organizations have single objective,

which is to increase profit in order to survive in

competition. In 1970s, new definitions of CSR arose and

different dimensions were put forward such as social

accounting, social audit and social indicators (Rahman,

2011). On the other hand, Sethi (1975) conceptualizes and

differentiates CSR from corporate behavior as social

duty, social responsibility and social responsiveness.

Preston and Post (1975) defines that organizations do not

have unlimited responsibilities as a concept of social

responsibility but it should be placed among the

priorities of organizations.

1990s:

In 1990s, there were fewer contributions for development

of CSR concept (Rahman, 2011). Elkington (1997)

structures CSR on three layers, which are planet, profit

and people. According to him, social responsibility

brings economic prosperity, social equity and

environmental care. If environment is protected, it is

beneficial for society; thus beneficial for profitability

of business. Other scholars like Hopkins (1998) and

Woodward-Clyde (1999) define CSR as a responsibility both

towards internal and external stakeholders and also think

as an agreement between organization and society. Since

society allows a license carry on a business, in return

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organizations should follow the norms required by

society.

21st Century:

Lantos (2001) suggests three distinctive kinds of CSR

such as ethical, altruistic and strategic. Ethical CSR

requires that organizations need to be ethically

responsible to environments when they pursue their

organizational goals. Altruistic CSR is the voluntary

activities that may lead to organizational or individual

sacrifice. Lastly, strategic CSR refers to community

activities of organizations, which aims to achieve

strategic business goals. CSR have caused conflicts in

businesses (Jamali and Miurshak, 2007). Jamali and

Miurshak (2007) explain that the conflict mainly has

arisen from lack of knowledge and experience. Since it

has been unclear that which and why organizations have

obligations to follow CSR strategies in developing

countries, they do not feel responsible about being

socially responsible.

In 2008, World Business Council construct the definition

of CSR as follows:

“the continuing commitment by business to behave ethically andcontribute to economic development while improving the quality of life of theworkforce and their families as well as of the local community and society atlarge” (World Business Council for Sustainable Development, 2008).

25

Figure 2.4.1

In this paper, CSR will be categorized in two main

branches as internal and external CSR due to gauge

clearly the main hypotheses. External CSR defines CSR

activities for external stakeholder such as customers,

social and non-social stakeholders whereas internal CSR

is for internal stakeholders such as employees.

2.4.2 Employee Perception of CSR

50sResponsibility to society

60sRelationship between society and organizations

70sStakeholder involvementEconomic, ethical and legal responsibility to societyIncreasing quality of life

80sVoluntarinessFinancial returns of CSR

90sPlanet, Profit and PeopleEnvironmental considerations

2000sHuman rights, labor rights, improving well being of societyMore transparency and accountability

26

There are few studies about how CSR affects employees and

their perception. The recent findings demonstrate that

CSR influences work outcomes positively (Farooq et.al,

2014). It increases job satisfaction, organizational

commitment through organizational identification, which

leads to higher job performance, quality of products and

lower turnover rates (ibid). Employees’ responses to CSR

are mainly based on organizational identification in

terms of a theoretical aspect (ibid). Organizational

identification is the recognition of belongingness to

organization that employee names him or herself as a

member of an organization (Rodrigo and Arenas, 2007). In

this chapter, employee perception of CSR will be mainly

discussed through organizational identification.

CSR and Organizational Identification:

Organizations’ social, consumer-based and environmental

external actions are found to be strongly influential on

organizational identification (Farooq et.al, 2014).

Employees feel satisfied and proud when they work for an

organization, which has a powerful reputation because

organizational identification is affected from

organization’s image and status (ibid). Employees can be

sensitive about what external audience thinks about their

organization since the stakeholders, especially consumers

give feedbacks and rank organizations, which have impact

on the image of organizations (Rodrigo and Arenas, 2007).

Employees’ esteem towards their organization is as

important as external image (Farooq et.al, 2014).

27

Employees’ assessments of their standing in the

organization are a significant determinant to understand

the degree of respect to their organizations (ibid). They

need to perceive that they are decent and valuable

members of organizations (ibid). Programs like extensive

training, career coaching and involvement in decision-

making process are contributive factors for internal CSR

actions (ibid). In addition to these, internal CSR

enhances knowledge sharing among employees through

organizational identification (Farooq, et.al, 2014).

Employees become willing to share knowledge as they

identify themselves more with the organization, which

leads organizations to have collaborative workforce and

efficient workflow as a strong competitive advantage

(ibid).

2.5 CSR Influence on Employee Engagement

There are few studies on CSR and employee engagement in

literature since employee engagement concept itself is a

relatively recent topic and its definition is not clearly

defined in many sources (Mirvis, 2012). The researches

about the CSR and employee engagement suggest that

understanding of these concepts can benefit organizations

and their relationship can be contributive for

organizations (Tariq, 2015). In this part, I aim to

examine the background of the relationship of these

concepts in accordance with their definitions.

According to Tariq (2015), engagement is strongly related

with how employees grade their organization’s CSR

28

actions. His research points out that employees, who are

not satisfied with organization’s commitment to CSR are

less engaged in their jobs compared to satisfied

employees. If employees realize organization’s devotion

to CSR, they become more inclined to perform positive

behavior, which results in higher work performance

(Tariq, 2015). Other benefits of CSR on employee

practices are reduction in turnover and attraction of

prospective employees (ibid).

From theoretical perspective, researches suggest that the

relation of employee engagement and CSR grounds from

social exchange theory (Slack et.al, 2014). In the

concept of employee engagement, OCB is the outcome of

social exchange since employees feel obliged to their

organization (ibid). Abdullah and Rashid (2012) support

this argument relating to CSR that CSR activities have

significant impact on the reciprocity norm of employees,

which enables employees to display more OCB-O. They

elaborate their research by examining influence of

internal and external dimensions of CSR. Abdullah and

Rashid (2012) found out that internal and external CSR

actions both enhance OCB-O among employees. Hadad and

Fallahi (2015) contributes this argument explain that the

components of OCB-0; civic virtue and conscientiousness

have powerful relationship with CSR implementations in

the organizations. Therefore, even if employees are not

expected to perform extracurricular activities such as

learning additional information about work and informing

29

others defined as a part of civic virtue, they have

desire to do voluntarily (Hadad and Fallahi, 2015).

However, not every employee responds to CSR in a same

manner since the level of engagement with CSR differs

among employees (Slack et.al, 2014). Rodrigo and Arenas

(2007) defines different types of classifications based

on social exchange theory, which explain the distinctive

employee values towards CSR (ibid).

Rodrigo and Arenas (2007) classify employees as

Committed, Indifferent and Dissident. Committed employees

are sensitive about social justice and engaged with

organizational CSR (Rodrigo and Arenas, 2007).

Indifferent employees are pragmatic and work-oriented

(ibid). They understand the meaning and importance of CSR

but they do not involve personally (ibid). Dissident

employees think that they have only financial relation

with organization without any wider social role (ibid).

Social exchange theory is one of the explanations for

different levels of engagement among employees since it

is based on reciprocity that explains how employees

perceive value gained from organization (Slack et.al,

2014).

In this part, I examined the influence of CSR on

engagement on the basis of social exchange theory. I

focused on OCB and the relation with social exchange

theory. Moreover, I discussed the different levels of

engagement among employees due to the differences in

perceptions of employees. In the following chapter, I

30

will explain the research methodology I used for

analyzing the CSR and employee engagement relation and

other research questions. Moreover, I will also discuss

the data used during the research and give critical

evaluation of using a particular type of data.

3. Methodology

In this chapter, research design, data used during the

analysis and discussion of adopted research process will

be presented. There will be discussion about possible

research approaches for this study and justification of

research process will be explained. This chapter will

also present data collection process and critical

discussion on the data used.

3.1 Research Questions

The purpose of this research paper is to examine

relationship between CSR and employee engagement as a

descriptive study. The need for the study is based on

detailed view of literature review, which points out that

CSR is an important driver of employee engagement.

Although employee engagement has been a recent concept in

practice, its benefits in terms of customer satisfaction,

high level of performance, innovation and cost efficiency

has started to be realized by organizations (Slack,

Corlett and Morris, 2014). CSR is also significant

concept, which has become mainstream discussion topic for

both literature and practitioners as discussed in the

31

literature review chapter. Organizations seize

opportunity of CSR for both having an engaged workforce

and contributing to society at same time. My literature

review points out that there are only few studies about

relationship between CSR and employee engagement since

many researches mainly focus on employee commitment, job

satisfaction and work engagement concepts solely or they

only analyze influence of CSR on business outcomes. This

paper aims to contribute this research area by answering

following research questions:

How does CSR affect the employee engagement?

How does CSR contribute organizational citizenship behavior (OCB) of

employees?

How should organizations engage less engaged employees through

CSR?

3.2 Research Design

3.2.1 Research Philosophy:

Understanding research philosophy is crucial to determine

correct research design and affect research process

(Saunders et.al, 2012). There are two main research

philosophies as ontology and epistemology (ibid).

Ontology is based on nature of reality that questions the

assumptions and particular views of researches (ibid).

Ontology comprises two approaches, which are objectivism

and subjectivism (ibid).

32

Objectivism mainly presents the existence of social

entities in reality disregarding external social actors

and assumes that all social constructs exist as function

of different objectives (ibid). On the other hand,

subjectivism states that social structures are originated

from actions of social actors, in other words, the

different interpretations shape interactions and

perceptions (ibid).

Epistemology questions the components of acceptable

knowledge in a study and searches for if reality can be

studied with same basis as natural sciences (ibid). It

has three subtitles as positivism, realism and

interpretivism (ibid). Positivist research approach

adopts philosophical view of natural scientist and has

structured methodology (ibid). Positivist researcher

mainly gives importance to quantifiable observations and

statistical outcomes (ibid). Positivist researches are

conducted in value-free environment and researcher is

neutral to data collected; therefore, outcome of research

is objective (ibid).

The second type of philosophical view of epistemology is

realism, which is based upon idea of “objects have an

existence independent of human mind” (ibid). Realism is

opposite of idealism, which argues for only mind and its

components have existence (ibid). Realism follows similar

path with positivism that questions the development of

knowledge scientifically (ibid).

33

Lastly, interpretivism puts emphasis on “social actors”

that we construe our social roles depending on meanings

that we assigned to these roles (ibid). Also we

understand others’ roles with regards to our own set of

meanings (ibid). Interpretivism differentiates human and

natural sciences from each other and states that

researcher should examine research subjects by following

social constructs and understanding their effects on

subjects (ibid).

3.2.2 Research Approach:

The theory of research underlies the design of research

project and it is mainly represented by two approaches as

deductive or inductive (ibid). Deductive approach is used

when research starts with theory acquired from literature

review and you conduct the research in order to test the

theory (ibid). In deductive research, researcher explains

causal links between concepts and establishes reasons

(ibid). Another characteristic of deductive research is

that facts are measured quantitatively in an

operationalized way (ibid). Lastly, deductive research is

based on generalization as well (ibid). Sample data needs

to be carefully chosen and in sufficient size in order to

generalize the findings (ibid).

On the other hand, inductive approach is followed when

researcher starts with collecting data to establish a

theory or framework (Bryman and Bell, 2011). Researcher

tries to identify new patterns, relations or alter the

existing theory (ibid). Inductive researchers criticize

34

the deductive approach due to its stiff methodology,

which does not allow alternative views and explanations

(ibid). Inductive approach mainly discusses context of

events; thus, narrow-scoped subjects are more appropriate

compared to broader scope as with the deductive approach

(ibid). Researches using inductive approach work with

qualitative data and follow different practices to

collect these data to cover different point of views

about the subject (ibid).

3.2.3 Research Method:

The research philosophy and approach are instructive for

establishing a correct research methodology (Saunders,

Lewis and Thornhill, 2012). This research paper follows

deductive approach, which explains arguments depending on

an established theory and qualitative method, which is

based on more words than numbers. As Saunders et.al

(2012) discuss, qualitative method follows interpretive

research philosophy and this research paper is based on

interpretivism. The data is analyzed in order to describe

relationship with CSR and employee engagement with the

theoretical support of Social Exchange Theory. There are

few studies about this relationship and few explanations

about how they interact each other and also how CSR

contributes less engaged employees. Therefore,

interpretive research philosophy provides basis to use

social constructs to define the social position of each

concept in the research. I will have to take interpretive

approach since although there are particular researches

35

about the relationship of engagement and CSR, there is no

specific explanation how they interact each other and how

employees experience through OCB concept. Therefore,

interpretive perspective will be suitable for my

research. By using particular research philosophy and

approach, data and relevant materials are evaluated and

interpreted in order to draw conclusions.

The secondary data is used for this research paper based

upon two main reasons: time and access. There are several

advantages using secondary data (Bryman and Bell, 2011).

It requires few resources that help researcher save money

and time (ibid). Due to the time constraint in this

research, secondary data is advantageous in order to come

to the conclusion quickly. The data used in current

resources are sufficient and appropriate to support and

answer the research questions. Secondary data provides

comparative and contextual data, which researcher can

assess the generalizability of representative data

(ibid). It presents wide range of data compare to primary

data, which enables researches to enlarge the discussions

and analysis (ibid). Another advantage of using secondary

data is that researches about CSR and employee engagement

up until now are easily accessible to conduct this

research and provide solid basis to fulfill the

discussion. Lastly, compare to primary data, secondary

data allows research to evaluate it prior to use;

however, it requires same sensitivity and caution as

primary data during the evaluation (ibid).

36

The primary data like surveys and interviews with

employees in international organizations would have

provided valuable information about the research.

However, due to the time constraints and lack of good

quality of network in companies, it is not possible to

collect reliable primary data. The objective of this

research is to understand and explain the relation of CSR

and employee engagement. Therefore, I would have needed

to contact with employees of companies that follow CSR

strategies actively; however I do not have that kind of

an access. Moreover, CSR and employee engagement have

become mainstream for organizations and there are

sufficient amount of surveys and questionnaires about

employees’ response to CSR activities as well as

theoretical background. Therefore, I can reach to

information about how and why CSR is needed for

engagement and why there are variety of engagement levels

with CSR.

3.3 Data Evaluation

3.3.1 Data Used

The secondary data used in this study have descriptive

and explanatory purposes. Since CSR and employee

engagement includes variety of discussion points, I

searched through many sources to have a general view and

narrow down the scope of the research. The sources were

collected from Royal Holloway Library search page by

using keywords and frameworks such as CSR, employee

37

engagement, social exchange theory and drivers of

employee engagement. The same keywords were used for

google scholar search as well to reach different kinds of

resources like government resources, national statistics

office of European Union, research and management

consulting companies’ website about employee engagement,

human resources magazines and journal articles. The data

gathered from these resources includes international

aspects that cover samples from different countries.

After going through relevant resources, I mainly narrowed

down my research from journal articles since the

magazines, statistics and relevant websites were mostly

supplementary resources for my research area. I started

to my research by searching general perspectives about

CSR and employee engagement relation. However, these

resources presented variety of perspectives that widened

my research scope. There are many theories and

discussions about their relationship; therefore, I needed

to choose one of the important discussion points and

narrow down my research scope. For instance, many journal

articles approach engagement and CSR relation from

financial perspectives or they focus on turnover, job

satisfaction, commitment and work engagement concepts.

However, my research aim is to examine the exact effect

of CSR on employees in terms of their behavioral

responses in a workday and try to understand how CSR is

influential for engagement that one can realize the

difference in workplace environment. OCB and social

38

exchange theory are one of the prevalent topics to

achieve my research goals since OCB is the direct outcome

of employees’ behavior that CSR impact can be

distinguishable more easily compared to the other

psychological effects. Therefore, I decided to focus

mainly on social exchange theory and OCB in my research.

Moreover, other resources such as consulting companies’

researches and business magazines give supportive facts

about CSR and discretionary behaviors of employees based

on reciprocity norm. Thus, I was able to put together my

research goals and secondary data by gathering different

kinds of relevant information from various resources.

Since the secondary data were used, some irrelevant and

incompetent parts of the data were excluded. Employee

engagement and CSR are the comprehensive topics that they

comprise variety of discussions, which are not exactly

related with my research aim. As Bryman and Bell (2011)

define, variables in data should fit with the research

focus and it is an important challenge for a researcher.

When I was searching through literature, some articles

gave insight about the direct relationship of CSR and

engagement through OCB and social exchange theory but

they also involved the effect on financial outcomes and

employee commitment, loyalty and satisfaction. Therefore,

I focused on OCB and social exchange theory findings of

journals and excluded other variables by ensuring that

relevant variables were not affected. I had opportunity

to revise and reanalyze the resources for several times

39

and make connections among different sources to support

my arguments by adding and removing information. By the

deductive approach, I was able to draw conclusions and

answer research questions from the data examined.

3.3.2 Evaluating Secondary Data and Criticism

The use of secondary data in this research makes it

easier to assess its reliability compared to primary data

since the collected data have already been publicized.

However, the downside of using secondary data is that it

may not be appropriate for particular research purposes

and may not be fulfill the research questions completely.

The precise evaluation of suitability of secondary data

depends on validity and reliability aspects (Saunders,

Lewis and Thornhill, 2012). With this disadvantage in

mind, I went through selective research and data

collection process in order to meet reliability and

validity aspects. I searched relevant articles through

google scholar and RHUL library mainly between the years

of 2011 and 2015 by focusing on well-cited ones, which

are mostly experts in related topic and have many

publications. I got the main findings mostly from journal

articles and supported them with institutional researches

of consulting companies and business magazine

publications. The business magazine publications give

significant examples from practical life; for instance,

Forbes magazine and HBR contributed my research by

examples of international organizations. The data

40

gathered in the research fulfill the reliability criteria

since they are published by research institutions or by

national organizations. Moreover, large amount of data

were obtained from journal articles, which represent an

authentic source of material that authors are well known

and are well cited for enlightening the many similar

research topics in their field.

The data also satisfy validity criteria, which assess the

appropriateness of data and research objective (Saunders

et.al, 2012). As discussed before, secondary data can

have incompetent parts that do not fit in research

objective. However, the research institutions’ and

national organizations’ resources are straightforward and

are not shaped for special purposes or hypotheses but

they are mostly for information purposes. For journal

articles, I went through relevant research selectively

and used the suitable data for research objectives.

Therefore, data used have little risk to lead research to

inaccurate conclusions.

4. Findings & Discussion

In this chapter, each research question will be discussed

depending on findings from data examined. The findings

for each question were mainly obtained from journal

articles, business magazines and statics provided by

private institutions. I analyzed and interpreted the

findings of these sources in the context of my research.

The resources are appropriate to construct my argument

41

since they provide the sufficient information about the

main cases of this IRP. In each research question,

firstly, I described the data I used and then I explained

the findings of each source. Thereafter, I discussed my

own findings that I concluded from the sources.

4.1 How does CSR affect the employee engagement?

The data examined for the relationship between CSR and

employee engagement are Sirota Survey (2007), journal

articles of Caligiuri et.al (2013), Vinerean et.al

(2013), Farooq et.al (2013), Gross and Holland (2011),

Esmaeelinezhad et.al (2015), Gond et.al (2010), Saul

(2012) and Forbes (2012).

According to the research of Forbes (2012), when

companies pursue more environment friendly strategies and

put social efforts for their community, employee

engagement grows substantially. Employees’ morale

increase, business processes become more efficient and

employee loyalty increases.

Saul (2012)’s research with PwC explains that employee

turnover costs 40 billion pound in a year for companies

and employee engagement is an important concept to

minimize it through CSR. They suggest that CSR is

influential for both inside and outside stakeholders and

creates win-win situation by providing decent corporate

image for customers and by ensuring that employees are

proud of their organization. Thus, they become more loyal

to their organizations and decrease the turnover rates.

42

Sirota Survey data (2007) shows that 71% of employees in

the organizations think that CSR should be top priority

among other business strategies. However, 47% of

employees believe that their organization do not use

realize the potential of CSR programs (ibid). It also

points out why CSR can be effective on engagement.

According to the survey, 85% of employees feel pride and

identify themselves with their organizations, which

result in higher employee engagement.

Farooq et.al (2014)’s research on impact of CSR points

out how CSR is influential on employee engagement through

organizational identification and trust. They conducted

their research in large firms employing more than 500

individuals and their data are based on three types of

CSR as CSR to consumers, CSR to employees and CSR to

social and non-social stakeholders (Farooq et.al, 2014).

The data show that different CSR types are effective for

enhancing organizational identification and trust, which

results in higher level of engagement (ibid). The

responses of employees about internal CSR actions of

organizations show that employees perceive their

organization as a benevolent and fair institution (ibid).

Therefore, it improves organizational trust and triggers

the feeling of paying back to organization (ibid). The

employees’ responses to external CSR programs point out

that employees feel pride and prestigious in their

community since their organization is well known and

respected by its socially responsible actions (ibid).

43

Most of the employees answer the research questions as

“our success”, “we are socially responsible” that they adopt the

organization’s success as theirs (ibid).

Gond et.al’s (2010) research data bring forward similar

results. According to their research, CSR has mediated

effect on organizational identification and trust.

Identification mainly originates from external image of

organization and trust develops when employees realize

that their organization is socially responsible for its

internal and external environment (Gond et.al, 2010).

Both perception of organizational trust and

identification imply the social exchange theory in the

research since employees’ responses are mainly based on

exchanges (ibid). For instance, they respond as “we like to

work for our organization and contribute its CSR programs since we have a

fair workplace environment and we have decent image in our community”

(ibid). If the organizations fulfill its commitment to

internal and external CSR actions, employees value their

organization and become more engaged with their

organization (ibid).

Esmaeelinezhad et.al (2015)’s findings about engagement

and CSR relation point out that ethical and

philanthropical actions enhance the employee engagement.

The findings suggest that employees perceive that their

organization is fair and trustworthy due to their

involvement in the socially responsible actions

(Esmaeelinezhad et.al, 2015). As identified from

employees’ responses, they adopt themselves with the

44

organization and they become proud of their

organization’s commitment to CSR (ibid).

Saul (2012), Sirota Survey (2007) and Forbes (2012)

provide more general perspective about engagement and CSR

relation whereas the others give more insight about the

relationship by putting forward the particular concepts.

As examined, the identified influence of CSR on

engagement is the organizational identification and

trust, which CSR uses as mediatory elements to increase

employee engagement. Trust and organizational

identification are the direct outcomes of CSR and explain

why CSR is effective on employee engagement. The

supportive evidence is that when employees perceive that

the organization is sensitive about welfare of people in

general, they feel proud of their organization and

express as a part of their identity. As mentioned in

research outputs, expressions of employees about the

organization as “we”,”our” give clear evidence about how

employees consider their identity as a part of their

organization. On the side of organizational trust

perspective, internal CSR gives an indication that

organization cares, respects and values their employees.

Therefore, it increases the level of trust since

employees perceive that organization is fair and

benevolent. On the other hand, external CSR such as CSR

to consumers and to society have powerful impact on

corporate reputation, which makes employees think that

their organization is benevolent to its community as

45

well. They feel to reciprocate in order to contribute the

social solidarity. This also supports social exchange

theory that when strong organizational identification and

trust is built, employees feel to reciprocate, which

leads to high level of engagement.

As examined, there are particular evidence that CSR

investments have an impact through corporate reputation,

organizational trust and identification. Corporate

reputation forms the important part of CSR influence on

organizational trust and identification. Since CSR

enhances the corporate reputation, employees perceive

that organization is well known for its inside and

outside ethical actions; therefore, they involve in

higher level of engagement. Engaged employees feel

satisfied for working for a socially responsible company.

They pride on their organizations, which make them work

with willingness and satisfaction and also decrease their

intention to quit their job.

The research findings suggest the indirect effect of CSR to

employee engagement. Reputation is the triggering factor

that enhances trust and organizational identification.

Employees feel proud of working socially responsible

company, which leads to higher engagement with the

organization.

4.2 How CSR contributes organizational citizenship

behavior (OCB) of employees in the organizations?

The data analyzed for OCB and social exchange theory are

from journal articles of Gond et.al’s (2010), Zhang et.al

46

(2013), Jones (2010), Islam et.al (2015), Shen et.al

(2014), Glavas et.al (2014) and Simona et.al (2013).

Gond et.al (2010)’s research points out that employees

involve in OCB due to the feeling of repaying the favor

through high levels of satisfaction (Gond et.al, 2010).

Zhang et.al (2013) expand their research on underlying

reasons of the CSR and OCB relationship. The research has

700 respondents with different age, gender and job titles

in a multinational Chinese company (Zhang et.al, 2013).

Employees express their involvement in OCB as “ I collaborate

with my colleagues in case of any difficulty and try to solve the problems” or “

I suggest innovative solutions beyond my assignments” (ibid).

Employees’ responses indicate that they become more

satisfied with their work and have positive attitude

towards their environment when they perceive the

organization’s commitment to CSR (ibid). Thus, they are

eager to display high performance and involve in extra-

role behaviors in order to return the favor of the

organization (ibid).

Jones (2010)’s research participants from publicly traded

company, Green Mountain Coffee Roasters, which requires

its employees to spend their 2,5 of their yearly hours in

volunteerism programs like in Fortune 500 and other

companies. The research also provides an insight for

having different levels of engagement based on social

exchange ideology since the data compares the employees’

perception of CSR programs (Jones, 2010). The research

findings show that employees, who value the volunteerism

47

programs, have tendency to display OCB towards their

colleagues, organization and in-role performance due to

the satisfaction they gained during the program (ibid).

However, employees who undervalue these social programs

do not display the same level of OCB (ibid).

Islam et.al (2015)’ research findings explain the CSR

influence on perception of employees, which results in

job satisfaction and ultimately boosts engagement. The

research includes 22 commercial banks in Pakistan with

different age, gender. The research outputs demonstrate

two variables that affect engagement, which are job

satisfaction and perceived organizational support. When

employees realize that their organization values CSR

activities, they feel more satisfied with their work;

therefore, they reciprocate by displaying OCB towards

their organization and co-workers as they state in their

responses (Islam et.al, 2015).

Shen et.al (2014) conduct the similar research about CSR

and OCB in 35 manufacturing companies in China with

different education background, age, gender and

positions. Perceived organizational support and job

satisfaction are the main outcomes of the research (Shen

et.al, 2014). The perceptions of employees are acquired

from their responses as “ My organization involves in CSR”,” My

organization values the well-being of employees” (ibid). The findings

suggest that perceived organizational support has

significant impact on job satisfaction since the feeling

of working for a socially responsible company creates

48

extra motivation for employees (ibid). Therefore, it

results in high-level performance and extra-role

behaviors (ibid).

Glavas et.al (2014) also search for underlying reasons of

OCB and CSR relationship with 827 employees in North

America and their research points out the similar

concepts. The findings show that CSR is influential on

job satisfaction through perceived organizational support

(Glavas et.al, 2014). When employees realize that

organization values CSR activities, they perceive their

organization is benevolent and they try to retaliate

positively through increased job satisfaction (ibid).

Therefore, the perceived support and job satisfaction

trigger employees to involve in OCB in order to take part

in their organization’s commitment towards social

solidarity (ibid).

Simona et.al (2013) ‘s research covers in top ten

companies in Linkedin. The relation between CSR and OCB

is mediated by job satisfaction (Simona et.al, 2013). The

findings exhibit the significant effect of CSR on job

satisfaction that employees display OCB in their day-to-

day activities (ibid). Employees’ responses show that

satisfaction creates motivation for employees to involve

in extra-role behaviors and innovative solutions for the

company (ibid).

As examined from sources, there are evidence support that

CSR has indirect effect on OCB through job satisfaction and

49

SocialExchange

perceived organizational support. When employees realize the

organization’s involvement in CSR, they become fulfilled

with their job due to the organization’s contribution to

its stakeholders and become ready to perform extra

behaviors. They involve in an exchange relationship that

they choose to go out of way only if they perceive that

the organization treats them in a same manner. The

findings suggest that CSR has a positive relationship

with perceived organizational support and job

satisfaction, which is positively related with work

performance and extra-role behavior. Therefore,

interaction between the concepts starts with the

perceived organizational support that leads to job

satisfaction and results in OCB-O.

Figure 4.2.1

CSR

Perceived Organizationa

l Support

Job Satisfaction

High Performance

Extra-Role Behavior

OCB

50

4.3 How can organizations engage “less engaged employees”through CSR?

The data analyzed for this research question are Du,

et.al (2010), Traiq (2015), Gond et.al (2010), Farooq

et.al (2013), Slack et.al (2014), Rodrigo et.al (2007),

Mirvis (2012), Ferreira et.al (2012) and Forbes (2012).

As mentioned in previous research question, there can be

different engagement levels among employees due to the

exchange ideology. However the resources point out that

employee engagement can be improved by particular courses

of action through CSR. Du, et.al (2010), Traiq (2015),

Gond et.al (2010) find out the importance of CSR

awareness by being in communication and interaction with

employees through blogs, company sources or outdoor

facilities. According to their research, when employees

are informed and shared about how their organization is

committed to CSR, employees acquire information about the

organization’s actions. Therefore, they are able to

understand why and how their organization involve in CSR

strategies, which make them forge closer ties with the

organization.

Farooq et.al (2013), Slack et.al (2014), Rodrigo et.al

(2007) and Mirvis (2012) point out that CSR should be

placed in organizational culture rather than as an add-

on. Their research findings suggest the increased level

of engagement can be generated when employees experience

CSR actions in their day-to-day activities and the CSR

51

notion is implemented into every hierarchical level and

process.

Rodrigo et.al (2007), Mirvis (2012), Ferreira et.al

(2012) and Forbes (2012) suggest another important course

of action from their research. When employees are

involved in CSR programs rather than following tasks that

their manager assign, they can gain insight and

understanding of the task they have and be more willing

and innovative for CSR programs in the organization.

Their findings demonstrate that as employees participate

in the CSR programs, they feel pride and enjoy the

feeling of building or helping something beneficial.

Therefore, it enhances the engagement levels of

employees.

I will discuss the identified ways of engaging employees

respectively by depending on my research findings.

Lack of Awareness about CSR

One of the identified significant courses of action for

engaging employees is that organizations need to increase

employees’ proximity to CSR. Communication is the

important mediator for organizations and their employees.

Lack of communication about CSR strategies and shared

organizational values towards CSR cannot contribute the

employee engagement. As the researches suggest,

52

organizations need to establish clear, straightforward

and coherent communication platforms for employees to

follow the organization’s position to CSR. These

platforms should explain explicitly the rationale behind

the CSR activities, resources allocated to these sources

and their successes. Therefore, employees can gain

understanding about CSR goals and feel like they are part

of it. Many organizations are good at sharing their CSR

actions to public and attract many consumers so that same

strategy can be applied for internal audience. The online

platforms in organizations such as blogs, online company

communities can increase the communication and awareness

of employees about CSR.

Lack of Involvement

The decent communication solely is not sufficient to

engage employees through CSR since employees need to

participate CSR activities and organizations should

present real opportunities for their involvement.

Participation to CSR activities can be added as an

integral part of professional responsibilities and

employee performance on these activities can be measured.

Managers can give constructive feedbacks about their

performance in CSR activities in a way that encourage

employees to contribute continuously. The involvement in

CSR programs increases job satisfaction, productivity

since employees feel pride and have strong morale due to

the organization’s attitude to CSR.

53

Employees need to involve in creation, development and

implementation process of CSR programs rather than

applying the decisions of managers or shareholders.

Employees should be active participants and co-produce

CSR programs, which enables close connection with

organizations and employers. Therefore, organizations

need to implement CSR activities as an internal marketing

strategy for their employees and be open to two-way

communication by interchanging ideas. By doing so,

organizations can enhance the organizational

identification of employees and engagement level in their

workforce.

Organizational Culture

In order to engage employees through CSR, organizational

values and personal values about CSR should be able to

meet in common platform. CSR practices should be embedded

in hearts and minds of employees during the day-to-day

activities rather than seen as an add-on or obligation.

The share of knowledge, personal values and

organizational values are significant to spread the CSR

message throughout the organization. Organizations need

to express clearly the importance and benefit of CSR to

organization and make CSR programs official through some

policies. Effective communication, awareness and

involvement of employees into CSR activities help to root

CSR into organizational culture. It is important for

organizations to alter the perceptions of employees from

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“ simply place to work” to “place to exchange social

views”; therefore they can be able to identify themselves

more strongly with the organization.

5. Conclusion

This paper aims to contribute the research area of

employee engagement and CSR relationship. Unlike previous

researches, in this paper, I investigated social exchange

theory in order to clarify the engagement through CSR. I

examined CSR influence on OCB and its outcomes as a part

of engagement. In addition to this, I searched the

reasons of different engagement levels among employees

and possible courses of action through CSR to attract the

less engaged employees.

The research findings demonstrate that CSR has influence

on employee engagement by organizational identification

and trust. It can be inferred that CSR has indirect

effect on engagement since it triggers the mediatory

concepts, which build a bridge between CSR and employee

engagement. On the other hand, the concepts that enhance

OCB through CSR are the perceived organizational support,

reputation and job satisfaction. As a theoretical ground,

social exchange theory constitutes the OCB of employees

depending on reciprocity norm. Employees involve in OCB

with the feeling of paying back their organization and

CSR is one of the drivers for employers to feel obliged

towards their organizations.

55

However, not every employee responds CSR programs in a

same manner due to the lack of awareness, lack of

involvement into CSR activities and having CSR as an add-

on activity rather than as a culture. It is significant

for organizations to communicate with their employees in

a clear and precise way. Organizations need to involve

employees into CSR programs and make them participate

besides their professional responsibilities since

employees need to experience in order to realize their

organization’s commitment to CSR. Organizational culture

also plays an important role for effectiveness of CSR.

When CSR is embedded into organizational culture,

employees realize that organization’s commitment to CSR

is beyond the official requirements and organization is

more than just a place to work but share values.

One can draw a conclusion that CSR contributes the

employee engagement, which leads to achieve business

outcomes through a willing workforce. Therefore, the

relationship between CSR and employee engagement needs to

be valued by all levels of organizations.

6. Limitations & Further Research Areas

The scope of this research paper does not cover all areas

of employee engagement and CSR relationship, for this

reason the research is subject to particular limitations.

Firstly, the research approaches from general perspective

to CSR and employee engagement relationship; however, the

relationship can be affected by culture, organization’s

56

sector, size and demographic differences of employees.

Secondly, I have chosen to focus on solely the benefits

of CSR on employee engagement but there can be cases,

which CSR may be costly, inefficient and may not be

needed as a tool for engagement. This does not mean that

CSR is the best remedy or solution for engagement but

contribution of CSR to engagement has been most relevant

for this research. For further research purposes, it can

be useful to consider different variables to gauge their

effect on CSR – employee engagement relationship such as

demographic differences of employees, hierarchical levels

and line of business such as service or production based

organizations.

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