Perception-Induced Effects of Corporate Social Irresponsibility (CSiR) for Stereotypical and Admired Firms

Sustainability in Organizations: Perceptions of Corporate Social Responsibility and Spanish Employees’ Attitudes and Behaviors

The fields of psychology of sustainability and sustainable development have been recently highlighted by their contributions to employee’s wellbeing in organizations. The present study is aimed to empirically explore the relationship between perceptions of Corporate Social Responsibility of IBEX 35 (Spanish Exchange Index) companies’ employees, and their attitudes and behaviors. The relationship between the employees’ perception of Corporate Social Responsibility of the IBEX 35 companies with their job satisfaction and Organizational citizenships behaviors is empirically analyzed. The sample includes 600 employees of the IBEX 35 companies. The results supported that the three dimensions of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) perceived by the workers are different from each other, and that they are related positively, and significantly, with their job satisfaction, the Organizational Citizenships Behaviors oriented to the company and to other co-workers. We found that two dimensions of perceived CSR—sustainable economic development, and environmental protection—have a greater impact, whereas the CSR of social equity has an almost null explanatory power, compared to the other two dimensions. The study contributions will link the Firms’ CSR activities with the degree of wellbeing of employees: Relationships that become essential when designing companies’ products and/or services.

When Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) Meets Organizational Psychology: New Frontiers in Micro-CSR Research, and Fulfilling a Quid Pro Quo through Multilevel Insights

Researchers, corporate leaders, and other stakeholders have shown increasing interest in Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR)—a company’s discretionary actions and policies that appear to advance societal well-being beyond its immediate financial interests and legal requirements. Spanning decades of research activity, the scholarly literature on CSR has been dominated by meso- and macro-level perspectives, such as studies within corporate strategy that examine relationships between firm-level indicators of social/environmental performance and corporate financial performance. In recent years, however, there has been an explosion of micro-oriented CSR research conducted at the individual level of analysis, especially with respect to studies on how and why job seekers and employees perceive and react to CSR practices. This micro-level focus is reflected in 12 articles published as a Research Topic collection in Frontiers in Psychology (Organizational Psychology Specialty Section) titled “CSR and organizational psychology: Quid pro quo.” In the present article, the authors summarize and integrate findings from these Research Topic articles. After describing some of the “new frontiers” these articles explore and create, the authors strive to fulfill a “quid pro quo” with some of the meso- and macro-oriented CSR literatures that paved the way for micro-CSR research. Specifically, the authors draw on insights from the Research Topic articles to inform a multilevel model that offers multiple illustrations of how micro-level processes among individual stakeholders can explain variability in meso (firm)-level relationships between CSR practices and corporate performance. The authors also explore an important implication of these multilevel processes for macro-level societal impact.