When employees perceive that company pays attention to community or employees’ families, they may think that they should try the best to contribute to
company’s images. It is clearly that there is a positive relationship between an organization’s social responsibility and employees’ commitment. Employees may believe that the organization would be highly commitment to them, therefore, they also commit with organizations. Employees’ commitment could not be so high if they do not see the organization’s responsibility. Corporate Social Responsibility relates to employee’s job satisfaction. When employees satisfy with jobs, they tend to work for company for long time and try to provide best ability to serve customers.
One of the most widely adopted definitions of CSR, which reflects the wider scope of CSR going beyond philanthropy alone, was proposed by the World Business Council for Sustainable Development (WBCSD). It states that “CSR is the continuing commitment by business to behave ethically and contribute to economic development while improving the quality of life of the workforce and their families as well as the local community and society at large” (WBCSD, 1999). The WBCSD further stated that CSR was an integral part of sustainable development and divided CSR into the same three categories accepted as the main dimensions of sustainable development: environment, economy, and society.
Employees tend to assume that their organization is trustworthy if they identify with social responsible corporation. As organizational identification refers to the perception of oneness or belongingness to the organization as well to the emotional investment attached to organizational membership, it might also enhance individuals’ propensity to trust the organization and its members. Engaging in acts of trust provides organizational members with an opportunity to communicate to others the symbolic value they attach to their organizational identity (Kramer, 2001).
One underutilized approach to understanding some of the potential costs and benefits of CSR to firms is to investigate the impact of CSR on employees. Research often addresses how CSR affects important stakeholder groups, especially investors and consumers, but it has tended to neglect employees (Aguilera et al., 2007; Aguinis and Glavas, 2012). This gap in knowledge is surprising given how well established it is that employee attitudes and behavior have far reaching consequences for the overall success of organizations. If CSR can, for example, attract talent, increase commitment, encourage organization citizenship behavior, or decrease turnover, then firms that engage in CSR should perform better than those that do not. Moreover, a micro-level analysis of how employees form impressions and conceptualize their relationships with firms should complement and extend existing macro-level theories, help identify missing process variables and contingencies, and account for additional variance in how individuals respond to specific policies and actions (e.g., Foss, 2011;
Powell and Colyvas, 2008; Staw, 1991). The micro level processes that are responsible for a relation between CSR and employee attitudes and behavior may also generalize and provide additional insight into the effects of CSR on other stakeholders.
Aspects of CSR may differ in terms of the amount and type of impact they have on judgments of corporate morality. People generally pay more attention and react more strongly to negative than positive events (Baumeister, Bratslavsky, Finkenauer, and Vohs, 2001; Fiske, 1980; Kanouse and Hanson, 1972). In the context of CSR, a firm’s failure to comply with the law or adhere to widely-accepted ethical standards for conduct, such as a serious scandal, will usually draw more attention and have a stronger influence on people’s perceptions than positive
discretionary activities, such as philanthropy and community outreach efforts (Lange and Washburn, 2012). That said, positive discretionary activities may still serve a special function because corporate goodness entails more than merely the absence of bad. Companies that refrain from doing wrong are “decent” at best, but to be a
“good” company also requires an active commitment—in both intent and action—to promote virtuous ends (Bradley et al., 2008; Paine, 2003). Discretionary CSR activities (i.e., those advocated by proponents of the expansive but not the narrow view on CSR) represent one-way companies can attempt to move beyond decency and approach corporate morality in the eyes of their employees and other stakeholders.
Graafland and Smid (2004) analyze the role of government and self-regulatory reputation mechanisms in socially responsible behavior. They find that CSR policies aim to build reputation and that this effect is more important for large companies than for smaller ones. Hence, from this point of view, CSR does not involve a real managerial commitment but a marketing strategy by offering an artificial positive image of the firm. The many literatures highlight different managerial attitudes towards CSR, which depend on managerial strategies. Freeman (1984) posits that to establish the foundation of enterprise-level strategy, different factors such as stakeholders, values and societal issues have to be analyzed. He indicates that the distinguishing feature of CSR is that it applies “the stakeholder concept to nontraditional stakeholder groups usually thought as having an adversarial relationship with the firm,” and that “less emphasis is put on satisfying owners and comparatively more emphasis is put on the public or the community or the employees”.
Organizational identification is an important predictor of commitment (Pratt, 1998; Meyer and Herscovitch, 2001) and relates positively to job satisfaction (Riketta, 2005). The extent to which employees 27 identify with, and develop a sense of belonging to, an organization determines the strength and length of their membership (Dutton, Dukerich, and Harquail, 1994). We argue that feeling obliged to reciprocate as a result of social exchange relationships might strengthen commitment and satisfaction. Molm et al. (1999) have shown that strong and close relations tend to evolve when exchanges are reciprocal, rather than negotiated. In reciprocal exchanges, actors benefit others by anonymous unilateral acts of giving where the rate of exchange is established only over time (Molm et al., 2007). Thus, organizational commitment is associated with reciprocal rather than negotiated exchange relationships (Molm et al., 1999). Lawler (2001) suggested that social exchanges produce emotions which are internally rewarding or punishing, and generate stronger affective ties to individuals rather than organizations. Because emotional expressions are stronger for reciprocal than negotiated exchanges (Molm et al., 1999; Molm and Cook, 1995), organizational commitment and job satisfaction should also be stronger in reciprocal exchanges, even for low identifiers. Generalized exchanges are indirect, so that actors who give benefits do not necessarily receive benefits from those same actors. Uncertainty is hence higher than in reciprocal and negotiated exchanges. Research has shown that commitment is stronger when uncertainty is high (Molm and Cook, 1995). Frequent generalized exchanges reinforce positive effects that was partially attributed to an organization which represents a context for exchange.