The Effects of Perceived Substantive and Symbolic CSR on Employees’ Outcomes: A Behavioral Approach

Recently, the interest in the field of corporate social responsibility (CSR) has expanded beyond traditional laws, institutional pressures, and macro-level perspectives, to also encompass its micro-level, incorporating employees’ positive and negative work-related attitudinal and behavioral outcomes within organizations.
By differentiating between substantive and symbolic CSR practices, the present study examines the effect of employees’ substantive CSR perceptions, versus symbolic CSR, on their extra-role behaviors both directly and indirectly, through organizational embeddedness serving as the underlying mechanism.
Employing a convenient sample of 445 employees from a wide range of governmental and private organizations, and utilizing the Structural Equation Modelling Technique; the findings have significantly highlighted the positive indirect effect of employees’ substantive CSR perceptions on their organizational citizenship behaviors, via the organizational embeddedness full mediating role. In contrast, non-significant direct and indirect influences of employees’ symbolic CSR perceptions on their OCB have been recorded.
Overall, the study findings underscore that employees’ awareness of CSR activities as substantive fosters their positive outcomes (such as organizational embeddedness, and extra-role behaviors); whereas employees’ perceptions of them as merely symbolic are not sufficient to promote these positive outcomes.