How and when do employees identify with their organization? Perceived CSR, first-party (in)justice, and organizational (mis)trust at workplace

The purpose of this paper is to inquire how and when the CSR efforts of an organization can generate positive organizational outcomes by influencing individual employees at the workplace. Theorizing perceived first-party justice as psycho-cognitive and affect-based organizational trust as psycho-affective processes, respectively, in interpreting employees’ perception of organizational CSR initiatives provided a valid rationale behind this research.

Following a two-phase longitudinal research design, sample was drawn from six subsidiary organizations of a multinational conglomerate.

The findings indicated that the perceived internal image of CSR predicts employees’ deep organizational identification through the mediation of affect-based organizational trust, conditional on perceived first-party justice as a moderator.

This study contributed to extant research by investigating the hitherto unexplored question of how and when employees’ perceived image of CSR delineates to their deep identification with the organization supported by affect-based organizational trust and self-experienced first-party justice. The collection of survey responses within six group organizations could limit the generalization of the findings from this study in other contexts.

This study offers significant implications in terms of the managers’ role in involving employees in the organization’s CSR activities, using CSR as a platform for corporate branding to internal stakeholders, and attracting talent in knowledge intensive competition.

The study advances the emerging micro-level approach of CSR by exploring an employee centric, personalized view of organizational CSR and estimating its effect at the level of individual employees.