Do employees value strategic CSR? A tale of affective organizational commitment and its underlying mechanisms

Virtually all studies that focus on the relationship between CSR perceptions and employees’ organizational commitment have not taken into consideration the fit between social and environmental activities and a firm’s business-unit strategy. This is essential to inquire because scholars have argued that when companies ingrain CSR activities into their strategy-making process (i.e., in their vision, mission, and overall business model), this might send a more compelling message that resonates closer to workers’ personal standards, and actually enhance employee-level outcomes. Nevertheless, there is no certainty “if” and “how” these evaluations could affect employees’ organizational commitment. To address this issue, we use cue consistency theory and social identity theory as overarching frameworks to develop a model where we conceptually link perceptions of strategy-CSR fit with a particular type of organizational commitment: affective. In addition, we posit and test three mediators to understand the underlying psychological mechanisms of this relationship: perceived external prestige, organizational identification, and work meaningfulness. Through structural equation modeling, and using a heterogeneous final sample of 579 employees, we find compelling evidence to support the fact that strategy-CSR fit enhances employees’ affective organizational commitment through the proposed mediators. Academic contributions and practical implications are then discussed.