Proactive and reactive corporate social responsibility: antecedent and consequence

Abstract

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to develop an original framework to explore corporate social responsibility (CSR) plays a mediation role between green organizational culture and green product innovation performance. Design/methodology/approach – This study divides CSR into proactive CSR and reactive CSR. This research employs an empirical study by means of the questionnaire survey method to verify the hypotheses and to explore its managerial implications in Taiwanese manufacturing companies. Structural equation modeling is applied to verify the research framework. Findings – The empirical results verify that green organizational culture positively affects proactive CSR and green product innovation performance. This study shows that proactive CSR mediates the positive relationship between green organizational culture and green product innovation performance, but reactive CSR does not. Green organizational culture is a driving force for proactive CSR and green product innovation performance. Organizational members in Taiwanese companies are exposed to green organizational culture which influences CSR activities. Moreover, this study verifies that proactive CSR of large companies are significantly higher than those of small and medium enterprises (SMEs). Research limitations/implications – There are three limitations of this study. First, this study verifies the hypotheses by means of questionnaire survey which only includes cross-sectional data. Second, this study utilize self-reported data may suffer the problems of common method variance. Third, this study applies a “five-point Likert scale” ranging from 1 to 5 to measure the constructs. Future research can apply a “seven-point Likert scale” to measure the constructs and compare with this study to test the significance of the variability of the data. There are two implications emerging from the study. First, proactive CSR has a positive effect on green product innovation performance, but reactive CSR does not. Second, green organizational culture is a driving force for proactive CSR and green product innovation performance. Originality/value – This study summarizes the literature of CSR into a new managerial framework and highlights the importance of proactive CSR. Therefore, green organizational culture cannot only affect green product innovation performance directly, but also influence it indirectly via proactive CSR in the Taiwanese manufacturing industry. Taiwanese manufacturing companies can increase their green organizational culture and proactive CSR to enhance their green product innovation performance. This study also explores that proactive CSR of large companies are significantly higher than those of SME.