Explicating micro foundations of corporate social responsibility: a moderated-mediation study of customer, investor and employee roles

Abstract

Purpose The purpose of this study is to provide an explication of micro foundations of Corporate Social responsibility (CSR). CSR, as a study domain, has been accommodating individual centric aspects. Extant literature delved into firm aspects like regulation, the role of individuals such as leaders and managers in shaping the agenda and practice on CSR. Design/methodology/approach Based upon the responses of 396 managers, the authors explored how young managers assessed firm CSR actions and develop their role as potential customers, investors and potential employees toward a firm. For this study, a mediated moderator analysis has been applied to test the model. Findings The authors found that between an individuals’ customer-centric role toward firm products, positively relate to being a potential employee. However, there was also the presence of the mediation role of the individuals’ inclination for becoming an investor in firm shares. Further, there was a moderation role of an individual’s firm CSR product assessment. The developed model had four factors, namely, customer CSR firm assessment (CCFA), customer CSR product assessment (CCPA), investor CSR evaluation (ICE) and employee CSR aspiration (ECA). Research limitations/implications In this research, based upon systems justification theory and expectancy theory an individual-centric micro foundation based theoretical model on CSR were developed consisting of CCFA as an antecedent variable, ICE as mediating variable, CCPA as moderating variable and ECA as the dependent variable. Originality/value This study was one of the contributions toward a micro foundations based CSR approach model with role-plays as a customer, investor and potential employee.