The Common Good Balance Sheet and Employees’ Perceptions, Attitudes and Behaviors

Abstract

The Common Good Balance Sheet (CGB) is an instrument to measure a company’s contribution to the common good. In our study, we investigate whether employees from companies with higher CBG scores perceive more corporate social responsibility than employees from companies with lower CBG scores and whether relationships can be found between the achieved CGB scores and employees’ job-related attitudes and behaviors. We conducted an online survey of 332 employees from eight German companies with published CGBs. According to results from multiple linear regression analyses, employees from companies with higher CGB scores perceive more CSR and are more satisfied with their jobs and payments. In addition, they report less job demands, more organizational support, more work meaningfulness and more organizational citizenship behaviors towards their company. Employees identify more with their company if high transparency and co-determination is practiced. However, the value and social impact of the companies’ products is not related to employees’ organizational identification. Moreover, employees from companies with high CGB scores do not report more organizational citizenship behaviors towards their colleagues. Our results indicate that the CGB is a tool that measures aspects concerning job-related attitudes and behaviors and allows comparability between companies. However, aspects relevant to job satisfaction may still be missing in the CGB scoring.