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This research investigates the impact of mixed profit motives in corporate social responsibility (CSR) on employee behavior, particularly opportunism.

June 3, 2026

Mixed Motives for Doing Good: The Effect of Profit Motives in CSR Initiatives on Employee Opportunism

Key Points

This research investigates the impact of mixed profit motives in corporate social responsibility (CSR) on employee behavior, particularly opportunism.
Online experiment with three employer initiatives: profit-motivated, purely charitable CSR, and mixed-motive CSR.
Workers were randomly assigned to one of the three initiatives and completed a real-effort task with opportunities to shirk.
Assessment of employees' moral perceptions based on the type of CSR initiative.
Employees demonstrated higher rates of shirking under mixed-motive CSR compared to purely charitable CSR and profit-motivated initiatives.
Moral perceptions were more favorable under purely charitable CSR, while mixed-motive perceptions aligned more closely with profit-motivated initiatives.
The results imply that mixed profit motives dilute the moral signaling of CSR and diminish its potential internal benefits.

Abstract

ABSTRACT This paper examines how mixing profit motives into corporate social responsibility (CSR) initiatives influences employee opportunism. In an online experiment, workers are randomly assigned to one of three employer initiatives: a profit-motivated business initiative with no CSR component, a purely charitable CSR initiative, or a mixed-motive CSR initiative. Workers then complete a real-effort task with the opportunity to shirk. We find that employees shirk more under mixed-motive CSR than under purely charitable CSR or a profit-motivated business initiative without CSR. This pattern is partly explained by differences in employees’ moral perceptions of the employer. Workers form more favorable moral perceptions under purely charitable CSR, whereas their moral perceptions under mixed-motive CSR are similar to those formed under the business initiative without CSR. These findings suggest that mixing profit motives in CSR weakens the moral signal of CSR and undermines its internal behavioral benefits. Data Availability: Data are available from the authors upon request. JEL Classifications: M140; D84; D91.

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Cite This Study

Arshad et al. (Fri,) studied this question.

synapsesocial.com/papers/6a1fc76ddee9eb8c0dce84f3 https://doi.org/https://doi.org/10.2308/bria-2023-041

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