Motives Matter: The Development and Consequences of Corporate Social Responsibility Authenticity

When stakeholders perceive that an organization's corporate social responsibility efforts are a genuine representation of the organization's "true self," these beliefs are known as corporate social responsibility authenticity (CSRa) perceptions.CSRa perceptions are likely to have an impact on relationships between organizations and various stakeholders, including employees.This study integrates the use of attribution theory and social exchange theory to better understand how CSRa perceptions come to form in the minds of employees, as well as how those CSRa perceptions influence employee attitudes and behaviors towards the organization.Specifically, perceived strategic-driven motives and perceived values-driven motives are proposed to contribute to employees' CSRa perceptions.CSRa perceptions are predicted to induce feelings of organizational trust (OT), and employees are expected to exhibit reciprocal behaviors in the form of organizational citizenship behaviors (OCB).It is argued that both motive perceptions will positively influence employee OCBs through mediated paths via CSRa and OT.Utilizing a time-lagged survey design, hypotheses were tested and support was found for values-driven motives influencing OCBs via the predicted mediation path.The results imply that employees may have different "authenticity expectations" than that of other stakeholder groups, namely consumers.This study serves to enrich our understanding of how CSRa can be utilized to enhance employee-organization relationships. THEORETICAL BACKGROUND AND HYPOTHESIS DEVELOPMENT AuthenticityIn the age of information transparency and self-awareness, organizations and individuals alike have been in an increased pursuit of attaining authenticity in one form or another.A recent review by Lehman, O'Connor, Kovacs, and Newman (2019) revealed that while some consensus exists around the concept of authenticity, in that it is tied to the idea of being "real" or "genuine" or "true," there are multiple meanings and approaches that underlie those terms, thereby leading to much less consensus than initially assumed.Lehman et al. (2019) outlined three distinct perspectives of authenticity within existing literature: 1) consistency between an entity's internal values and its external expressions, 2) conformity of an entity to the norm of its social category, and 3) connection between an entity and a person, place, or time as asserted (p.2).The perspective being adopted within this study falls under the consistency category, in that this study explores whether employees perceive their organization is being consistent between its external CSR efforts and its internal priorities/organizational self, and how that perception affects employee relationships with the organization.Consistency between the "front stage" (what is presented to others) and "back stage" (an entity's 'true self') (Goffman, 2002) has proven to be significant in understanding employee reactions to CSR.De Roeck et al. ( 2014) set out to understand how and under what conditions employee perceptions of CSR affected employees' subsequent levels of organizational identification.The authors identified overall justice perceptions as an important boundary condition and moderator of CSR perceptions on organizational identification.Articles such as Ambrose and Schminke (2009) and Bobocel (2013) explained that employees are more likely to form overall justice perceptions regarding their organizations, as opposed to focusing on specific facets of justice.De Roeck et al. (2014) predicted that employees would react more positively to their organization's CSR efforts when they also held high overall justice perceptions of the organization.According to cue consistency theory (Anderson, 1981;Maheswaran & Chaiken, 1991;Miyazaki et al., 2005), when multiple sources of information about an entity (i.e., the organization) are consistent, those sources of information can be aggregated and averaged to predict attitudes and behaviors of individuals (i.e., employees).On the other hand, when information between sources is incongruent, typical averaging models can no longer predict individual behavior.In fact, when inconsistent information is presented, individuals tend to focus on the negative information, potentially hindering reactions and leading to the development of overall negative responses (Anderson, 1996;Miyazaki et al., 2005;Wagner, Lutz, & Weitz, 2009).De Roeck et al. ( 2014) tested and confirmed the importance of consistency (i.e., authenticity) in understanding and predicting employee reactions to CSR.Scheidler, Edinger-Schons, Spanjol, and Wieseke (2019) helped to shed additional light on the importance of authenticity in the form of consistency when it comes to employee reactions to CSR.The authors jointly investigated firms' investments and strategies when it came to external CSR (e.g., philanthropic) and internal CSR (e.g., employee-directed).Results indicated that inconsistent CSR strategies, particularly those that favored external stakeholders over internal stakeholders, triggered employee perceptions of corporate hypocrisy, which subsequently lead to increased emotional exhaustion and turnover (Scheidler et al., 2019).When a lack of consistency exists between the "front stage" and "back stage," employee reactions to CSR are negatively impacted, leading us to believe that authentic/consistent perceptions of CSR are critical to achieving positive gains when it comes to the employee-organization relationship. Organizational TrustRobinson (1996) defined trust as "one's expectations, assumptions, or beliefs about the likelihood that another's future actions will be beneficial, favorable, or at least not detrimental to one's interests" (p.576).This definition was chosen because it references how another's actions affect one's self-interest, implying some conceptual overlap with social exchange theory, which will be drawn upon later.Existing research on organizational trust has largely focused on the supervisor, through research streams such as interpersonal trust (e.g., Cook & Wall, 1980;Schoorman, Mayer, & Davis, 2007), trust in the supervisor (e.g., Deluga, 1995;Lagace, 1991), and trust in top management (e.g., Mayer & Gavin, 2005;McCauley & Kuhnert, 1992).Tan and Tan (2000) argued that trust in supervisor and trust in organization are related but distinct constructs.These authors defined trust in supervisor using Mayer, Davis, and Schoorman's (1995) definition, describing it as the willingness of an employee to be vulnerable to the actions of his or her supervisor, something over which the employee has no direct control.Mayer et al. (1995) based their definition of trust in organization on Gambetta (1988), defining it as the employee's perceived global evaluation of the organization's trustworthiness.Given that the constructs of interest for this study focus on employee perceptions regarding organizational motives for engaging in CSR, and organizations' subsequent levels of perceived CSR authenticity, it is most appropriate to examine employees' trust as it relates to the organization as a whole.Employee trust is an essential ingredient to any stable employee-organization relationship (Cook & Wall, 1980).It is proposed that CSR authenticity can positively impact employees' levels of organizational trust through serving as a form of consistency and predictability.As outlined by Robinson (1996), trust is based on the trustor's (i.e., the employee's) expectations regarding the future actions of the trustee (i.e., the organization).When an organization is perceived as authentic in its pursuit of CSR, this indicates that the organization is displaying a form of consistency, which allows employees to feel more confident in their assumptions about the organization's future behavior or actions, thereby indicating increased organizational trust.Consistency has often been identified as a key determinant of trust (e.g., Butler, 1991;Butler & Cantrell, 1984;Mayer et al., 1995).Goodman (2006) described CSR as "an approach to business that embodies transparency and ethical behavior, respect for stakeholder groups and a commitment to add economic, social, and environmental value" (p. 6).Employees are constantly monitoring the organizational