Corporate social responsibility, employee engagement, well-being and the task performance of frontline employees

Purpose This research examines the role of corporate social responsibility (CSR) in the workplace and its impact on frontline employees’ work-related outcomes. Based on the CSR and human resource management literature, this research formulates and tests a model of perceived management support for CSR, perceived customer support for CSR, work engagement, organization engagement, well-being and task performance, with an emphasis on the moderating role of the importance of CSR to employees. Design/methodology/approach The survey data were collected from 409 frontline employees of service enterprises, such as hotels, restaurants, travel agencies, airlines, in May and June 2015. The collected data were analyzed with SPSS and AMOS for frequency, reliability, correlation, confirmatory factor analyses and structural equation modeling. Findings The empirical results indicate that perceived management support for CSR significantly influences work engagement and organization engagement. Perceived customer support for CSR significantly affects work engagement, which increases organization engagement and enhances task performance. Organization engagement has a significant impact on perceived well-being, which, in turn, enhances task performance. Finally, the importance of CSR to employees significantly moderates the path from perceived management support for CSR to organization engagement. Originality/value This study formulates a conceptual model focusing on CSR to investigate drivers of well-being and the two aspects of employee engagement in a workplace. This study also considers employees’ perceptions of the importance of CSR as a moderator in the model.