The Effects of Corporate ESG Activities on Organizational Commitment of Employees and Their Organizational Citizenship Behavior

Purpose: Drawing upon the recent findings and theories in CSR research, this study intends to test the effects of corporate ESG activities on organizational commitment of employees and their organizational citizenship behavior. Specifically, the effects of employees’ perceptions of the three dimensions for ESG activities, environmental protection, social responsibility practices, and governance on their affective, calculative, and normative commitment and the resulting effects on organizational citizenship behavior were examined. Research design, data, and methodology: Measurement items were measured using a Likert-type 5-point scale based on previous studies. An online survey was conducted in a large firm and 300 samples were used for the final analysis. Reliability test and confirmatory factor analysis were performed for research validity and reliability. Results: The results show that a firm’s environmental protection activities significantly influence all the three dimensions of organizational commitment. It was also found that social responsibility practices have a positive effect on calculative commitment and governance have a positive effect on normative commitment. Additionally, Affective and calculative commitment were found to have positive effects on corporate citizenship behavior. On the other hand, it was found that normative commitment had no significant effect on corporate citizenship behavior. Implications: These findings have theoretical implications in that it newly highlights the potential effects of ESG activities on employees’ organizational commitment and, moreover, multi-dimensional nature of organizational commitment may better explain the differential effects of ESG activities on employees’ corporate citizenship behavior. The significant role of affective commitment in explaining the relationship between ESG activities and corporate citizenship behavior may add new theoretical implications, too. Practically, the study findings suggest that managers need to pay attention to the different role of organizational commitment in augmenting the internal marketing effects of their own ESG activities.