How Does Internal and External CSR Affect Employees’ Work Engagement? Exploring Multiple Mediation Mechanisms and Boundary Conditions

Abstract

We investigate the different mechanisms concerning how employees’ perceptions of external and internal corporate social responsibility (CSR) serve to influence employees’ work engagement. By combining social exchange theory and social identity theory, we implement and examine an integrated moderated mediation framework in which employees’ value orientations (e.g., collectivism or individualism) impact the mediating mechanism between their perceived external and internal CSR, organizational pride and perceived organizational support (POS), and work engagement. This work fills a research gap to examine the indirect relationship between employees’ perceptions of external and internal CSR and work engagement. Using two periods of survey data from 250 working employees in China, we find that employees’ perceptions of external CSR positively influence work engagement via organizational pride. The value of collectivism strengthens the direct effect of employees’ perceptions of external CSR on work engagement, and the indirect effect of employees’ perceptions of external CSR on work engagement via organizational pride. Moreover, employees’ perceptions of internal CSR positively influence work engagement via POS. The value of individualism strengthens the direct effect of employees’ perceptions of internal CSR on work engagement, and the indirect effect of employees’ perceptions of internal CSR on work engagement via POS. The results contribute to both theory and practice.