https://theconversation.com/employees-want-genuine-corporate-social-responsibility-not-greenwashing-130435
[links in online article]
Employees want genuine corporate social responsibility, not greenwashing
January 29, 2020
Magda B.L. Donia
Associate Professor, Telfer School of Management, L’Université
d’Ottawa/University of Ottawa
Described as the “moral face of globalization,” corporate social
responsibility (CSR) initiatives focused on solving societal and
environmental concerns are increasingly expected by society, especially
younger generations.
Millennials are particularly principled, with some studies suggesting
they care more about purpose than a paycheque when it comes to work. A
report by Hewitt and Associates found that “corporate social
responsibility can improve (the) … bottom line, in part by giving … the
most engaged employees a reason to stay and work harder.”
That means organizations have an additional reason to engage in CSR — it
has a positive impact on their own employees.
In fact, companies that engage in CSR report positive consequences on
important outcomes such as the appeal of the organization to job
applicants, employee commitment to the organization, job satisfaction
and job performance.
Don’t fake it
But companies should take notice of additional emerging research —
employees don’t respond well if they believe their organization is using
CSR to give a false impression of virtue.
Organizations therefore must be careful to engage in CSR for the right
reasons. Employees make judgments about why their organizations engage
in CSR, and they distinguish between authentic efforts and what’s known
as greenwashing — CSR that is more focused on appearances than true
commitment to a cause.
These judgments are so powerful that they affect employees’
characterizations of the organization as a whole.
Specifically, when employees judge their organizations’ engagement in
CSR as authentic, they tend to describe it as a “giver.” Employees see
these organizations as being driven by values such as helpfulness and
compassion.
In contrast, when CSR is judged as inauthentic and self-serving,
employees tend to characterize the organization as a “taker.” Employees
of these organizations are more likely to see them as being driven by a
focus on dominance and doing better than competitors. Employees trust
organizations that engage in genuine CSR but distrust those that engage
in greenwashing.
Bottom line advantage
Research I conducted with organizational behaviourist Sigalit Ronen of
California State University, sustainability researcher Carol-Ann
Tetrault Sirsly of Carleton University and workplace psychologist Silvia
Bonaccio of the University of Ottawa sought to delve deeper into these
findings to understand the impact of CSR on employees.
Specifically, we focused on important employee attitudes and performance
at work, and sought to understand the underlying mechanism leading to
employees’ positive reactions to CSR judged as authentic only. We also
looked at whether the importance employees attach to CSR explains these
findings (spoiler alert: it doesn’t, really). We instead found that
employees’ judgments of the motives underlying CSR initiatives explain
important workplace outcomes.
We found that how employees feel about their companies’ CSR initiatives
has an influence on important workplace attitudes, including trust in
top management, pride in the organization, job satisfaction and the
meaning they ascribe to their work in a positive way.
Their perceptions were also related to job performance, including
whether employees focused on doing well on tasks, going out of their way
to help others or not engaging in behaviours that were counterproductive
and detrimental to the organization. This behaviour was only present
when CSR initiatives were judged as genuine.
We found that when employees view their organizations as engaging in CSR
for genuine reasons, they feel that they work in a place that is
compatible with their values and shares their goals. We call this type
of compatibility person-organization fit.
Employees care about authenticity
Organizations should pay attention to our results.
In fact, we found positive outcomes resulted from genuine CSR and
negative outcomes stemmed from greenwashing, regardless of whether
employees personally cared about CSR.
We expected employees who find organizational engagement in CSR to be
important would react positively and strongly when judging their
organization as genuine in their efforts, and negatively when not. But
we were surprised to find similar results when employees did not attach
high importance to CSR.
Even if employees don’t care about a particular cause to begin with,
they will react to the reason they believe their organization is
choosing to engage in that cause. After all, “people care less about
what others do than about why they do it ” — and employees, apparently,
have little appetite for inauthenticity.
The author would like to acknowledge the work and friendship of the late
Carol-Ann Tetrault Sirsly of Carleton University. She passed away in 2016.
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