Although many scholars have investigated the influence of corporate social responsibility (CSR) in an organization, there has been relatively minimal research regarding the CSR’s impacts on employees as well as the underlying mechanisms of it. Considering the research gaps, in the present research, we examine how CSR practices influence attitudes of employees. In particular, we hypothesize that perceived CSR would enhance organizational commitment (OC) of employees through the sequential mediation of meaningfulness of work (MOW) and perceived organizational support (POS). In order to empirically test this, we utilized two-wave time-lagged survey data from 378 employees who work for companies in South Korea. The results show that MOW and POS sequentially mediate the relationship between perceived CSR and OC. The findings suggest that CSR practices could be an active investment which enhances important attitudes of employees, instead of merely being a cost or obligation for firms.

Although some previous studies have examined the impact of corporate social responsibility (CSR) on employees in an organization, they have mainly focused on employees’ perceptions or attitudes rather than behaviors. However, in that employees’ behaviors are the direct outcome of the perceptions or attitudes and critically affect organizational outcomes, we need to investigate the impact of CSR on employees’ behaviors. Based on the context-attitude-behavior framework, we investigate the underlying process of the association between CSR and employees’ behavior with a moderated mediation model. Specifically, we hypothesize (1) the intermediating effect of organizational commitment (OC) in the association between CSR and organizational citizenship behavior (OCB) and (2) the contingent role of employees’ perspective taking ability (PT) in the CSR-OC link. Using three-wave survey data from 301 currently working employees in Korea, we found that OC mediates the association between CSR and OCB and that PT can positively moderate the CSR-OC link. Our findings suggest that OC (as an intermediating process) and PT (as a contingent factor) function as important underlying mechanisms to elaborately describe the CSR-OCB link.

The present research attempts to investigate an intermediating process that influences an association between transformational leadership and innovative behavior. Previous studies have mainly focused on the intrapsychic traits of individual employees (e.g., intrinsic motivation and psychological empowerment) as an important mediator to explain the enhancing effect of transformational leadership on employee’s creativity. Yet, given that many interactions among employees in an organization tend to occur in the form of ‘interpersons’, the importance of interpersonal relationship-based traits has received relatively less attention from leadership scholars. Based on the context-attitude-behavior framework, we posit that transformational leadership enhances innovative behavior by boosting the level of employees’ forgiveness which is an interpersonal relationship-based trait among employees. We conducted structural equation modeling analysis with a survey from 374 employees in South Korea. The result demonstrated that forgiveness partially mediates the influence of transformational leadership on innovative behavior. We believe that our finding may contribute to expanding transformational leadership and positive organizational scholarship literature by identifying a new path that transformational leadership increases innovative behavior. The theoretical and practical implications, limitations of this study, and suggestions for future research are discussed.

Although some previous studies have examined the impact of transformational leadership on safety behavior, those works have paid relatively less attention to the intermediating role of employees’ job strain in the link as well as contingent variables that moderate the relationship. Considering that not only job strain substantially affects employees’ perceptions, attitudes, and behaviors in an organization, but also there are some contextual factors that moderate the relationships, we investigated intermediating mechanisms (i.e., mediator and moderator) in the relationship between transformational leadership and safety behavior. Relying on the context-attitude-behavior framework, we conducted a structural equation modeling analysis with a moderated mediation model. Specifically, we hypothesized that the level of an employee’s job strain would mediate the transformational leadership–safety behavior link. We also hypothesized that an employee’s self-efficacy regarding safety would moderate the association between job strain and safety behavior. Using survey data from 997 South Korean employees, we found that all of our hypotheses were supported. The findings suggest that the level of an employee’s job strain mediates and elaborately explains the transformational leadership–safety behavior link. Moreover, an employee’s self-efficacy regarding safety is a buffering factor which decreases the harmful effects of job strain on safety behavior.

The purpose of this study was to investigate the influence of corporate social responsibility (CSR) on an employee’s negative behavior, in addition to its intermediating mechanism (i.e., mediators and moderator) in the relationship. This paper proposes that CSR may diminish an employee’s negative behavior, such as counterproductive work behavior. Relying on the context–attitude–behavior framework, this study investigated the mediators and moderator of the relationship between CSR and counterproductive work behavior. Specifically, this study hypothesized that not only does CSR diminish the level of counterproductive work behavior by sequentially boosting the level of employees’ organizational trust and commitment, but their work overload also negatively moderates the association between CSR and organizational trust. Utilizing three-wave time-lagged online survey data from 342 employees in South Korean companies, this study tested the hypotheses by building a moderated mediation model with structural equation modeling analysis. The results indicate that CSR decreases the level of employees’ counterproductive work behavior through enhancing their organizational trust and commitment. Moreover, work overload negatively moderates the association between CSR and organizational trust. The findings of this study make theoretical and practical contributions to the CSR literature.