Examining the mediating role of organizational trust in the relationship between CSR practices and job outcomes

Purpose: The purpose of this study is to examine the relationship between perceived corporate social responsibility (CSR) and employees’ job outcomes, namely, work engagement and organizational citizenship behavior (OCB) in select Indian manufacturing firms. This study also aims to measure the mediating effect of organizational trust in the above link. Design/methodology/approach: Based on the stakeholder theory of CSR, the proposed model was tested using data from 284 employees across eight manufacturing firms in South India extensively involved in CSR activities. Data were analyzed using hierarchical regression techniques. Findings: Significant positive association between CSR activities toward only three stakeholders (employees, customers and environment) and the outcome variables (work engagement and OCB) were observed. Organizational trust partially mediated the relationship between CSR activities and job outcomes. Findings reveal that organizational trust is the underlying mechanism by which organization’s involvement in CSR activities positively influences job outcomes. The implications are discussed along the lines of the findings. Originality/value: Substantial macro-level research studies are available linking CSR activities with tangible outcomes, such as financial outcomes. Literature suggests the need for more research on CSR at the micro level i.e., how CSR practices affect the attitude, behavior, well-being and work engagement of employees. This study also addressed the important research gap by considering the stakeholder theory of CSR in a non-western context. Moreover, the mechanism through which CSR relates to employees’ job-related outcomes is relatively underexplored. Therefore, the current study captured the role of organizational trust as a mediator.