Companies should not assume that putting more effort into initiatives such as corporate volunteering and giving programmes will increase employees’ positive attitudes towards their organization, according to the results of a new research study into prosocial identity co-authored by CEIBS Associate Professor of Management Tae-Yeol Kim.

The results of the study suggest that organizations should think strategically if they want to translate their prosocial activities into positive employee attitudes and behaviour. Managers should not assume that putting more effort into prosocial corporate programmes will result in employees developing more positive attitudes toward their organization. Instead, what matters most is how closely an employee’s personal prosocial identity matches the company’s prosocial identity. In organizations where there is less overall emphasis on prosocial activities and behaviours, employees who are naturally more inclined to be helpful towards colleagues and clients will be likely to practice such behaviour anyway; and even consider it to be an important part of their job. In addition, when an organization has a far higher prosocial identity than its employees, the employees tended to have a low level of organizational identification.

The results of the study appear in the paper entitled “Person-Organization Fit on Prosocial Identity: Implications on Employee Outcomes” co-authored by Prof. Kim, Jongeseok Cha of Hansung University and Young Kyun Chang of University of Wisconsin. It will be published by the Journal of Business Ethics.

View the paper