By Tae-Yeol Kim, Emily M David, Ho Kwong Kwan and Zhiqiang Liu

Contributing to a healthier, fairer and more sustainable society through Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) is increasingly seen as a vital initiative for commercial organisations.

But how does employee perception or “buy-in” regarding CSR travel through an organisation once an initiative or policy is established? Is it enough for top leadership to “set it and forget it”? Or is there more of a trickle-down effect from leaders to supervisors and ultimately, employees when it comes to participation in CSR?

Lost in Translation

While there is an increasing body of academic research that demonstrates that firms which engage in high levels of CSR enjoy an enhanced reputation and higher profitability, little is known about whether firm-level CSR practices directly impact leader and employee behaviours.

Frequently, firms’ leadership will assume that their CSR intentions will closely align with the perceptions of its employees, and that they will quickly recognise the benefits of a given activity to themselves or society at large. This applies to the organisation’s CSR activities at both the external (charitable donations, environmental sustainability improvements, etc.) and internal (employee education/health benefits, broader societal representation efforts, etc.) levels.

However, a disconnect can occur due to poor communication efforts on the part of the firm, or employees’ simple indifference or even outright scepticism towards CSR messages. Our recent study demonstrates that, rather than relying on direct transmission from top to bottom, a firm’s supervisors can facilitate a significant trickle-down effect when it comes to transmitting its CSR “core values” to its employees. Our principal findings are:

• Supervisors serve as an essential linchpin linking both forms of CSR (internal and external) to employee behaviours.
• Through family-supportive supervisor behaviours (FSSB), supervisors positively and significantly relate to firm-level CSR activities. FSSB entails supervisors serving as a positive role model for employees to manage both work and non-work responsibilities.
• Such FSSB shown by supervisors positively relates to employees’ Organisational Citizenship Behaviours (OCB) towards coworkers. OCB entails going above and beyond task requirements to help others complete their own tasks.
• FSSB also positively relates to employees’ work-to-family positive spillover outcomes. This represents a wide range of characteristics being transferred by an employee from their work life to their family life. For example, they might observe their supervisors helping them with interpersonal issues and, when they return home, then enact similar listening skills when their family members describe their struggles. Other examples include being more present in their children’s lives, sharing the burden of household chores, and generally practising a healthy work-life balance.

Learn by example – Supervisors are essential CSR advocates

These findings show that it’s not enough for a firm to espouse a CSR philosophy and expect their employees to automatically get on board with it, both in the sense of embracing the ideals being supported and seeing the inherent value of the related activities.

This study supports existing research that recognises the trickle-down effect of a firm’s CSR through its leaders and supervisors to front-line employees. Supervisors are powerful translators of a firm’s CSR ideals, and they motivate their subordinates to follow their example. By acting as role models through FSSBs, they can spread CSR-related values and active buy-in from employees to their coworkers and beyond the workplace as these employees, quite literally, bring this mindset home with them.

This has important practical implications for any firm looking to maximise the efficacy and cohesion of their CSR messaging and resultant activities. Supervisors are critical role models for employees in this regard; they should be formally recognised as such, potentially with training and/or incentivisation to refine their capabilities in this vital area.

Similarly, identifying and promoting FSSBs also provides more options for how organisation-level CSR factors relate to employee behaviours, beyond simply raising employee awareness about various initiatives. This may help overcome employee scepticism about the firm’s CSR activities and messaging, increasing active participation and leading to better performance outcomes, such as increased organisational identification and engagement, or improved task performance and creativity.

This article is based on a study entitled: “Trickle-down effects of corporate social responsibility on employee outcomes: the mediating role of family-supportive supervisor behaviors”, by Professor Tae-Yeol Kim, Emily M David, Ho Kwong Kwan and Zhiqiang Liu.

Tae-Yeol Kim is Philips Chair and Professor of Management at CEIBS. Emily M. David is an Associate Professor of Organisational Behaviour at the National University of Singapore (NUS). Ho Kwong Kwan is an Associate Professor of Management at CEIBS. Zhiqiang Liu is a Professor at Huazhong University of Science and Technology.