The relationship between Norwegian and Swedish employees’ perception of corporate social responsibility and affective commitment

Abstract

Corporations are spending a substantial and increasing amount of money on corporate social responsibility (CSR). However, little is known about the effects on key stakeholders of these activities. This study investigates if CSR activities have an effect on employees’ affective commitment (AC). Two models test to what extent employees’ CSR perception, involvement in decision processes, and demographic variables are related to their AC relative to their perception of positive organizational support (POS). The analysis is based on a sample of 512 employees from four Scandinavian companies; three Norwegian and one Swedish, randomly selected from a population of 6,710 mostly Norwegian and Swedish employees in those two countries. The results indicate that CSR perception is a significant predictor of AC, although how employees feel that the company cares about them (POS) has stronger explanatory power on AC. Contrary to the few other studies addressing AC and CSR, gender was not found to be a significant variable in the model.