What We Know and Don’t Know About Corporate Social Responsibility

By Herman Aguinis, Ante Glavas. 2012

2,707 citations recorded by the source corpus.

The authors review the corporate social responsibility (CSR) literature based on 588 journal articles and 102 books and book chapters. They offer a multilevel and multidisciplinary theoretical framework that synthesizes and integrates the literature at the institutional, organizational, and individual levels of analysis. The framework includes reactive and proactive predictors of CSR actions and policies and the outcomes of such actions and policies, which they classify as primarily affecting internal (i.e., internal outcomes) or external (i.e., external outcomes) stakeholders. The framework includes variables that explain underlying mechanisms (i.e., relationship- and value-based mediator variables) of CSR–outcomes relationships and contingency effects (i.e., people-, place-, price-, and profile-based moderator variables) that explain conditions under which the relationship between CSR and its outcomes change. The authors’ review reveals important knowledge gaps related to the adoption of different theoretical orientations by researchers studying CSR at different levels of analysis, the need to understand underlying mechanisms linking CSR with outcomes, the need for research at micro levels of analysis (i.e., individuals and teams), and the need for methodological approaches that will help address these substantive knowledge gaps. Accordingly, they offer a detailed research agenda for the future, based on a multilevel perspective that aims to integrate diverse theoretical frameworks as well as develop an understanding of underlying mechanisms and microfoundations of CSR (i.e., foundations based on individual action and interactions). The authors also provide specific suggestions regarding research design, measurement, and data-analytic approaches that will be instrumental in carrying out their proposed research agenda.

Subfields: Information Systems and Management, Marketing, Strategy and Management

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/36053a056f1a0462a7b8e3b25800acfd363ee230

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Citations in the corpus

Hostility or hospitality? A review on violence, bullying and sexual harassment in the tourism and hospitality industry (2018, background): “…by business to contribute to the quality of life of the workforce, their families, as well as the local community and society as a whole (World Business Council for Sustainable Development, 1999), with an emphasis on social, economic and environmental positive outcomes (Aguinis & Glavas, 2012).”
The Robustness of the Corporate Social and Financial Performance Relation: A Second‐Order Meta‐Analysis (2018, methodology): “While considerable research has been conducted, it is as yet less clear how different CSP dimensions and CFP categories interrelate and in which way various moderating factors determine the CSP-CFP relation (Aguinis and Glavas, 2012; McWilliams & Siegel, 2001; Peloza, 2009).”
Relationship between Corporate Social Responsibility and Competitive Performance in Spanish Smes: Empirical Evidence from a Stakeholders’ Perspective * (2016, background): “Aguinis and Glavas (2012) highlighted the gap that exists in the literature in regards to the relationship between CSR and business performance, and encouraged researchers to clarify some of the ‘‘mechanisms’’ that make this association possible.”
Feeling Good by Doing Good: Employee CSR-Induced Attributions, Job Satisfaction, and the Role of Charismatic Leadership (2013, methodology): “In a departure from prior studies, which have mainly focused on the macro-level of analysis (Aguinis and Glavas 2012), this study has taken a micro-level focus by examining what employees think of, and attribute to, their organizations’ CSR programs.”
Global Governance: CSR and the Role of the UN Global Compact (2014, background): “…about the social and environmental responsibility for corporations, summarised under the umbrella term of CSR have generated considerable attention in public discussions, as well as in business reality and scholarly debates (Aguinis and Glavas 2012; Crane et al. 2008; Scherer and Palazzo 2011).”
An organizational ethic of care and employee involvement in sustainability-related behaviors: A social identity perspective (2017, methodology): “Revealing what underpins one’s involvement in sustainability initiatives can inform research and theory of sustainability and social responsibility (Aguinis & Glavas, 2012) for at least two main reasons.”
Strategic CSR: A Concept Building Meta‐Analysis (2019, neutral): “First, we read review articles (Aguinis and Glavas, 2012; McWilliams et al., 2006) and prior meta-analyses (Margolis et al.”
How does hotel employees’ satisfaction with the organization’s COVID-19 responses affect job insecurity and job performance? (2020, background): “CSR encompasses organizations’ initiatives and policies to realize sustainable development economically, socially, and environmentally (Aguinis & Glavas, 2012).”