Ethical CSR, Organizational Identification, and Job Satisfaction: Mediated Moderated Role of Interactional Justice

Abstract

The interconnected relationships between a business and its various stakeholders have been the beneficiaries of widespread research over the past few decades. Consequently, corporate social responsibility (CSR) and organizational justice have gained much prominence within management and organizational research. Yet, there remains less visibility into how they may interact to influence employee attitudes. Combining insights from social exchange and social identity theories, we develop and validate a mediated moderation model: organizational identification’s mediation accounts for the interactive effect of ethical CSR (i.e., perceptions of whether firms act according to the generally accepted norms, standards, and principles of society) and interactional justice (i.e., perceptions of equity in the relationship between employees and those with authority over them) on employee job satisfaction. Using structural equation modeling on a sample of 293 employees, we find support for our proposed relationships. This research contributes to the existing knowledge at the intersection of CSR and organizational justice literature and reveals useful takeaways germane to accruing ethical capital with employees.

Appendix

The two equations estimated:

• (1) The moderation of the effect of interactional justice on the mediator organizational identity:

$$\begin{aligned} {\text{Org}}\_{\text{identification}}\;{\text{y}}_{i} = & \, \beta_{0} + \beta_{1} {\text{Interactional}}\_{\text{justice}}_{i} + \beta_{2} {\text{Ethical}}\_{\text{CSR}}_{i} \\ & + \beta_{3} {\text{Interactional}}\_{\text{justice}}*{\text{Ethical}}\_{\text{CSR}}_{i} + \beta_{4} {\text{Distributive}}\_{\text{justice}}_{i} \\ & + \beta_{5} {\text{Procedural}}\_{\text{justice}}_{i} + \beta_{6} {\text{Gender}}_{i} + \beta_{7} {\text{Age}}_{i} + \beta_{8} {\text{Firm}}\_{\text{age}}_{i} \\ & + \beta_{9} {\text{Work}}\_{\text{tenure}}_{i} + \beta_{10} {\text{Position}}\_{\text{tenure}}_{i} + \beta_{11} {\text{Employees}}_{i} + \beta_{12} {\text{Education}}_{i} \\ & + \beta_{13} {\text{Firm}}\_{\text{revenue}}_{i} + \beta_{14} {\text{Job}}\;{\text{title}}_{i} + \xi_{i} \\ \end{aligned}$$

• (2) The moderation of the effect of the mediator organizational identification and the moderation of the residual treatment effect of interactional justice on job satisfaction:

  $$\begin{aligned} {\text{Job}}\_{\text{satisfaction}}_{i} = & \, \theta_{0} + \theta_{1} {\text{Interactional}}\_{\text{justice}}_{i} + \theta_{2} {\text{Ethical}}\_{\text{CSR}}_{i} \\ & + \;\theta_{3} {\text{Interactional}}\_{\text{justice}}*{\text{Ethical}}\_{\text{CSR}}_{i} + \theta_{4} {\text{Org}}\_{\text{identification}} \\ & + \;\theta_{5} {\text{Org}}\_{\text{identification}}*{\text{Ethical}}\_{\text{CSR}} + \theta_{6} {\text{Distributive}}\_{\text{justice}}_{i} \\ & + \;\theta_{7} {\text{Procedural}}\_{\text{justice}}_{i} + \theta_{8} {\text{Gender}}_{i} + \theta_{9} {\text{Age}}_{i} + \theta_{10} {\text{Firm}}\_{\text{age}}_{i} \\ & + \;\theta_{11} {\text{Work}}\_{\text{tenure}}_{i} + \;\theta_{12} {\text{Position}}\_{\text{tenure}}_{i} + \theta_{13} {\text{Employees}}_{i} \\ & + \;\theta_{14} {\text{Education}}_{i} + + \theta_{15} {\text{Firm}}\_{\text{revenue}}_{i} + \theta_{16} {\text{Job}}\;{\text{title}}_{i} + \lambda_{i} \\ \end{aligned}$$

  where i refers to the individual, ε_i, ξ_i and λ_i are the error term. The remaining independent variables were described in the previous subsection.