Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in

Does Religiousness Influence the Corporate Social Responsibility Orientation in Germany?

  • Chapter
  • First Online:
Corporate Social Responsibility in the Post-Financial Crisis Era

Abstract

The financial crisis as well as various company scandals during recent years not only led to a loss in credibility of politics and firms but also raised questions concerning the reliance on the economic system. Consumers search for alternatives and expect companies to engage in social activities to regain credibility. In time of uncertainty, some also point to religion as a way to break out of the fast-moving nature and to find solidarity. In this chapter, both aspects are taken into account. The expectations of more- and less-religious consumers toward firms’ engagement in social activities are analyzed in relation to economic achievements. With a survey questionnaire, participants in Germany are asked to evaluate the economic, legal, ethical, and philanthropic obligations of a firm. The findings shed light on the ambiguous relation between religiousness and corporate social responsibility orientation (CSRO): While some former studies in the USA und Malaysia revealed a coherence between religiousness and CSRO, the results do not show significant differences between highly religious and low religious Germans. Moreover, a new perspective is added by analyzing the influence of affiliation on CSRO. Here, no differences between affiliated and unaffiliated respondents are found.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this chapter

Log in via an institution

Institutional subscriptions

Notes

  1. 1.

    The term is currently emerging in business ethics research. Various researchers criticize the Eurocentric perspective suspected behind the terms religiosity and religiousness. Thus, concepts like spirituality or Zen-meditation are used in recent research with the goal to create a universally applicable term.

  2. 2.

    According to his theory, the assumed relative weighting followed 4:3:2:1 out of ten points.

  3. 3.

    Data estimated for 2011 by Pew Research Centre: 68.7 percent are Christians in Germany.

  4. 4.

    In June and July 2014, 152 students at the HTW Berlin University of Applied Sciences voluntarily completed the questionnaire. The final sample size was 142 since 10 partially completed questionnaires had to be eliminated (response rate greater than 90 percent).

  5. 5.

    A detailed discussion on the problem of measuring religion, religiousness, and religiosity due to a wide understanding of the terms can be found in McDaniel and Burnett (1990).

  6. 6.

    A coefficient of 0.70 for Cronbach’s alpha is average for belief and value constructs, as Peterson (1994) concludes from his meta-analysis.

  7. 7.

    Using the median (m = 3) as a cut-off point, the ranking of the dimensions as well as the differences between the groups remains similar in their structure (group size: 68 low religious vs. 64 highly religious).

References

  • Agle, B. R., & Van Buren, H. J. (1999). God and mammon: The modern relationship. Business Ethics Quarterly, 9(4), 563–582.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Allport, G. W., & Ross, J. M. (1967). Personal religious orientation and prejudice. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 5(4), 432–443.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Angelidis, J. P., & Ibrahim, N. A. (2004). An exploratory study of the impact of degree of religiousness upon an individual’s corporate social responsiveness orientation. Journal of Business Ethics, 51(2), 119–128.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Aupperle, K. E. (1982). An empirical enquiry into the social responsibilities as defined by corporations: An examination of various models and relationships. Ph.D. dissertation, University of Georgia.

    Google Scholar 

  • Aupperle, K. E., Carroll, A. B., & Hatfield, J. D. (1985). An empirical examination of the relationship between corporate social responsibility and profitability. Academy of Management Journal, 28(2), 446–463.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Barnett, T., Bass, K., & Brown, G. (1996). Religiosity, ethical ideology, and intentions to report a peer’s wrongdoing. Journal of Business Ethics, 15(11), 1161–1174.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Brammer, S., Williams, G., & Zinkin, J. (2007). Religion and attitudes to corporate social responsibility in a large cross-country sample. Journal of Business Ethics, 71(3), 229–243.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Burton, B. K., Farh, J.-L., & Harvey Hegarty, W. (2000). A cross-cultural comparison of corporate social responsibility orientation: Hong Kong vs. United States students. Teaching Business Ethics, 4(2), 151–167.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Carroll, A. B. (1979). A three-dimensional conceptual model of corporate performance. Academy of Management Review, 4(4), 497–505.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Carroll, A. B. (1991). The pyramid of corporate social responsibility: Toward the moral management of organizational stakeholders. Business Horizons, 34, 39–48.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Carroll, A. B. (1999). Corporate social responsibility: Evolution of a definitional construct. Business & Society, 38(3), 268–295.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Dusuki, A. W., Maimunah, T. F., & Yusof, T. M. (2008). The pyramid of corporate social responsibility model: Empirical evidence from Malaysian stakeholder perspectives. Malaysian Accounting Review, 7(2), 29–54.

    Google Scholar 

  • Dyck, Bruno. (2014). God on management: The world’s largest religions, the “theological turn”, and organization and management theory and practice. In P. Tracey, N. Phillips, & M. Lounsbury (Eds.), Religion and organization theory (Research in the sociology of organizations, Vol. 41, pp. 23–62). Emerald Group Publishing Limited.

    Google Scholar 

  • Ibrahim, N. A., Howard, D. P., & Angelidis, J. P. (2008). The relationship between religiousness and corporate social responsibility orientation: Are there differences between business managers and students? Journal of Business Ethics, 78(1–2), 165–174.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Jamali, D., & Sidani, Y. (2013). Does religiosity determine affinities to CSR? Journal of Management, Spirituality & Religion, 10(4), 309–323.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Longenecker, J. G., McKinney, J. A., & Moore, C. W. (2004). Religious intensity, evangelical Christianity, and business ethics: An empirical study. Journal of Business Ethics, 55(4), 371–384.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Maignan, I. (2001). Consumers’ perceptions of corporate social responsibilities: A cross-cultural comparison. Journal of Business Ethics, 30(1), 57–72.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • McDaniel, S. W., & Burnett, J. J. (1990). Consumer religiosity and retail store evaluative criteria. Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science, 18(2), 101–112.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • McDonald, R. A., & Scott, V. A. (1997). Attitudes of business and non-business students toward corporate actions. Teaching Business Ethics, 1(2), 213–225.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Parboteeah, K. P., Walter, S. G., & Block, J. H. (2014). When does Christian religion matter for entrepreneurial activity? The contingent effect of a country’s investments into knowledge. Journal of Business Ethics, 130(2), 447–465.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Peterson, R. A. (1994). A meta-analysis of Cronbach’s coefficient alpha. Journal of Consumer Research, 21(2), 381–391.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Pickel, G. (2013). Religionsmonitor—Verstehen was verbindet: Religiosität im internationalen Vergleich. Gutersloh: Bertelsmann Stiftung.

    Google Scholar 

  • Pickel, G., & Sammet, K. (2014). EinfĂĽhrung in die Methoden der sozialwissenschaftlichen Religionsforschung. Wiesbaden: Springer-Verlag.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Quazi, A. M. (2003). Identifying the determinants of corporate managers’ perceived social obligations. Management Decision, 41(9), 822–831.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Ramasamy, B., Yeung, M., & Alan, A. (2010). Consumer support for corporate social responsibility (CSR): The role of religion and values. Journal of Business Ethics, 91(1), 61–72.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Schlegelmilch, B. B., & Ă–berseder, M. (2010). Half a century of marketing ethics: Shifting perspectives and emerging trends. Journal of Business Ethics, 93(1), 1–19.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Schmidt, M. A., & D. Cracau. (2015). Cross-country comparison of the corporate social responsibility orientation in Germany and Qatar: An empirical study among business students. No. 150006. Otto-von-Guericke University Magdeburg, Faculty of Economics and Management.

    Google Scholar 

  • Schneider, H., Krieger, J., & Bayraktar, A. (2011). The impact of intrinsic religiosity on consumers’ ethical beliefs: Does it depend on the type of religion? A comparison of Christian and Moslem consumers in Germany and Turkey. Journal of Business Ethics, 102(2), 319–332.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Singhapakdi, A., Marta, J. K., Rallapalli, K. C., & Rao, C. P. (2000). Toward an understanding of religiousness and marketing ethics: An empirical study. Journal of Business Ethics, 27(4), 305–319.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Smith, W. J., Wokutch, R. E., Vernard Harrington, K., & Dennis, B. S. (2001). An examination of the influence of diversity and stakeholder role on corporate social orientation. Business & Society, 40(3), 266–294.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Smith, W. J., Wokutch, R. E., Vernard Harrington, K., & Dennis, B. S. (2004). Organizational attractiveness and corporate social orientation: Do our values influence our preference for affirmative action and managing diversity? Business & Society, 43(1), 69–96.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • van den Heuvel, G., Soeters, J., & Gössling, T. (2014). Global business, global responsibilities: Corporate social responsibility orientations within a multinational bank. Business & Society, 53(3), 378–413.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Vitell, S. J., Paolillo, J. G., & Singh, J. J. (2005). Religiosity and consumer ethics. Journal of Business Ethics, 57(2), 175–181.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Voland, E. (2009). Evaluating the evolutionary status of religiosity and religiousness. InThe biological evolution of religious mind and behavior (pp. 9–24). Berlin, Heidelberg: Springer.

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  • Weaver, G. R., & Agle, B. R. (2002). Religiosity and ethical behavior in organizations: A symbolic interactionist perspective. Academy of Management Review, 27(1), 77–97.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Wiebe, K. F., & Fleck, J. R. (1980). Personality correlates of intrinsic, extrinsic, and nonreligious orientations. The Journal of Psychology, 105(2), 181–187.

    Article  Google Scholar 

Download references

Acknowledgments

I would like to thank Daniel Cracau and two anonymous reviewers for valuable comments that helped to improve the chapter. Furthermore, I thank the audience at the 4th ICSR Conference. Moreover, funding provided by the Berliner Chancengleichheitsprogramm is gratefully acknowledged.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Faculty of Social and Behavioral Sciences, Friedrich Schiller University Jena, Fuerstengraben 1, Jena, 07743, Germany

    Maria Anne Schmidt

Authors
  1. Maria Anne Schmidt
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Bournemouth University, Poole, Dorset, UK

    Anastasios Theofilou

  2. Bournemouth University, Poole, Dorset, UK

    Georgiana Grigore

  3. Bucharest University of Economic Studies, Bucharest, Romania

    Alin Stancu

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

Copyright information

© 2017 The Author(s)

About this chapter

Cite this chapter

Schmidt, M.A. (2017). Does Religiousness Influence the Corporate Social Responsibility Orientation in Germany?. In: Theofilou, A., Grigore, G., Stancu, A. (eds) Corporate Social Responsibility in the Post-Financial Crisis Era. Palgrave Studies in Governance, Leadership and Responsibility. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-40096-9_2

Download citation

Publish with us

Policies and ethics

Search

Navigation