Gianvito D'Aprile and Terri Mannarini
Corporate social responsibility (CSR) is conceptualized as the construct describing the relationship between companies and society. Although scholars reached an agreement about…
Abstract
Purpose
Corporate social responsibility (CSR) is conceptualized as the construct describing the relationship between companies and society. Although scholars reached an agreement about the linkages between CSR in small and medium‐sized enterprises (SMEs) and psychosocial issues – social identity, organizational culture and commitment – it is still a problematic issue how CSR should be defined and how companies could behave as socially responsible. The authors hypothesize that psychosocial processes impact the activation of CSR. Within a psychological perspective, the purpose of this paper is to explore CSR definitions and CSR psychosocial dimensions.
Design/methodology/approach
According to an emic perspective oriented at in‐depth comprehension of phenomena, the authors adopted the grounded theory methodology to collect, analyze and discuss the data. In total, 14 entrepreneurs and 12 employees of Italian‐Apulian SMEs were interviewed on three thematic areas: organizational culture; sense of community; and CSR. Interviews were transcribed and analyzed through qualitative content analysis.
Findings
Results showed that: CSR definitions were continuously mediated by participants' organizational culture; and perspective taking, care taking and sustainable practices emerged as the salient CSR psychosocial components, correspondent to its cognitive, affective and behavioral dimensions.
Practical implications
The paper argues that CSR psychosocial components could be the strategic variables to develop and to manage CSR in organizations.
Originality/value
CSR is re‐conceptualized as a psychosocial multidimensional construct, explaining its dynamic activation in organizations. The authors suggest that the cognitive and affective dimensions are antecedent to the behavioral dimension. Thus, the authors are developing a CSR psychosocial scale to study the linkages among these dimensions and other variables through quantitative analysis method.
Details
Keywords
Cecilia Isabel Calderón-Valencia, Judith Cavazos-Arroyo and Alfonso López Lira-Arjona
The purpose of this paper is to examine the direct contribution of social identity and perceived social norm (PSN) to the intention of participating in collective India mission;…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to examine the direct contribution of social identity and perceived social norm (PSN) to the intention of participating in collective India mission; more importantly, it also aims to verify the mediating role of PSN in the relationship between social identity and intention to participate in the programme of clean India mission.
Design/methodology/approach
The researcher has followed a correlational design, and the study has been carried out on a sample of 684 youths in the age range of 15‒24 years. The data were collected from respondents spread over five communes of Pondicherry, which is a union territory in the southern part of India. Sense of community (SOC) has been used as a measure of social identity. PSN has been considered as the mediator, and the participation intention (PI) in clean India mission has been taken as the outcome variable. Mediation analysis has been carried out with the help of AMOS package.
Findings
The findings indicate that both social identity and PSN exhibit significant positive contribution towards intention to participate in clean India mission activity. In addition, there is a partial mediation of perceived social participation norm in the relationship between SOC and PI.
Research limitations/implications
Social psychological research can contribute significantly to the collectivistic approach, as is observed from the present study. However, some other important variables such as collective efficacy and group emotion can also be included as intervening variables for this social collectivistic action.
Originality/value
This is a first type of study upon pro-environmental action through collective action in the Indian context. Moreover, it has wider relevance in policy formulation and curriculum design since Swachh Bharat Abhiyan (clean India mission) is an initiative by the Government of India.