The roles of corporate social responsibility perception on organizational identification, employee commitment and job satisfaction: a comparative analysis between Thai and Nepalese bank employees

Abstract

Corporate social responsibility (CSR) is one of the major topics of interest gaining attention of many researchers because an organization has to be responsible towards its act for the society and to fulfill its social obligations. Previous studies have mainly analyzed the impact of CSR from the perspective of external stakeholder, and lack studies conducted with the focus on employees, more specifically with regards to their perception towards CSR. The objectives of this research were to investigate the relationships between employee CSR perception with organizational identification, employee commitment and job satisfaction in the banking industry; and to explore whether there is a difference between Nepal and Thailand in terms of the relationships between employee CSR perception and these three job outcomes between two Asian countries, Nepal and Thailand. The data was collected via questionnaires survey from the employees’ of leading commercial banks in Nepal (n=423) and in Thailand (n=389). The results from partial least squares regression showed that employees who perceived their organization actively engaged in CSR activities tended to demonstrate a higher level of organizational identification, employee commitment and job satisfaction in both Nepalese and Thai samples. The findings from the analysis regarding the mediating effect of organizational identification on employee commitment and job satisfaction also showed that organizational identification mediates the positive link between employees’

perception of economic aspect of CSR on employee commitment for Nepalese sample but not for Thai sample. The positive association between employees’ perception of economic aspect of CSR on job satisfaction is not mediated by organizational identification for both the Nepalese and Thai samples. Similarly, the positive association between employees’ perception of legal aspect of CSR on employee commitment and job satisfaction is not mediated by organizational identification for both Nepalese and Thai samples. Further, the result shows that, the positive association between employees’ perception of ethical aspect of CSR on employee commitment is mediated by organizational identification for both Nepalese and Thai samples. However, the positive association between employees’ perception of ethical aspect of CSR on job satisfaction is mediated by organizational identification for Nepalese sample but not for Thai sample. The result also shows that the positive association between employee’s perception of discretionary aspect of CSR on employee commitment as well as job satisfaction is mediated by organizational identification for both Nepalese and Thai samples.

The comparative analysis between Nepal and Thailand samples revealed that although the positive relationship between CSR perception and these three job outcomes were supported in both samples, this positive relationship tended to be weaker for Nepalese employees than for Thai employees for most CSR aspects. In particular, the difference in this finding can be explained by the level of income that was found to be significantly lower in Nepalese sample than in the Thai sample. For practical implication, the bank managers need to understand that CSR creates an enduring bond between the employees and their organization and hence, should focus on CSR activities if they want to have committed and satisfied employees in their banks.