Corporate social responsibility and employees’ embeddedness in the organization: an exploratory analysis

We test whether the employees’ perception of different CSR practices adopted by their employer affects employees’ embeddedness in the organization, and as a result intention to leave, by carrying out two empirical studies: one exploratory survey on 118 Italian staff unit employees and a second survey among 717 employees of an Italian large-sized retail company. The findings indicate that, among seven different dimensions of perceived CSR, just three dimensions of CSR – namely CSR towards employees, towards society and towards customers – significantly predict organizational embeddedness. Moreover, only one – i.e. ‘employee-focused CSR’ (Voegtlin & Greenwood, 2016) – has an impact on intention to leave, which is totally mediated by organizational embeddedness. Such results trigger interpretations on the conditions under which CSR is more likely to be well received, shedding light on the multifaceted nature of CSR (which could be analyzed from both an external and internal organization perspective) and contributing to advancing theory on micro-level CSR, and have implications for future research on CSR, HRM and their relationship.