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Journal of Business Ethics ISSN 0167-4544Volume 123Number 3 J Bus Ethics (2014) 123:437-459DOI 10.1007/s10551-013-1847-3

Religiosity, CSR Attitudes, and CSRBehavior: An Empirical Study ofExecutives’ Religiosity and CSR

Corrie Mazereeuw-van der DuijnSchouten, Johan Graafland & MuelKaptein

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Religiosity, CSR Attitudes, and CSR Behavior: An EmpiricalStudy of Executives’ Religiosity and CSR

Corrie Mazereeuw-van der Duijn Schouten •

Johan Graafland • Muel Kaptein

Received: 17 February 2012 / Accepted: 18 July 2013 / Published online: 9 August 2013

� Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht 2013

Abstract In this paper, we examine the relationship

between Christian religiosity, attitudes towards corporate

social responsibility (CSR), and CSR behavior of execu-

tives. We distinguish four types of CSR attitudes and five

types of CSR behavior. Based on empirical research con-

ducted among 473 Dutch executives, we find that CSR

attitudes mediate the influence of religiosity on CSR

behavior. Intrinsic religiosity positively affects the ethical

CSR attitude and negatively affects the financial CSR

attitude, whereas extrinsic religiosity stimulates the phil-

anthropic CSR attitude. Financial, ethical, and philan-

thropic CSR attitudes significantly affect some types of

CSR behaviors. However, because religiosity has opposing

effects on the three attitudes, the joint mediation effect of

the three attitudes is negligible. Furthermore, we find a

direct negative influence of intrinsic religiosity on diversity

and a direct positive influence on charity.

Keywords Corporate social responsibility �Executives � Leadership � Religiosity � Stakeholders

Introduction

The relationship between religious beliefs of corporate

executives (individuals who exercise managerial control)

and their corporate social responsibility (CSR) has received

increasing attention in academic literature (Agle and Van

Buren 1999; Angelidis and Ibrahim 2004; Conroy and

Emerson 2004; Giacalone and Jurkiewicz 2003; Ibrahim

et al. 2008; Kennedy and Lawton 1998; Parboteeah et al.

2007; Trevino et al. 2000; Weaver and Agle 2002).

Although the relationship between executives’ religiosity

and CSR might seem obvious, empirical research has

yielded conflicting results. Weaver and Agle (2002) list

three types of empirical results. Some studies find no dif-

ference between the everyday conduct of religious and

nonreligious executives, some show a negative correlation

between religiosity and CSR, and others show a positive

relationship. According to Weaver and Agle (2002) these

conflicting findings can be ascribed to three methodologi-

cal problems: most studies employ widely diverging defi-

nitions and measures of religiosity; most focus on

attitudinal measures of business ethics, which may suffer

from social desirability bias; and most empirical studies

use undergraduate and MBA students.

Notwithstanding these divergent empirical findings,

existing literature contends that religiosity has a strong

impact on work values (Parboteeah et al. 2009b). Religi-

osity is known to have a significant influence on values,

which then affects attitudes and behavior (Ramasamy et al.

2010). Personally held values and beliefs of executives are

influential in two ways (Brown et al. 2010; Meglino and

Ravlin 1998). First, their values and beliefs influence their

own decisions, and secondly, they influence the values,

beliefs, and behavior of their subordinates. Since execu-

tives occupy leadership positions (Bass 1990), their value-

C. Mazereeuw-van der Duijn Schouten (&)

Department of Philosophy, Tilburg University,

P.O. Box 90153, 5000 LE Tilburg, The Netherlands

e-mail: cmvdds@gmail.com

J. Graafland

Department of Economics, CentER/Tilburg Sustainability

Center/European Banking Center, Tilburg University,

P.O. Box 90153, 5000 LE Tilburg, The Netherlands

e-mail: j.j.graafland@uvt.nl

M. Kaptein

Rotterdam School of Management, Erasmus University,

P.O. Box 1738, 3000 DR Rotterdam, The Netherlands

e-mail: m.kaptein@rsm.nl

123

J Bus Ethics (2014) 123:437–459

DOI 10.1007/s10551-013-1847-3

Author's personal copy

laden decisions are observed and interpreted by subordi-

nates (Schaubroeck et al. 2012). The values and beliefs of

corporate executives therefore constitute an important

antecedent to companies formulating and implementing

CSR initiatives (Goodpaster 1983).

In our paper, we aim to contribute to existing research

into the relationship between religiosity and CSR by

addressing the three methodological problems that Weaver

and Agle (2002) mention. First, whereas existing research

tends to conceptualize and measure religiosity as a one-

dimensional construct, often in terms of behavior such as

church attendance (Weaver and Agle 2002), religious

motivation (Clark and Dawson 1996), or cognitive com-

ponents (Cornwall et al. 1986), we distinguish between

several aspects of religiosity. Most researchers do agree

that religiosity cannot be conceived as a single, all-com-

passing phenomenon (De Jong et al. 1976). We therefore

define and measure religiosity as a multidimensional con-

cept that considers not only behavioral, but also cognitive

and motivational aspects of religiosity. The central

research question in our article is therefore: do different

aspects of religiosity have different effects on CSR?

The second contribution is that we not only measure

executives’ attitude to CSR, but also their CSR behavior. As

demonstrated by Weaver and Agle (2002), most researchers

focus on attitudinal measures of business ethics. For exam-

ple, Ramasamy et al. (2010) studied the influence of religi-

osity on CSR support among consumers, Ibrahim et al.

(2008) studied the relationship between religiousness and

CSR orientation, Parboteeah et al. (2009b) studied the

influence of religiosity on work values, and Parboteeah et al.

(2009a) studied the relationship between religion and views

of work. Because attitudinal measures in particular may

suffer from social desirability bias, we also measure the CSR

behavior of executives. It is important to draw a distinction

between the influence of religiosity on attitudes towards CSR

and CSR behavior, not only because of social desirability

bias, but also because research shows that religiosity is a

strong predictor of attitudes, but not necessarily of behavior

(Batson and Flory 1990; Batson et al. 1999; Hood et al.

2009). Findings like those of Brammer et al. (2007) that

religiosity may play a significant role in shaping individual

perceptions of CSR therefore do not answer the question

whether religiosity also affects CSR behavior. We will use

the theory of planned behavior of Ajzen (1991) to clarify this

distinction between attitude and behavior. This theory opens

a new avenue in research into religiosity and CSR by

allowing the possibility that CSR attitude mediates the

influence of religiosity on CSR behavior. The second

research question that we focus on is therefore: How does

religiosity influence CSR attitude and CSR behavior and

how do these influences interrelate; does CSR attitude

mediate the influence of religiosity on CSR behavior?

Third, this paper contributes to existing literature by

collecting and analyzing a large data set consisting of 473

questionnaires from practicing executives. We focus on

executives because of their level of autonomy (Buchholtz

et al. 1999; Hambrick and Mason 1984; Lerner and Fryxell

1994; Werbel and Carter 2002). This methodology differs

from most other studies in this field that use samples

consisting of undergraduate or MBA students (e.g., An-

gelidis and Ibrahim 2004; Conroy and Emerson 2004;

Kennedy and Lawton 1998). As Loe et al. (2000) argue, the

use of industry samples enhances the validity of research

findings and increases the likelihood that they will receive

serious consideration by practitioners. The use of a sample

of executives enabled us to ask the respondents about their

perception of their CSR behavior. Using a sample of stu-

dents would have yielded substantially less reliable data,

since students cannot evaluate their actual CSR behavior.

They could only make hypothetical projections of CSR had

they occupied the position of an executive.

The objective of this paper is thus to create more insight

into the complex relationship between religiosity and CSR.

Understanding this relationship is important for a number

of reasons. First, as governmental institutions face serious

and structural difficulties in addressing social and ecolog-

ical issues, there is a strong interest in CSR for realizing

public goals. But although the interest in CSR may be

impressive, when it comes to the actual realization of CSR

in practice, there seems to be a large gap (European

Commission 2001; Porter and Kramer 2011). For govern-

mental institutions, but also for (religious-based) employ-

ers’ organizations and NGOs that try to promote CSR, it is

important to know what arguments are likely to reach the

heart of the relevant decision-making processes of execu-

tives. Understanding the role of religiosity in this may be

helpful in deciding which interventions and instruments

would be effective. As Ramasamy et al. (2010) argue, CSR

strategies need to be fitted with the value systems under-

lying those strategies in order to be effective. Likewise, it

may be helpful for educational institutions like business

schools and churches to understand the relationship

between religion and CSR in order to develop more

effective programs.

Second, for religious executives themselves it is

important to know whether and in what manner their reli-

gion influences CSR. Generally spoken, most practitioners

recognize that it is imperative to understand the prominent

role of religion as it affects organizational behavior (Cullen

and Parboteeah 2008). The influence of religiosity on CSR

can be inspiring as well as a source of tension (Graafland

et al. 2006). On the one hand, religiosity may inspire

executives to put into practice religious values that corre-

spond with CSR values, such as stewardship, charity,

clemency, and righteousness. On the other hand, religious

438 C. Mazereeuw-van der Duijn Schouten et al.

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values such as solidarity among believers may not be in

accord with CSR values, resulting in dilemmas and con-

flicts of conscience. Increasing insight into the relationship

between executives’ religiosity and (socially responsible)

business conduct, may contribute to the psychological

wellbeing of the executive (Bird 1996), but may also

enhance the organizational performance (Barnett and

Schubert 2002; Giacalone and Jurkiewicz 2003; Viswesv-

aran and Deshpande 1996).

The structure of this paper is as follows. The next sec-

tion presents the theoretical framework and the research

questions underlying the analysis of the relationship

between religiosity and CSR. The third section describes

the research sample and methodology. The fourth section

presents the findings of our empirical research. The final

section summarizes and discusses the main conclusions

with respect to the relationship between religiosity and

CSR.

Religiosity and CSR: Theory, Definitions and Research

Questions

Studies of the relationship between religion and managerial

behavior can be segregated into four major lines of inquiry

(Weaver and Agle 2002): first, inquiries addressing the

legal and ethical aspects of the expression or suppression of

religion in organizations; second, explicitly normative

works applying religious principles to issues of business

ethics; third, analyses of religious institutions that invoke

elements of organizational sociology; and fourth, research

into the relationship between religion and categories of

economic activity. Whereas the first three lines are pri-

marily of interest to lawyers, theologians, philosophers and

sociologists, respectively, we follow the fourth line of

inquiry, working within the field of the psychology of

religion. Within this field, many studies have been per-

formed to examine the relationship between religiosity and

a wide range of economically important pro-social behav-

iors, such as altruistic behavior (Saroglou et al. 2005), tax

morale (Torgler 2006), economic welfare (Heath et al.

1995; Lipford and Tollison 2003), and education (Brown

and Taylor 2007).

Theoretical Background: Theory of Planned Behavior

Research on the relationship between religion and pro-

social behavior shows that the relationship between reli-

giosity and pro-social behavior is complicated. On the one

hand, research has shown that religiosity influences pro-

social attitudes. For example, a study by McNichols and

Zimmerer (1985) shows significant relationships between

religious beliefs and negative attitudes towards certain

unacceptable behavior. Likewise, Kennedy and Lawton

(1998) found a negative relationship between religiosity

and willingness to engage in unethical behavior, and Vitell

et al. (2005, 2006, 2007) found more religiously oriented

individuals more likely to view questionable consumer

behaviors as wrong and vice versa. On the other hand,

although religiosity is generally strongly associated with

moral attitudes, the relationship between religion and

actual pro-social behavior is much weaker. For example,

whereas religious people report positive planned helping

behavior, these reports seem rather unrelated to spontane-

ous helping behaviors (Hansen et al. 1995). Ji et al. (2006)

found that religiosity is associated with a great discrepancy

between altruistic beliefs and actual altruistic behavior.

This ‘attitude versus behavior gap’ with respect to religion

is the synthesis of many studies, as outlined in various

textbooks of the psychology of religion (Batson and Flory

1990; Batson et al. 1999; Hood et al. 2009).

The relationship between attitudes and behavior can be

explained by the theory of planned behavior, developed by

Fishbein and Ajzen (1974, 1975) and Ajzen and Fishbein

(2005). Following this theory of planned behavior, attitudes

may be good predictors of behavioral patterns under certain

conditions. The theory of planned behavior assumes that

intention is the immediate antecedent of actual behavior

and that intention, in turn, is influenced by attitude toward

the behavior. The attitude toward the behavior is a function

of underlying behavioral beliefs. Behavioral beliefs are an

individual’s beliefs about consequences of particular

behavior. These beliefs may follow from an individual’s

religiosity and values. Thus, religion is one of the back-

ground factors that may influence executives’ attitude and

contribution to CSR.

An important condition for the relationship between

attitudes and behavior is the so-called principle of com-

patibility: the measure of attitude has to match the measure

of the behavior in terms of the level of generality or

specificity. Ajzen and Fishbein (2005) observe that atti-

tudes may show a strong relationship with actual behavior

if attitudes and behavior both comprise an aggregate set of

behaviors. For example, in a study of religiosity (Fishbein

and Ajzen 1974) several instruments were used to assess

attitudes towards religion, and participants were asked to

indicate whether they did or did not perform each of a set

of 100 behaviors in this domain. Whereas the general

attitudes were typically poor predictors of individual

behaviors, they showed strong correlations with an aggre-

gate measure across all 100 behaviors, a measure designed

to reflect the general pattern of religiosity. We will take this

principle into account in our development of measures of

CSR attitudes and behaviors.

Religiosity, CSR Attitudes, and CSR Behavior 439

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Definitions

Our most important independent variable is religiosity,

which should not be confused with spirituality.1 Religiosity

can be defined as an orienting worldview that is expressed

in beliefs, narratives, symbols, and practices of worship; it

is an inner experience of the individual, connects individ-

uals with each other and orients their actions (Peterson

2001). Research on the relationship between religiosity and

business conduct is complicated by various interpretations

of the meaning of religiosity (Culliton 1949; Weaver and

Agle 2002). Existing research tends to conceptualize and

measure religiosity in terms of affiliation (Barro 1999;

Brown and Taylor 2007), church membership (Lipford and

Tollison 2003), behavioral terms such as church attendance

(Agle and Van Buren 1999), religious motivation (Clark

and Dawson 1996), or general indications of religious

commitments (Albaum and Peterson 2006). Nevertheless,

most researchers agree that religiosity cannot be conceived

as a single, all-compassing phenomenon (De Jong et al.

1976). In the elaboration of the concept of religiosity, we

follow Cornwall et al. (1986), considering religiosity as a

complex phenomenon consisting of cognitive, affective,

and behavioral components.

The cognitive component of religiosity is about what

someone believes. The conception of God and human

beings, and the view on the final destination of human

beings in a religious system have major ethical implica-

tions (Thakur 1969). For example, if people believe that

heaven can be ‘earned’ by acting in accordance with the

principles prescribed by their religion, they will honor

these principles to the best of their ability, in order to earn

the reward of eternal life (Voert 1994). The affective

component encompasses feelings towards religious beings,

objects, or institutions. It reflects the degree to which

people are committed to their religion (Parboteeah et al.

2007). Weaver and Agle (2002) stress the importance of

the motivational orientation of adherents towards their

religion. In literature, two (not mutually exclusive) types of

religious motivation are distinguished. When people are

intrinsically oriented towards their religiosity, this means

their religiosity is a meaning-endowing framework in terms

of which all of their life is understood. This contrasts with

an extrinsic religious orientation where religiousness is

informed by social convention and comfort, a self-serving

instrumental approach shaped to suit oneself (Donahue

1985). If an individual is intrinsically motivated (i.e., treats

religious belief as an end in itself), the religious convic-

tions and norms are more likely to be translated into con-

duct. The behavioral component of religiosity is the

manifestation of being religious through activities such as

church attendance, praying in private, and participating in

activities of the religious community (Cornwall et al.

1986). The intensity of religious behavior reinforces the

influence of religious belief on business behavior. Partici-

pation in a religious community fulfills an important role in

translating religious belief into practice. Other religious

activities, such as private prayer and religious study, can

also affirm and reinforce expectations with respect to the

behavior of believers.

Ajzen’s theory of planned behavior assumes that reli-

gion is one of the background factors that may influence

executives’ attitude. Ajzen (1991) defines attitude as the

degree to which a person has a favorable or unfavorable

evaluation or appraisal of the behavior in question. Attitude

can stem from emotional reactions to an object, can be

based on one’s past behaviors and experiences with the

object, or can be based on some combination of these

potential sources of evaluative information (Fazio 2007).

The attitude to CSR is often elaborated in terms of four

types of responsibilities for the corporation (Angelidis and

Ibrahim 2004; Ibrahim et al. 2008): the economic respon-

sibility to be profitable; the legal responsibility to abide by

the laws of society; the ethical responsibility to do what is

right; and the philanthropic responsibility to contribute to

various kinds of social purposes. The first type of respon-

sibility views corporations primarily as wealth creating

organizations with a responsibility to maximize profits. The

second type of responsibility requires companies to comply

with the legal framework by obeying all applicable laws

and regulations. The third type of responsibility holds that

laws are important but not adequate and that companies

therefore also have an ethical responsibility to embrace

those activities that are expected by society. The fourth

type of responsibility refers to the business’s desire to

engage in social activities that are not required by law and

not generally expected of business in an ethical sense

(Carroll and Buchholtz 2003).

CSR behavior refers to the behavioral aspects of CSR.2

The common idea put forward in various definitions of

CSR is that companies should conduct their business in a

1 It is important to make a distinction between spirituality and

religiosity. Spirituality is concerned with qualities of the human spirit,

including positive psychological concepts, such as love and compas-

sion, patience, tolerance, forgiveness, contentment, personal respon-

sibility, and a sense of harmony with one’s environment (Fry et al.

2011). Religiosity is concerned with a system of beliefs, feelings and

behaviours such as prayers, rites and ceremonies (Fry and Slocum

2008; Cornwall et al. 1986). Fry and Slocum (2008) state that

translating religion into workplace spirituality can foster zealotry at

the expense of organizational goals, offend constituents and custom-

ers, and decrease morale and employee well being.

2 In literature, the concept of corporate social performance (CSP) is

often used for behavioral aspects of CSR in terms of the observed

CSR policies, processes and outcomes of a company’s activities

(Crane et al. 2008), whereas the definitions of CSR also depend on

motivation, meaning that it is the intent of an activity that counts.

440 C. Mazereeuw-van der Duijn Schouten et al.

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manner that demonstrates consideration for the broader

social environment in order to serve the needs of society

constructively (Bakker et al. 2005). This implies that CSR

is not restricted to a small set of (philanthropic) activities,

but encompasses the core business of a company. Another

aspect of CSR is the relationship of the company with its

stakeholders and society at large. In operationalizing CSR

behavior, we will therefore use various behavioral mea-

sures with respect to the attendance of interests of the

stakeholders of the company, such as employees, suppliers,

customers, competitors, the government, and society at

large.

The focus of CSR research is usually on the corporation.

The focus of our research, however, is on the religiosity of

the executive and hence on the individual attitude to CSR

and individual CSR behavior. In order to be socially

responsible organizations, corporations should model their

decision-making on the responsible individual (Goodpaster

1983). Individuals within the company are essential in

realizing CSR. The behavior of individual executives

therefore forms the focus of our research. This behavior

may also influence corporate CSR as executives influence

corporate strategy and policy as well as subordinates’

behaviors. However, the relationship between individual

CSR behavior and the CSR of the company is very com-

plex, requiring us also to take into account the factors that

determine the effectiveness of the executive in changing

the organization, which are highly context-dependent. This

would require a more elaborated framework, which is

beyond the scope of this paper. We therefore restrict our

research to the individual contribution of executives to

CSR.

Research Questions

Based on the conceptual definitions presented above, we

formulate three research questions:

(1) How do various aspects of executives’ religiosity

affect their attitudes towards CSR?

(2) How do executives’ attitudes towards CSR influence

their CSR behavior?

(3) Do executives’ attitudes mediate the influence of

various aspects of their religiosity on CSR behavior or

does their religiosity also exert a direct influence on

their CSR behavior?

Regarding the first research question, executives’ reli-

giosity may influence their attitude towards CSR in two

ways. First, religion is an important source of personal

values (Fry et al. 2011; Fry and Slocum 2008). Values

serve as a basis for the formation of attitudes (Ajzen and

Fishbein 1980; Dickson and Littrell 1996; Hill 1990;

Manzer and Miller 1978). Second, religion provides

adherents with particular principles by which to live (Dodd

and Seaman 1998). For example, the Christian faith calls

upon people to love their neighbors, in business as well as

in everyday life. This is what it means ‘‘to do justice, to

love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God’’ (Micah

6: 8; Chewning et al. 1990).

As argued by Ajzen and Fishbein (2005), attitudes may

show a strong relationship with actual behavior. Following

their theory of planned behavior, executives’ attitudes

towards CSR may affect their CSR behavior. On the other

hand, as discussed above, empirical studies do not fully

support the assumed relationship between attitudes and

behavior. Often empirical studies show the ‘attitude versus

behavior gap’ (Batson and Flory 1990; Batson et al. 1999;

Hood et al. 2009). These results may follow from a vio-

lation of the principle of compatibility. Taking into account

this important condition, we will explore whether execu-

tives’ attitudes to CSR influence their CSR behavior.

According to the theory of planned behavior, religiosity

may thus influence executives’ CSR behavior indirectly

through CSR attitudes. However, in addition to this indirect

influence, religion may also directly affect behavior,

because it also entails specific reinforcements and punish-

ments to foster moral behavior (Pichon et al. 2007). It

includes prescriptions pertaining to economic life and sus-

tainable development that stimulate executives to behave in

a socially responsible manner. For example, the Bible

proclaims tenets denoting fairness, equality, and honesty,

such as: ‘‘You shall not falsify measures of length, weight,

or capacity. You shall have an honest balance, honest

weights, an honest ephah, and an honest hin’’ (Leviticus 19:

35–36; Dorff 1997). Religion also often highlights narra-

tives of faithful persons responding to particular situations

in specific ways (e.g., the Good Samaritan), providing

scripts delineating appropriate responses to ethical issues

(Weaver and Agle 2002). Because these prescriptions,

examples, reinforcements, and punishments are much more

concrete compared to the values and principles that influ-

ence executives’ attitude to CSR, there may also be a direct

impact of executives’ religiosity on their CSR behavior,

without intervention by executives’ attitudes. This is also

acknowledged by Weaver and Agle (2002, p. 84) who

conclude, ‘‘… there can be a direct relationship of religious

beliefs and knowledge to ethical behavior’’. Taking this

possibility into account, we also investigate our third

research question.

Method

This section describes the research sample and methodol-

ogy we used to empirically examine the relationship

between religiosity and CSR. First, we describe the sample

Religiosity, CSR Attitudes, and CSR Behavior 441

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of this research. In the second part of this section we

describe the development and content of the questionnaire.

Research Sample

We developed a questionnaire to collect empirical data in

order to examine the research questions. The question-

naires were sent to randomly chosen executive members of

the three largest, non-sector specific Dutch employers’

organizations. Taking into account Guiso et al.’s (2003)

observation that cross-country research about religiosity

and business ethics is confounded by differences in other

institutional factors, this empirical study is limited to the

Netherlands, minimizing cultural and institutional differ-

ences within the sample. According to Renneboog and

Spaenjers (2009), the Netherlands is an interesting country

for examining the relationship between religiosity and

individual decision-making because there is a considerable

variety in types of religious beliefs. Moreover, the dis-

tinction between religious and non-religious people is not

as blurred as in other countries because the people in the

Netherlands who call themselves religious are usually

committed and practicing believers (Halman et al. 2005).

An implication of this geographical limitation is the fact

that most of the respondents of the questionnaire either are

Christian believers (of various types of Christianity) or

state that they are not religious at all.

Of the 2,500 distributed questionnaires, 473 were com-

pleted and returned, resulting in a response rate of 19 %.

The average age of the executives in the sample was

49 years (SD = 9.2 years); 95 % of the respondents were

male. The respondents represented different types of

industry: construction (12 %), financial services (15 %),

manufacturing (15 %), wholesale and retail trade (15 %),

health care (6 %), and others (36 %). The size of the

organizations showed great diversity: 33 % were very

small (1–10 employees), 21 % small (11–50 employees),

13 % medium (51–100 employees), 17 % large (101–500

employees), and 15 % very large (over 500 employees).

Many respondents held very senior positions in their

organization: 38 % were director-owners, 19 % were

CEOs, and 43 % held other senior positions. Of the

respondents, 18 % called themselves Roman Catholic,

48 % Protestant, 14 % Evangelical, and 9 % religious in

other terms. Another 11 % of the respondents indicated

that they were not religious.3

We tested for non-response bias by comparing early and

late respondents. As Armstrong and Overton (1977) argue,

late respondents are representative of non-respondents. We

found no significant difference between early and late

respondents on CSR (p = .17), or religious characteristics

such as intrinsic religious motivation (p = .22), and the

intensity of religious activities (p = .69).

Questionnaire

In order to develop a questionnaire covering the different

aspects of religiosity and CSR, we first conducted 20 in-

depth, face-to-face interviews. The aim of the interviews

was twofold. On the one hand, it allowed us to explore the

topic of research in practice. The interviews offered rich

qualitative insight into the role of religiosity in business for

the executives interviewed (Graafland et al. 2006, 2007;

Graafland and Mazereeuw-van der Duijn Schouten 2007).

On the other hand, the interviews offered the opportunity to

explore measures, scales, and terms to be used to measure

CSR as well as religiosity. If the interviewees did not

understand the questions or measures used during the

interviews, we had the opportunity to look for other for-

mulations for the same concept with the input of the in-

terviewees. In this way, we avoided vague questions that

could lead to misinterpretation by the respondents. Finally,

after developing the questionnaire, we pretested it with 12

executives.

We collected data by means of a single survey instru-

ment and a single respondent per questionnaire. To address

the potential concerns of common method bias and com-

mon source bias, we used several procedural remedies

(Podsakoff et al. 2003). We protected respondents’ privacy

by assuring them complete anonymity in a cover letter. We

reduced item ambiguity by avoiding vague concepts,

keeping the questions simple, and pretesting the survey

with executives. Thirdly, we separated scale items. By

separating scale items for CSR and religiosity, we reduced

the likelihood of respondents guessing the relationship

between the dependent and the independent variables and

consciously matching their responses to the different

measures (Parkhe 1993). Moreover, we carried out Har-

man’s one-factor test. If there is a substantial amount of

3 The main religion within the Netherlands, as well as in the world, is

Christianity. This is reflected by our research sample consisting of

80% Christians, although the percentage of Protestants is relatively

high [48%, while the other 32% Christians within the sample are

either Roman Catholic (18%) or Evangelical (14%)]. This is due to

the fact that two of the three employers’ organizations in our research

have a Protestant identity, thereby attracting Protestant members. The

Footnote 3 continued

percentage of non-religious executives in our research sample is

relatively low (11% while this is 40% for the Netherlands). The

Christian identity of the employers’ organizations has therefore led to

a bias in the research sample. This was intentional, because these

organizations were among the three largest non-sector specific

employers’ organizations within the Netherlands, and because the

subject of our research, the relationship between religiosity and CSR,

is better served by analyzing a religious sample than a non-religious

sample.

442 C. Mazereeuw-van der Duijn Schouten et al.

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common method bias in data, a single or general factor that

accounts for most of the variance will emerge if all the

variables are entered together (Podsakoff et al. 2003). An

unrotated principal component analysis on all the variables

revealed 15 factors with eigenvalues greater than 1.0,

which together accounted for 68 % of the total variance.

The largest factor did not account for a majority of the

variance (19.8 %). The pattern of results is also not con-

sistent with common method effects. Had the relationships

observed in this study been a function of common method

bias, we would have found significant structural links

among all of the relations posited (Bacharach et al. 2005).

The diversity of the empirical results thus suggests that it is

unlikely that our findings can be attributed to method

variance.

Another consideration to take into account when using

questionnaires is social desirability response bias (Trevino

and Weaver 2003). In order to reduce the potential for this

bias, we explained to the respondents in a cover letter that

the questionnaire was confidential and to be used for

research purposes only. The identity of the participants

would remain anonymous. The executives who filled in the

questionnaire thus had little reason to present a more

favorable picture of themselves than they knew was the

case. Several studies show that self-reported behavior and

actual behavior are strongly correlated (see, e.g., Bernard

2000; Fuj et al. 1985; Gatersleben et al. 2002; Warriner

et al. 1984). A final reason to believe that a potential social

desirability response bias will not blur the analysis is that

we found a high variance in the scores of the various

components of CSR. Even if the responses may reflect

some social desirability response bias, the bias is appar-

ently not predominant.

Independent Variable: Religiosity

To measure religiosity, we developed measures for the

cognitive, affective, and behavioral aspects of religiosity.

We measured the cognitive aspect of religiosity by means

of five different questions with respect to the respondents’

conception of God, view on human beings, and expecta-

tions regarding eternity (The Appendix presents all scales

used in the analysis). These questions are based on the

concept of religiosity described in the theory section, and

were developed and analyzed by means of the in-depth

interviews. In this process they proved to be clear to the

respondents and distinctive for the analyses (Graafland

et al. 2006, 2007; Graafland and Mazereeuw-van der Duijn

Schouten 2007). The answers on these questions were

recomputed to the same scale. Since the internal consis-

tency of the answers proved to be good (Cronbach’s alpha

equaled to .81) the answers were taken together to form the

variable ‘cognitive aspect of religiosity’.

The affective component of religiosity was measured by

means of the intrinsic/extrinsic religiousness scale devel-

oped by Allport and Ross (1967) and revised by Gorsuch

and McPherson (1989). The scale consists of 14 statements,

measuring the intrinsic and extrinsic religious orientation

of respondents. The intrinsic measure was created by

averaging the scores on eight statements with respect to the

intrinsic motivation of the respondents towards their reli-

gion. The internal consistency of the intrinsic motivation

was .84. Averaging the scores on six statements regarding

respondents’ extrinsic motivation towards their religion

created the extrinsic measure. The internal consistency of

the extrinsic motivation was .74.

We measured the behavioral aspect of the religiosity of

the respondents by means of five questions about atten-

dance of religious services, participation in other activities

of the religious community, and time spent on private

prayer, work-related prayer, and meditation. Because these

five items strongly correlate with each other, we created

one measure, intensity of religious behavior, based on an

average score of these five questions. The internal consis-

tency of this measure was .91.

In order to control for possible cross-relationships

between the various aspects of religiosity, we conducted a

correlation analysis of the four measures of religiosity.

Table 1 shows a positive, strong, and significant correlation

between the cognitive, intrinsic affective, and behavioral

aspects of religiosity. The extrinsic affective aspect of

religiosity also shows a positive and significant correlation

with the other aspects of religiosity, but these correlations

are only about half as strong as the correlations between the

other variables. This indicates that it is particularly the

intrinsic religious motivation that is highly connected with

cognitive and behavioral aspects of religiosity.

As these strong correlations between the aspects of

religiosity lead to problems of multicollinearity in the

regression analyses (with VIF values over 5.00, thus

exceeding the maximum acceptable value according to

Berenson and Levine (1989) and Hair et al. (1998)) we

Table 1 Means, standard deviations, and correlations of the aspects

of religiosity

Mean SD 1 2 3

1. Cognitive aspect of

religiosity

.67 .27

2. Intrinsic religious

motivation

.74 .16 .77***

3. Extrinsic religious

motivation

.56 .13 .39*** .35***

4. Intensity of religious

behavior

.63 .24 .85*** .86*** .37***

* p \ .05, ** p \ .01, *** p \ .001

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investigated the possibility of constructing one measure,

combining the different aspects of religiosity by conduct-

ing a Principal Component Analysis on the items. The

analysis revealed only one factor with an eigenvalue of

2.86 with item loadings all exceeding the lower limit of .50

(Hair et al. 1998): cognitive aspect of religiosity .91;

intrinsic religious motivation .91; extrinsic religious moti-

vation .56; and intensity of religious activities .94. As the

correlation coefficient and the factor loading of the

extrinsic religious motivation is much lower compared to

the other aspects of religiosity, we created a new measure

of religiosity for further analysis, consisting of the average

score of cognitive aspects of religiosity, intrinsic religious

motivation, and the intensity of religious activities. The

Cronbach’s alpha of this new measure was .92. As this

measure of religiosity combines the cognitive and behav-

ioral components of religiosity with intrinsic religious

motivation, we will call this measure ‘intrinsic religiosity’.

We will also use extrinsic religious motivation as a mea-

sure of religiosity in further analyses.

Attitudes Towards CSR

To measure attitudes towards CSR as a financial, legal,

ethical, and philanthropic responsibility, respectively, we

used a scale developed by Aupperle et al. (1985). In par-

ticular, we asked the respondents to allocate ten points to

each of five sets of four statements measuring the impor-

tance the respondents attribute to each of the four CSR

responsibilities. The statements were randomly ordered.

We used this forced-choice methodology to minimize

social desirability response bias (Aupperle et al. 1985). We

constructed four reduced scale items for financial, legal,

ethical, and philanthropic orientation and subjected the

reduced-scale items to a confirmatory factor analysis. The

internal consistency of the factors was equal to .80 for the

financial orientation, .70 for the legal orientation, .65 for

the ethical orientation, and .74 for the philanthropic ori-

entation. These scores are very satisfying if we use the

lower limit of .60, following De Heus et al. (1995).

CSR Behavior

We measured the CSR behavior of the executives on a

14-point scale, based on a scale developed by Graafland

et al. (2004) and applied by Graafland and Van der Ven

(2006). We omitted all items referring to organizational

issues, such as ethical reporting, ISO certification, external

audits, and ethics training, because these aspects do not

cover the personal contribution of an executive. We also

omitted the items referring to shareholder issues, because

our sample consists mainly of small and medium sized

companies, where in many cases the only shareholder is the

owner. The remaining fourteen items all relate to the per-

sonal contribution of the executive with respect to CSR.

We asked the respondents how often they personally con-

tribute more than required by law within their organization

with respect to each of the different items.

As argued before, an important condition for the rela-

tionship between attitudes and behavior is the so-called

principle of compatibility: the measure of attitude has to

match the measure of the behavior in terms of the level of

generality or specificity. Because the questions regarding

CSR behavior are far more specific than the questions

regarding attitudes towards CSR, we reduced the set of

behavioral items to a smaller set of more reliable and less

specific measures. To that end, we conducted a Principal

Component Analysis with a varimax rotation on the items.

As shown in Table 2, the analysis revealed five factors with

eigenvalues greater than one. Within these factors, we

retained individual items if its loading was greater than .50.

Loadings of .50 or greater are considered very significant

(Hair et al. 1998). Items were eliminated if they did not load

on any factor with a value of .50 or greater, or if they had

cross-loadings on two or more factors. Based on the results,

we created five measures for the behavioral component of

CSR: ‘internal stakeholders’ (the average score of the

statements with respect to employee safety, employee

training, and the prevention of abuses), ‘external stake-

holders’ (the average score of the statements with respect to

the relationship with customers, suppliers, and competitors),

‘diversity’ (the average score of the statements with respect

to offering equal opportunities to women and ethnic minor-

ities), ‘natural environment’ (the average score of the state-

ments with respect to the reduction of environmental impacts

and increasing employee awareness of environmental sus-

tainability), and ‘charity’ (the average score of the state-

ments with respect to the support of local projects and

projects in the developing world). We did not create a new

measure based on the statement on the reintegration of the

disabled, because this measure loaded on two factors and

neither of these loadings was greater than .50.

We subjected the reduced-scale items to a confirmatory

factor analysis. The internal consistency of the factors was

equal to .69 for internal stakeholders, .80 for external

stakeholders, .78 for diversity, .89 for the natural envi-

ronment, and .59 for charity. Most scores are very

acceptable if we take a lower limit of .60 (Cohen et al.

2003; De Heus et al. 1995). The rather low score of charity

may be due to the fact that there are only two items within

this factor (Peterson 1994). According to Schmitt (1996)

this low reliability may not be a major impediment to its

use if there is meaningful content coverage. Because both

items cover the same content, but with a different geo-

graphical scope, we decided to use this factor in the further

analysis. If we consider CSR behavior as one variable

444 C. Mazereeuw-van der Duijn Schouten et al.

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based on the 14 items of the CSR scale, Cronbach’s Alpha

is equal to .84, which is also very satisfying.

Control Variables

In the analysis of the relationship between religiosity and

CSR, we controlled for several variables that might influence

executives’ CSR. Control variables used in the analysis are

age, gender, income, position, size of the organization, and

type of industry. Existing literature suggests that younger

executives are more likely to believe that good business

ethics is positively related to successful business outcomes

(Luthar et al. 1997). Existing empirical research also sug-

gests females to show a significantly more favorable attitude

towards ethical behaviors than males (Albaum and Peterson

2006; Luthar et al. 1997; Ruegger and King 1992).

Many empirical studies have found a positive relationship

between CSR and profitability (e.g., Orlitzky et al. 2003;

Russo and Fouts 1997; Waddock and Graves 1997), but

profitability may also influence executives’ CSR. If a com-

pany’s profitability is high, it will be easier to invest in CSR,

even if the profitability of these activities is not certain.

Because of the focus on individual executives, we did not

control for company profitability, but we did control for the

executives’ income. To measure income, we asked the

respondents to categorize their gross annual income, using six

categories. In order to prevent potential endogeneity of income

with respect to CSR, we used an instrumental variable. As

instruments we used the age of the respondent, squared age, the

function of the respondent, and the number of subordinates.

When it comes to the position of the respondents, we

focused on executives because of their level of autonomy.

In most firms, the chief executive has the most power

(Hambrick and Mason 1984). Consequently, they have a

high level of discretionary authority to determine the social

strategy of their firm (Buchholtz et al. 1999). Nevertheless,

it may be different if someone operates as an owner or as a

representative of the owners. In the analysis, we distinguish

between three types of functions: director-owner, CEO, and

other (senior) functions.

CSR has traditionally been associated with large com-

panies (Jenkins 2006). As larger firms tend to have a bigger

social impact, it seems fair that the duty to be socially

responsible also falls on them, rather than on small firms

(Cowen et al. 1987). Although many researchers found a

positive effect of company size on CSR participation,

Madden et al. (2006), suggest that many smaller firms tend

to be involved in CSR activities, in particular through

donations and giving. In the analysis, we distinguish small

(0–50 employees) and large ([51 employees) companies.

Table 2 Results of exploratory

principal component analysis

with varimax rotation

Factor

1 2 3 4 5

Internal

stakeholders

External

stakeholders

Diversity Natural

environment

Charity

Employee safety .55 -.01 .05 .19 -.03

Employee training .67 -.01 .05 -.06 .00

Prevent abuses .60 .06 .03 .03 .07

Respectful relationship with suppliers -.04 .81 .05 .03 .03

Respectful relationship with customers .13 .81 -.13 -.02 .01

Respectful relationship with competitors -.07 .64 .11 .03 .00

Offering equal opportunities to

immigrants

.03 .01 .88 .01 -.03

Offering equal opportunities to women .16 .13 .60 .01 -.03

Increasing employee attention to

environment

.14 .06 -.01 .66 .01

Reducing pollution within the business

chain

-.04 -.02 .04 .90 -.02

Reducing pollution of the own company -.00 -.03 .03 .96 .06

Reintegration of disabled people .02 -.04 .30 .09 .29

Financial support of local projects .12 .04 -.06 -.00 .66

Financial support of third world projects -.07 .02 .01 -.01 .71

Initial eigenvalue 1.01 1.66 1.43 4.65 1.25

Proportion of total variance 3.91 9.33 7.28 30.50 5.66

Cumulative explained variance 3.91 13.24 20.52 51.02 56.68

Cronbach’s alpha reliability .69 .80 .78 .89 .59

Religiosity, CSR Attitudes, and CSR Behavior 445

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The last control variable focuses on the industry in

which the respondents operate. The provision of CSR will

vary across industries (McWilliams and Siegel 2001).

Brønn and Vidaver-Cohen (2009) found significant dif-

ferences in social initiative motives between industries. In

the analysis, we distinguish between five industries: man-

ufacturing, construction, trade, financial services, and other

sectors.

Results

In this section, we present the analysis of the relationship

between religiosity and CSR. First, we present the descrip-

tive statistics of the variables. Next, we present regression

analyses of the relationships between religiosity, CSR atti-

tudes, and CSR behavior. In order to test the mediating role

of CSR attitudes in the relationship between religiosity and

CSR, we followed Zhao et al. (2010). Existing researches

mostly use the method described by Baron and Kenny

(1986). They propose to estimate three regression equations:

regressing the mediators (CSR attitudes) on the independent

variables (religiosity); regressing the dependent variables

(CSR behavior) on the independent variable (religiosity)

only; and regressing the dependent variables (CSR behavior)

on both the independent variable (religiosity) and on the

mediators (CSR attitudes). Zhao et al. (2010) show that the

second type of regression equation is superfluous, because in

case of competitive mediation effects or opposite signs of

direct and indirect effects, one could easily fail to observe a

mediating effect. Following the advice of Zhao et al. (2010),

we will use the bootstrap estimation technique provided by

Preacher and Hayes (2008) to provide reliable estimates of

the significance of the mediation paths hypothesized in our

framework.4

Descriptive Statistics

Table 3 presents the means and standard deviations for all

variables included in the analysis. If we carry out a cor-

relation analysis between all these variables, the results

show significant correlations between some independent

variables. In most cases this concerns control variables.

This poses no problem for testing our hypotheses, because

it is the function of control variables to correct for any

composition effects that may be causing any such corre-

lations. Furthermore, as shown in Table 3, there is some

multicollinearity between intrinsic religiosity and the atti-

tudinal variables. This is a result one would only expect if

religiosity affects the attitudinal variables. In our empirical

analysis, we will further explore these relationships.

Finally, we also find some multicollinearity between the

attitudinal variables. Since this may bias the test statistics

of the influences of these variables on CSR behavior, we

will use the variance inflation factor (VIF) to test whether

these correlations bias our findings.

Religiosity and the Attitude Towards CSR

Based on our first research question, we analyze whether

intrinsic religiosity and extrinsic religious orientation have a

significant influence on executives’ attitude towards CSR as

a financial, legal, ethical, and philanthropic responsibility,

respectively. Table 4 reports the results of the regression

analyses that test these relations. The dependent variables

consist of the four different attitudes to CSR and the inde-

pendent variables comprise intrinsic religiosity, extrinsic

religious orientation, and various control variables.

The results confirm that intrinsic religiosity influences

executives’ attitude towards CSR. Nevertheless, this

influence is complicated as it imposes opposing influences

on the different attitudes towards CSR. Whereas it has a

negative influence on executives’ attitude towards CSR as

a financial responsibility, it imposes a positive influence on

executives’ attitude towards CSR as an ethical responsi-

bility. The extrinsic religious orientation has a positive

influence on executives’ attitude towards CSR as a phil-

anthropic responsibility. None of the religious variables has

a significant influence on executives’ attitude towards CSR

as a legal responsibility.

Religiosity, Attitude Towards CSR and CSR Behavior

In order to analyze research questions 2 and 3, we next

performed regression analysis on the relationship between

religiosity, CSR attitude, and CSR behavior, and tested

whether CSR attitude was a mediator in the relationship

between religiosity and CSR behavior. Since the CSR

attitudes are measured by the Aupperle scale, the four

attitudes are mutually dependent and cannot be included

together in the regression analysis. As Table 4 shows that

religiosity does not influence legal attitude, we use this

variable as the reference variable and only include the

financial, ethical, and philanthropic attitude in further

analyses. This means that the influence of these attitudes

should be interpreted in relation to the legal attitude.

Table 5 reports the results of the regression models

regressing CSR behavior on intrinsic religiosity, extrinsic

religious orientation, financial attitude, ethical attitude, and

philanthropic attitude. In Model 5, CSR behavior is

4 Zhao et al. (2010) emphasize the condition that the mediator

variable has to be distinct from the dependent and independent

variables. In our model, this requirement has been met as CSR

attitude is clearly different from religiosity and CSR behavior as has

been shown by the definition and operationalization of these

variables.

446 C. Mazereeuw-van der Duijn Schouten et al.

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employed as a general concept encompassing all 14 items

of the CSR scale. In Models 6 to 10 the five specific types

of CSR behavior as identified by the factor analysis are the

dependent variables. Because of the possibility of multi-

collinearity effects, we also measured the VIF. In Models 5

to 10 the highest value of the VIF is .94. This is well below

the limit of 5.00 (Hair et al. 1998). This shows that mul-

ticollinearity between the included attitudinal variables

does not influence the outcomes of the regression analysis

presented in Table 5.

The results presented in Table 5 show that executives’

attitudes towards CSR influence their CSR behavior. For some

types of behavior, we also find different direct influence of

executives’ intrinsic religiosity on their CSR behavior.

Model 5 shows that attitudes to CSR as a financial and

philanthropic responsibility contribute to CSR behavior in

Table 3 Descriptive statistics and correlation coefficients

Mean SD 1 1a 1b 1c 1d 1e 2a 2b 3 4

1 3.46 .52

1a 3.83 .67 .71**

1b 4.09 .68 .60** .29**

1c 3.15 1.04 .70** .47** .32**

1d 3.28 .91 .72** .45** .32** .40**

1e 2.93 .87 .48** .21** .21** .18** .17**

2a .69 .20 -.12* -.18** .07 -.28** -.11* .19**

2b .56 .13 .05 .03 .07 -.05 .03 .14** .40**

3 2.72 1.10 .04 .14** -.04 .03 .14** -.21** -.27** -.12*

4 2.05 .76 -.18** -.11* -.12* -.09 -.09 -.15** .04 .05 -.18**

5 3.44 .80 -.03 -.09 .10* -.03 -.12* .04 .15** .01 -.49** -.30**

6 1.70 .84 .13** -.01 .09 .09 .00 .35** .14* .16** -.48** -.26**

7 49.26 9.24 .16** .13** .07 .17** .18** .06 -.14** .10* .03 -.05

8 .95 .22 -.07 -.04 -.06 -.15** .02 -.01 .03 -.05 .09 -.03

9 2.69 .67 .09 .10* -.11* .10* .00 .02 -.34** -.16** .10* .03

10a .42 .50 .10* .02 .07 -.02 .10* .16** .25** .13* .08 -.12*

10b .19 .39 .15* .09* .09 .08 .12** .00 -.13** -.04 .01 .03

11 .54 .50 -.01 -.09 .18** -.09* .04 .06 .37** .14** -.14* -.00

12a .15 .36 .04 .08 -.13** .08 .17** -.12* -.16** -.07 .24** .03

12b .12 .33 -.02 -.09 .05 -.15** .10* .03 .07 .05 .10* -.06

12c .15 .35 .09 .04 .09 -.03 .09 .12** .16** .05 .07 -.02

12d .15 .36 -.13** -.05 -.07 -.06 -.17** .03 .04 .01 -.13* .03

5 6 7 8 9 10a 10b 11 12a 12b 12c

6 -.09

7 -.04 .08

8 -.03 -.03 .11*

9 -.06 -.03 -.16** .04

10a .02 .05 .01 .11* -.09

10b .02 -.02 .07 .07 .03 -.41**

11 .07 .09 -.06 .01 -.74** .35** -.07

12a -.10* -.24** -.04 -.03 .13** -.08 .05 -.19**

12b .05 -.08 .03 .03 .01 .12** -.06 .00 -.16**

12c -.10 -.03 -.02 .05 -.16** .10* .04 .16** -.18** -.15**

12d .10* .04 -.05 .02 .02 -.03 -.04 -.04 -.18** -.15** -.17**

1 CSR behavior in general, 1a Internal stakeholders, 1b External stakeholders, 1c Diversity, 1d Natural environment, 1e Charity, 2a Intrinsic

religiosity, 2b Extrinsic religious orientation, 3 Attitude towards CSR as a financial responsibility, 4 Attitude towards CSR as a legal respon-

sibility, 5 Attitude towards CSR as an ethical responsibility, 6 Attitude towards CSR as a philanthropic responsibility, 7 Age, 8 Gender, 9

Income, 10a Director owner, 10b CEO, 11 Small organization, 12a Manufacturing, 12b Construction, 12c Trade, 12d Financial services

* p \ .05, ** p \ .01

Religiosity, CSR Attitudes, and CSR Behavior 447

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general, whereas the effect of the attitude to CSR as an

ethical responsibility is not significant. When we consider

the specific types of CSR behavior, we find a positive

influence of the attitude to CSR as a financial responsibility

on CSR behavior regarding internal stakeholders. The

attitude to CSR as an ethical responsibility fosters CSR

behavior towards external stakeholders and charity. The

attitude to CSR as a philanthropic responsibility improves

CSR behavior in the form of charity.

Considering the direct influence of religiosity on CSR

behavior, Models 8 and 10 show that intrinsic religiosity

has a significant negative influence on CSR behavior in the

form of diversity and a significant positive influence on

CSR in the form of charity. We find no significant rela-

tionship between intrinsic religiosity and CSR behavior in

general (Model 5) or CSR behavior regarding internal

stakeholders, external stakeholders, and natural environ-

ment (Models 6, 7, and 9). Extrinsic religious orientation

has no significant influence on any kind of CSR behavior.

Direct and Indirect Effects of Religiosity on CSR

Behavior

Using the bootstrap technique provided by Preacher and

Hayes,5 we establish the significance of the mediation

effects in our model, disentangling the direct and indirect

Table 4 Religiosity and

attitudes to CSR

Unstandardized coefficients are

shown, with standard errors in

parentheses

DR2 from previous model (not

presented in this table)

consisting of dependent variable

and control variables without

independent variable

* p \ .05, ** p \ .01,

*** p \ .001a Dummy variables

Model 1 Model 2 Model 3 Model 4

Attitude towards

CSR as a financial

responsibility

Attitude towards

CSR as a legal

responsibility

Attitude towards

CSR as an ethical

responsibility

Attitude towards

CSR as a philanthropic

responsibility

Independent variables

Intrinsic

religiosity

-1.30*** .38 .65* .14

(.34) (.27) (.29) (.28)

Extrinsic religious

orientation

-.53 .25 -.06 .79*

(.45) (.35) (.37) (.38)

Control variables

Age -.00 .00 -.00 .01

(.01) (.01) (.01) (.01)

Gendera .17 -.09 -.22 -.04

(.26) (.20) (.21) (.21)

Income -.07 .13 .06 .08

(.13) (.11) (.11) (.11)

Director ownera .39** -.24* .00 .04

(.14) (.11) (.12) (.12)

CEOa .11 -.13 .19 .06

(.16) (.12) (.13) (.13)

(Very) Small

organizationa-.25 .15 .10 .09

(.18) (.14) (.16) (.15)

Manufacturinga .65*** .12 -.17 -.63***

(.18) (.14) (.15) (.15)

Constructiona .43* -.17 .24 -.40**

(.18) (.14) (.15) (.15)

Tradea .37* .04 -.22 -.33*

(.17) (.13) (.14) (.14)

Financial servicesa -.20 .08 .19 -.08

(.16) (.12) (.13) (.13)

Intercept 3.83*** 1.37* 3.18*** .84

(.72) (.57) (.61) (.60)

R2 .19 .04 .08 .11

DR2 .06*** .01 .02 .02*

F 5.90*** 1.02 1.97* 3.15***

5 For a macro that allows an easy application of bootstrap technique

proposed by Preacher and Hayes (2008) in SPSS, see http://www.

afhayes.com/spss-sas-and-mplus-macros-and-code.html.

448 C. Mazereeuw-van der Duijn Schouten et al.

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effects of religiosity on CSR behavior. The total effect of

religiosity on CSR behavior can be expressed as the sum of

the direct and indirect effects. Table 6 presents an over-

view of all direct, indirect, and total effects for intrinsic

religiosity and the extrinsic religious orientation on CSR

behavior.

Table 6 shows that for intrinsic religiosity, we find

significant mediation paths for financial CSR attitude

Table 5 Religiosity, attitudes to CSR, and CSR behavior

Variables Model 5 Model 6 Model 7 Model 8 Model 9 Model 10

CSR behavior

in general

Internal

stakeholders

External

stakeholders

Diversity Natural

environment

Charity

Independent variables

Attitude towards CSR

as a financial responsibility

.15** .24*** .08 .11 .10 .10

(.05) (.07) (.06) (.10) (.08) (.08)

Attitude towards CSR

as an ethical responsibility

.09 .09 .15* -.04 .01 .17*

(.05) (.07) (.07) (.10) (.09) (.08)

Attitude towards CSR

as a philanthropic responsibility

.18*** .12 .08 .15 .11 .47***

(.05) (.07) (.07) (.10) (.09) (.08)

Intrinsic religiosity -.15 -.28 .00 -.93* -.52 .79**

(.18) (.25) (.25) (.36) (.32) (.29)

Extrinsic religious orientation .29 .51 .12 .38 .22 -.09

(.24) (.32) (.33) (.47) (.42) (.39)

Control variables

Age .01** .01* .01* .02** .02** .01

(.00) (.01) (.01) (.01) (.01) (.01)

Gendera -.10 -.07 -.18 -.67* .03 .10

(.13) (.18) (.18) (.26) (.23) (.21)

Income .19** .14 .15 .27 .24 .18

(.07) (.10) (.10) (.14) (.12) (.12)

Director ownera .08 -.05 -.02 .03 .20 .26*

(.08) (.10) (.10) (.15) (.13) (.12)

CEOa .13 .01 .10 .18 .23 .18

(.08) (.11) (.11) (.16) (.14) (.13)

(Very) Small organizationa .11 .03 .36** .15 .35* -.02

(.10) (.13) (.13) (.19) (.17) (.16)

Manufacturinga .17 .07 -.12 .31 .57** .28

(.09) (.13) (.13) (.19) (.16) (.15)

Constructiona -.01 -.13 -.04 -.35 .39* .25

(.10) (.13) (.13) (.19) (.17) (.15)

Tradea .05 -.06 .06 -.20 .26 .28

(.09) (.12) (.12) (.18) (.16) (.15)

Financial servicesa -.12 -.02 -.14 -.12 -.13 .11

(.08) (.11) (.11) (.16) (.14) (.13)

Intercept 1.31* 1.75* 2.16** 1.98 .88 -.43

(.51) (.70) (.69) (1.02) (.90) (.83)

Ra .18 .13 .10 .20 .18 .23

DR2 .06** .06** .02 .04* .02 .17***

F 3.74*** 2.60** 1.96* 4.46*** 4.03*** 5.40***

Unstandardized coefficients are shown, with standard errors in parentheses

DR2 from previous model (not presented in this table) consisting of dependent variable and control variables without independent variable

* p \ .05, ** p \ .01, *** p \ .001a Dummy variables

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regarding CSR in general and internal stakeholders and for

ethical CSR attitude regarding external stakeholders and

charity. For extrinsic religious orientation, the only sig-

nificant mediator is philanthropic CSR attitude, in partic-

ular regarding charity. Furthermore, Table 6 shows that the

mediation effects through the various CSR attitudes partly

cancel out because financial attitude to CSR on the one

hand and ethical and philanthropic CSR attitudes on the

other hand appear to be competing mediators.6 For intrinsic

religiosity this is due to the opposing effects of religiosity

on financial and ethical CSR attitude, and for extrinsic

religiosity the opposing effects on financial and philan-

thropic CSR attitude cause the small total indirect effects.

As a result, the total indirect effect of the joint mediation

by CSR attitudes is relatively small.

Discussion

In this section, we discuss our findings for the three

research questions. As stated, our aim is to fill the gaps in

existing research into the relationships between religiosity

and CSR, as identified by Weaver and Agle (2002): using a

multidimensional definition of religion, investigating not

only attitudes but also behaviors, and performing empirical

research among practitioners. We then address some issues

Table 6 Direct and indirect influence of religiosity on CSR behavior

CSR behavior in

general

Internal

stakeholders

External

stakeholders

Diversity Natural

environment

Charity

Direct effects

Intrinsic religiosity -.15 -.28 .00 -.93a -.52 .79a

(.18) (.24) (.25) (.36) (.31) (.23)

Extrinsic religious orientation .29 .51 .12 .38 .22 -.09

(.24) (.32) (.33) (.47) (.42) (.39)

Indirect effects intrinsic religiosity

Attitude towards CSR as a financial

responsibility

-.18a -.28a -.11 -.13 -.11 -.11

(.08) (.10) (.09) (.13) (.11) (.09)

Attitude towards CSR as an ethical

responsibility

.07 .07 .13a -.02 .00 .12a

(.05) (.06) (.08) (.07) (.06) (.07)

Attitude towards CSR as a philanthropic

responsibility

.03 .02 .01 .02 .02 .07

(.05) (.04) (.03) (.05) (.04) (.13)

Total -.08 -.19a .03 -.13 -.10 .07

(.07) (.08) (.08) (.10) (.09) (.12)

Indirect effects extrinsic religious orientation

Attitude towards CSR as a financial

responsibility

-.09 -.15 -.04 -.07 -.07 -.07

(.08) (.12) (.06) (.09) (.08) (.07)

Attitude towards CSR as an ethical

responsibility

-.04 -.01 -.07 .01 .00 -.05

(.04) (.05) (.08) (.05) (.04) (.08)

Attitude towards CSR as a philanthropic

responsibility

.17a .10a .06 .14 .11 .44a

(.09) (.07) (.07) (.11) (.10) (.21)

Total .04 -.08 -.03 .08 .04 .32

(.08) (.10) (.09) (.12) (.10) (.19)

Total effect

Intrinsic religiosity -.23 -.47 .03 -1.06a -.61a .87a

(.18) (.25) (.24) (.35) (.31) (.31)

Extrinsic religious orientation .33 .44 .07 .45 .25 .23

(.25) (.32) (.32) (.47) (.41) (.41)

Unstandardized coefficients are shown, with standard errors in parentheses

For the indirect effects, the bootstrap estimates of the indirect effect are reported, using 1,000 bootstrap samplesa The bias-corrected confidence interval (at 95 %) does not include 0, which means that mediation is established

6 Zhao et al (2010) distinguish competitive mediation from comple-

mentary mediation. In the latter case, the signs of the mediation paths

(and the direct effect if applicable) are equal. In the first case, the

mediation paths (and the direct effect) have different signs and then

the total effect may be close to zero.

450 C. Mazereeuw-van der Duijn Schouten et al.

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for further research and discuss the implications of our

study for theory as well as for management practice.

Influence of Various Aspects of Executives’ Religiosity

on CSR Attitudes

To meet Weaver and Agle’s first point of criticism, we

used measures for the cognitive, affective, and behavioral

components of religiosity. Strikingly, the analysis of these

variables highlights a very strong and unequivocal corre-

lation between most measures of religiosity, except for the

extrinsic orientation to religiosity. Although there are

hardly any empirical studies using multiple measures of

religiosity in one and the same analysis, one of the scarce

studies that did so showed the same pattern for the mea-

sures of religiosity (Parboteeah et al. 2007). These results

indicate that Weaver and Agle (2002) exaggerate the

multidimensional measurement of religiosity. Religiosity

can probably be measured with just a (few) key charac-

teristics, such as intrinsic and extrinsic religious orienta-

tion. Future research might define what characteristics best

represent respondents’ religiosity.

With respect to the first research question on the rela-

tionship between religiosity and executives’ attitude to

CSR, we find a negative relationship between executives’

intrinsic religiosity and the attitude to CSR as a financial

responsibility, a positive relationship between executives’

intrinsic religiosity and the attitude to CSR as an ethical

responsibility, and a positive relationship between execu-

tives’ extrinsic religious orientation and their attitude to

CSR as a philanthropic responsibility. We find no rela-

tionship between the two measures of religiosity and the

attitude to CSR as a legal responsibility.

The finding that intrinsic religiosity has a negative

influence on the attitude to CSR as a financial responsi-

bility corresponds with the findings of Parboteeah et al.

(2009b), who carried out empirical research into the rela-

tionship between religiosity and the attitude towards the

creation of wealth. They found, to their surprise, a signif-

icant negative relationship between Christianity and

extrinsic work values, such as work benefits, work security,

and success at work. They had not expected these out-

comes, since one might argue that Christianity clearly

supports private property and freedom to accumulate

wealth (Ludwig 2001). Christian religious teachings sug-

gest that religion can interface smoothly with one’s work

and businesses (Ibrahim et al. 1991). For example, the Old

Testament’s Wisdom writers promise wealth as a reward

for an active and virtuous life (Tamari 1997). Christian

traditions show a positive attitude towards money and

wealth stemming from the idea that every believer has a

calling to serve God by serving the common good through

working and that the fruit of hard work, profit and wealth,

is a sacred payoff (Kornhauser 1994). Notwithstanding

these arguments, we found a negative relationship between

intrinsic religiosity and financial attitude, which might be

explained by theological analyses, suggesting that most,

and possibly all, major contemporary religions promote

transcendence of material concerns (Schwartz and Huis-

mans 1995). In this view, an important function of religion

is to temper self-indulgent tendencies and to foster tran-

scendental concerns and beliefs. This is in accord with

well-known biblical notes about wealth and money, such as

‘‘You cannot serve both God and money’’ (Luke 16: 13),

and ‘‘For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil’’ (1

Timothy 6: 10). It appears that within our sample the latter

critical attitude of religiosity towards striving for financial

success is much stronger than the religious call to strive for

(financial) success.

Our analysis showed a positive relationship between

intrinsic religiosity and the attitude towards CSR as an

ethical responsibility. This corresponds with other research,

as it is generally acknowledged that religion contributes

positively towards ethical judgment (Wong 2007). As sta-

ted by Hunt and Vitell (2006, p. 146), who developed,

tested, and revised their much-cited theory of ethical

decision-making (based on Fishbein and Ajzen’s theory of

planned behavior): ‘‘unquestionably, an individual’s per-

sonal religion influences ethical decision making’’. Early

empirical studies, for example by McNichols and Zim-

merer (1985), showed significant relationships between

religious beliefs and negative attitudes towards certain

unacceptable behavior. Likewise, Kennedy and Lawton

(1998) found a negative relationship between religiosity

and willingness to engage in unethical behavior. More

recently, Conroy and Emerson (2004) found that religiosity

reduced the acceptability of certain questionable business

scenarios. Vitell et al. (2005, 2006, 2007) conducted sev-

eral studies into the relationship between religiosity and

ethical attitudes and consistently found more religiously

oriented individuals more likely to view questionable

consumer behaviors as wrong and vice versa. Although

there are some studies presenting a negative relationship

between religion and ethical attitudes (e.g., Giacalone and

Jurkiewicz 2003; Khavari and Harmon 1982) the degree of

religiosity is generally associated with higher ethical atti-

tudes (Conroy and Emerson 2004). O’Fallon and Butter-

field (2005), who presented an overview of empirical

ethical decision-making literature from 1996 to 2003, also

conclude that religion has a positive relationship with

ethical decision-making. Magill (1992) explains the influ-

ence of religiosity on ethical attitudes by the fact that

religiosity affords a background against which the ethical

nature of behavior is interpreted. One might expect that

religious people have more clearly defined deontological

norms and that such norms would play a stronger role in

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ethical judgments (Hunt and Vitell 2006). These norms can

be based on religious texts that offer regulations for busi-

ness life (Epstein 2002; Tamari 1997; Williams and Zinkin

2010). In addition, religious communities may impose role

expectations, pressing their members to do business in

accordance with religious teachings or traditional values

and customs.

We find no relationship between intrinsic religiosity and

the attitude to CSR as a legal and philanthropic concept.

This is remarkable, since existing research shows a rela-

tionship between religiosity and both these attitudes to

CSR. As Guiso et al. (2003) argue, religiosity is associated

with a reduced willingness to break any sort of legal rule,

and according to Pichon et al. (2007) religiosity implies

ideals of generosity and concern for others. By doing good

for others when nothing is expected in return, religious

people may believe they commit themselves to God’s will

(Ji et al. 2006). When it comes to the legal attitude, we

might explain our findings by the fact that CSR as a legal

responsibility is important for all executives, religious or

not. As argued by the Dutch Social and Economic Council

(2001) a major driving force behind CSR lies in compliance

with legal obligations. When it comes to the relationship

between religiosity and the attitude towards CSR as a

philanthropic responsibility, we have to take into account

that the other measure of religiosity, extrinsic religious

motivation, exerts a positive influence on this attitude

towards CSR. Apparently, the philanthropic attitude to CSR

is more stimulated by the extrinsic religious motivation

compared to intrinsic religiosity, which includes intrinsic

religious motivation.

Influence of Executives’ CSR Attitudes on CSR

Behavior

Regarding the second research question on the relationship

between the different attitudes to CSR and CSR behavior,

we find a positive influence of the attitude to CSR as a

financial responsibility on CSR behavior in the form of

internal stakeholders. It may be that the benefits and costs

associated with this type of CSR are highest. It seems

obvious that the financial motive would not lead to a higher

contribution to CSR in the form of charity, but this turns

out not to be the case. Existing research, theoretical as well

as empirical, presents a positive relationship between cor-

porate philanthropy and company financial performance

(Brammer and Millington 2005; Saiia et al. 2003; Wang

et al. 2008). Corporate philanthropy improves the com-

pany’s reputation, thus leading to higher profitability.

Within our sample, the strategic value of corporate phi-

lanthropy may still be unclear. Another reason for the

discrepancy may be that most research on the relationship

between corporate philanthropy and profitability has been

carried out in the United States. Whereas in the United

States it is quite common to apprise your charitable

donations, within the Netherlands, the adage ‘when thou

doest alms, let not thy left hand know what thy right hand

doeth’ is still very common. When charitable donations are

not communicated, there will be no effect on corporate

reputation. Future research might examine whether the

positive relationship between corporate philanthropy and

reputation also holds within the Dutch context and if so,

why the financial motive does not lead to a higher contri-

bution to CSR in the form of charity.

The attitude to CSR as an ethical responsibility leads to

a significantly higher level of CSR only in the form of

external stakeholders and charity. This might be due to the

fact that the term ‘ethical’ is strongly associated with

prohibitions: ‘‘Thou shalt not …’’. The focus on prohibi-

tions possibly makes executives more focused on the

avoidance of unethical behavior such as cheating and

defeating, and less focused on the way in which ethical

considerations may lead to desirable behavior. Another

explanation may be the degree of abstraction of the terms

‘moral’ and ‘ethical’. Executives might indicate it is

important to behave ethically, while not knowing what it

means in practice to behave ethically.

The attitude to CSR as a philanthropic responsibility

leads to a higher contribution to CSR in the form of charity.

This is not surprising, given the fact that the best-known

form of philanthropy is donating money. Nevertheless, one

might wonder why executives who have a positive attitude

to CSR as a philanthropic responsibility demonstrate such a

narrow range of CSR at the behavioral level.

Direct and Indirect Influences of Executives’

Religiosity on CSR Behavior

With regard to the third research question about direct

versus indirect effects of religiosity on CSR behavior

through CSR attitudes, we find no direct influence of

intrinsic religiosity or extrinsic religious orientation on

CSR behavior in general. Nevertheless, when we distin-

guish different types of CSR behavior, intrinsic religiosity

has a significant negative influence on CSR in the form of

diversity and a significant positive influence on CSR in the

form of charity on top of the attitudinal effects. There are

no direct effects from the extrinsic religious orientation on

CSR behavior.

The negative impact of religiosity on CSR in the form of

diversity has also been found in other empirical research.

Guiso et al. (2003) conclude that religious people tend to

be more racist and less supportive of working women.

These issues are precisely what CSR in the form of

diversity is about. This negative influence of religiosity on

CSR in the form of diversity may follow from traditional

452 C. Mazereeuw-van der Duijn Schouten et al.

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religious teachings and traditions. Chadwick and Garrett

(1995) find that religiosity has a significant negative rela-

tionship with women’s employment. Anderson (1988,

p. 230) found that religious texts ‘‘… reflect and create

stereotypical sex roles and legitimate social inequality

between men and women’’. In general, religiosity that is

based on a literal interpretation of the Bible, actively

opposes gender-related issues that they perceive as a threat

to traditional family roles and stability (Feltey and Poloma

1991). In addition, most religions are patriarchal, not only

in belief, but also in practice. Thus, religious executives

stand in a tradition and are part of a religious community

wherein most leaders, in the case of the Protestant tradition,

or even all, in the case of the Roman Catholic tradition, are

men. While religious teachings and traditions do not favor

women’s employment, it is also a commonly held per-

ception that the church is one of the most segregated

institutions, at least in the U.S. (Dougherty 2003). Most

traditional Roman Catholic and Protestant churches within

The Netherlands mainly consist of native Dutch people.

The homogeneity of the religious community does not

encourage traditional religious executives to look after the

interests of immigrants in business, although The Bible

does command people to take care of immigrants [e.g.,

‘‘Don’t mistreat any foreigners who live in your land.

Instead, treat them as well as you treat citizens and love

them as much as you love yourself’’ (Leviticus 19: 33–34)].

The significant positive influence of intrinsic religiosity

on CSR in the form of charity is also found in other

research, for example by Reitsma (2007) who concludes

that frequent church visitors are found to be more willing to

donate. Other research has also shown that people who

often attend religious services donate significantly more

money than less frequent visitors (Bekkers 2003; Brooks

2004; Scheepers and Te Grotenhuis 2005). This positive

relationship between religiosity and charity may follow

from traditional religious teachings, stressing the impor-

tance of benevolence towards people in need. One of the

most common ways to practice benevolence is to donate

money (Reitsma 2007). This is in line with religious

teachings that promote sharing one’s wealth with the poor

and needy.

Besides the direct effects of intrinsic religiosity on

diversity and charity, we find some evidence that CSR

attitudes mediate the influence of religiosity on CSR

behavior. The indirect effects caused by the mediation of

the economic attitude are particularly substantial, as

intrinsic religiosity has a large negative influence on eco-

nomic CSR attitude. However, as the mediation by the

ethical CSR attitude and philanthropic CSR attitude cause

opposing indirect effects, the total indirect effects caused

by mediation of the various CSR attitudes is relatively

modest. The influence of extrinsic religiosity on CSR

behavior is significantly positively mediated by the phil-

anthropic attitude for CSR in general, internal stakeholders

and charity, but because of competitive mediation effects

through the financial attitude, the total indirect effects are

relatively small and insignificant. Although distinguishing

CSR attitudes from CSR behavior in the relationship

between CSR and religiosity is very important in the sense

that we find quite different relationships between religios-

ity and CSR attitude on the one hand and between religi-

osity and CSR behavior on the other, mediation effects do

not add very much in explaining the total effects of reli-

giosity on CSR behavior. Hence, for the total effect we find

similar results as for the direct effects, namely that intrinsic

religiosity has a significant (negative respectively positive)

influence on diversity and charity.

Only for natural environment, the total negative effect of

intrinsic religiosity becomes significant when combining

the direct and indirect effects. This negative influence of

intrinsic religiosity on the natural environment is surpris-

ing, since Christian religions teach their adherents to take

care of the natural environment as stewards of God the

Creator (Kay 1989). A possible explanation of this negative

impact of religiosity on CSR with respect to the natural

environment that has also been found in other research

(e.g., Tarakeshwar et al. 2001) may be White’s so-called

‘dominion doctrine’. As White (1967) proposed, the Bib-

lical injunction in the Bible to ‘‘… have dominion over …every living thing’’ (Gen 1:28) predisposes Christians to

exploit the earth’s resources without regard for conse-

quences. Guth et al. (1995) argue that the dominion idea

stressed by White builds on a literal interpretation of the

Bible that implies an even more important idea, namely

dispensationalism that is characterized by high supernatu-

ralism, belief in the ‘‘end of time’’ and renewal of earth in

eternity, thus diverting believers’ attention to otherworldly

concerns and resulting in a consequent pessimism about

advancement of the current world. As argued by Curry-

Roper (1990), the tendencies of dispensationalism are so

powerful that the system has to be purposely set aside in

order to justify ecologically responsible action. Although

White’s thesis is controversial and not fully supported by

empirical investigations, our findings suggest that Christian

religiosity has an anti-environmental effect when it comes

to CSR, and does not support the stance that is has a

‘‘stewardship’’ effect. Another argument that might be

applicable is the association of environmentalism with

social (leftist) groups that are not traditionally supported by

religious people. Religious people therefore may keep their

distance from those social groups as well as their envi-

ronmental ideas.

Finally, it is remarkable that we find no positive rela-

tionship between religiosity and CSR behavior in the form

of internal and external stakeholders. Christian religions

Religiosity, CSR Attitudes, and CSR Behavior 453

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teach their adherents to love their neighbors. This value

apparently does not stimulate religious executives within

our sample to contribute more to CSR in the form of

internal or external stakeholders than other executives. This

may be due to the cognitive aspects of traditional religi-

osity. Traditional religious teachings imply a negative

conception of human beings. A strong awareness of the

sinful nature of men may result in a feeling of impotence to

do any good, including ‘good business conduct’. Moreover,

assuming all men to be inclined to evil, religious execu-

tives may be driven by suspicion and mistrust. The lack of

influence of religiosity on these particular kinds of CSR

may also follow from a difficulty in translating religious

values to the business context. Often people are only

capable of valuing something in a particular manner in a

social setting that upholds values for that mode of valuation

(Anderson 1993). This might explain why religious exec-

utives do not connect values derived from their religiosity

with their business context. Moreover, bringing religious

values into practice may also be hindered by non-religious

stakeholders in the organization that do not favor religious

values (Hunt and Vitell 2006). A final explanation may be

that non-religious executives have humanistic values, such

as solidarity, justice, integrity, and honesty, which inspire

them to CSR in the form of internal and external stake-

holders. This is indeed indicated by Table 3 that shows

relative high mean scores of CSR in the form of internal

and external stakeholders compared to the other kinds of

CSR. Thus, religious executives as well as non-religious

executives contribute on a similar level to these kinds of

CSR, although their inspiration for doing this may be

different.

Future Research

This study focused on the relationship between religiosity,

CSR attitudes, and CSR behaviors. The relationship

between religiosity and CSR continuous to be fascinating

as both issues are topical, theoretically as well as in prac-

tice. To further investigate this particular relationship, we

suggest the following lines of future research, in addition to

the suggestions already mentioned above.

Two suggestions are based on the limitations of our

study. First, our study has been carried out within the

Netherlands. Geographical context may be important, as

other countries have other ‘religious maps’. Future

research is required to verify that these findings can be

generalized to other countries. A consequence of the

geographical restriction is that our sample mainly consists

of Christian or non-religious executives, which is a second

limitation. Other religions, such as Islam and Buddhism

are not represented in our sample. As argued by Par-

boteeah et al. (2009a), most major religions around the

world have similar views of work. Whether this also holds

for the attitudes towards CSR and CSR behavior, requires

further research. Comparing different religions in relation

to CSR attitudes and behavior requires international data

gathering, carefully controlling for cultural differences

that may easily be confused with the influence of

religiosity.

Future research into the relationship between religion

and CSR might also focus on CSR at the organizational

level. We investigated whether religiosity influences

executives’ personal contribution to CSR activities, but

executives’ religiosity may also influence corporate CSR as

executives influence corporate strategy and policy as well

as the behavior of subordinates. This is particularly true for

small- and medium-sized companies.

One of the most puzzling findings is the negative rela-

tionship between religiosity and CSR towards the natural

environment. Future qualitative research might investigate

what arguments religious executives have to neglect their

environmental responsibility and how these executives can

be motivated to undertake more activities supporting CSR

towards the natural environment.

Implications

The analysis presented in this paper contributes to the

debate about religion and aspects of business ethics in three

ways. First, in response to the criticism on the use of one-

dimensional concepts and measures of religiosity in exist-

ing empirical research, we used a multidimensional con-

cept in measuring the religiosity of executives.

Surprisingly, the empirical analysis of the various dimen-

sions of religiosity showed a very uniform picture of the

religiosity of the executives in our sample, with high cor-

relations between the cognitive, affective, and behavioral

aspects of religiosity. Thus, measuring religiosity as a

multidimensional concept does not provide much addi-

tional insight into the relationship between religiosity and

CSR. It may be that the most important reason for the

existing conflicting outcomes in empirical research on the

relationship between religion and CSR is not the mea-

surement of religion, as argued by Weaver and Agle

(2002), but the definition and measurement of the depen-

dent variables in those studies. Secondly, measuring CSR

as a multidimensional concept offers rich insight into the

complex relationship between religiosity and CSR. We

found significant but opposing influences of religiosity on

various types of CSR. Therefore, future research might

focus on the development of scales and measures to

investigate CSR. Thirdly, the distinction between CSR

attitudes and CSR behavior does not explain the relation-

ship between religiosity and CSR behavior. The joint

mediating role of the attitudes towards CSR is not

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significant and religiosity primarily exerts a direct influ-

ence on CSR behavior.

For executives this research may increase their awareness

of the interrelatedness of religiosity and CSR. Religious

executives should be aware of the charitable accent in their

contribution to CSR and face the challenge to implement

important religious values corresponding with core values of

the concept of CSR into their business behavior, such as

stewardship, human dignity, and helpfulness.

Shareholders, boards of directors, governments, social

groups, and business schools that want to advance execu-

tives’ contribution to CSR should be aware of the influence

of religiosity on CSR behavior. As we find different

influences of religiosity on CSR behavior, Christian

employer organizations, churches and other social groups

attracting religious executives should develop different

programs to promote (certain kinds of) CSR from those

used by organizations that primarily interact with non-

religious executives.

Acknowledgments The authors would like to thank the Dutch

Ministry of Economic Affairs, the employers’ association VNO-

NCW, and the Science Shop of Tilburg University for their financial

support. The authors also thank the editor and three anonymous

reviewers for their helpful comments throughout the review process.

Appendix: Variables and Measures

Religiosity (Independent Variable)

Cognitive Aspects of Religiosity

1. Who or what determines good and evil?

(Prevailing morality, autonomous man, God, other

namely …)

2. Are human beings inclined to do good or evil?

(Only good, mainly good, both good and evil, mainly

evil, only evil)

3. Is life of human beings predestined?

(Yes completely, mostly, partly, only for a small part,

no not at all)

4. Is there a life after death?

(Yes, maybe, I don’t know, no)

5. Do your actions at work influence your eternal destiny?

(Yes, somewhat, only a little, no)

Intrinsic Religious Motivation

Please indicate: strongly disagree, disagree, neutral, agree,

strongly agree.

1. I enjoy reading about my religion.

2. It doesn’t matter what believe as long as I am good.

3. It is important to me to spent time in private thought

and prayer.

4. I have often had a strong sense of God’s presence.

5. I try hard to live all my life according to my religious

beliefs.

6. Although I am religious I don’t let it affect my daily

life.

7. My whole approach to life is based on my religion.

8. Although I believe in my religion many other things

are more important in life.

Extrinsic Religious Motivation

Please indicate: strongly disagree, disagree, neutral, agree,

strongly agree.

1. I go to church because it helps me to make friends.

2. I pray mainly to gain relief and protection.

3. What religion offers me most is comfort in times of

trouble and sorrow.

4. Prayer is for peace and happiness.

5. I go to church mostly to spend time with my friends.

6. I go to church mainly because I enjoy seeing people I

know there.

Behavioral Aspects of Religiosity

1. Please indicate: never, seldom, once a month, 2 or 3

times a month, at least once a week.

2. How often do you visit the regular meetings of your

religious community?

3. How often do you participate in meetings of your

religious community besides the regular meetings?

4. Please indicate: never, seldom, weekly, daily, several

times a day

5. How often do you pray?

6. How often do you pray for your work in particular?

7. How often do you meditate?

Attitudes to CSR

1. It is important to perform in a manner consistent with

…

A. … expectations of maximizing earnings per

share.

B. … expectations of government and the law.

C. … the philanthropic and charitable expectations

of society.

D. … expectations of societal mores and ethical

norms.

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2. It is important to monitor new opportunities that can

enhance the organization’s …

A. … moral and ethical image in society.

B. … compliance with local, state, and federal

statutes.

C. … financial health.

D. … ability to solve social problems.

3. It is important that good corporate citizenship be

defined as …

A. … doing what the law expects.

B. … providing voluntary assistance to charities and

community.

C. …doing what is expected morally and ethically.

D. … being as profitable as possible.

4. It is important to be committed to …

A. … being as profitable as possible.

B. … voluntary and charitable activities.

C. … abiding by laws and regulations.

D. … moral and ethical behavior.

5. It is important to …

A. … assist voluntarily those projects that enhance a

community’s quality of life.

B. … provide goods and services that at least meet

minimal legal requirements.

C. … avoid compromising societal norms and ethics

to achieve goals.

D. … allocate organizational resources as efficiently

as possible.

CSR Behavior

1. How often do you personally contribute more than

required by law within your organization with respect

to each of the different items (never, almost never,

sometimes, often, always).

2. Safety and health of employees.

3. Training and development of employees.

4. Preventing abuses on the work floor.

5. Showing respect to suppliers.

6. Showing respect to customers.

7. Showing respect to competitors.

8. Offering equal opportunities to women.

9. Offering equal opportunities to immigrants.

10. Reintegration of disabled persons outside the

company.

11. Increasing employee awareness of environmental

sustainability.

12. Reduction of waste and/or pollution within your own

company.

13. Reduction of waste and/or pollution within the supply

chain.

14. Support for social projects in your local environment.

15. Support for social projects in the third world.

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