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CORPORATE SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY, CUSTOMER ORIENTATION, AND THE
JOB PERFORMANCE OF FRONTLINE EMPLOYEES
Daniel Korschun
Assistant Professor of Marketing
LeBow College of Business
Drexel University
3141 Chestnut Street
Philadelphia, PA 19104-2816
+1 (215) 895-1998
C.B. Bhattacharya
Full Professor, E.ON Chair in Corporate Responsibility, and Dean of International Relations
ESMT European School of Management and Technology
Schlossplatz 1
D-10178 Berlin, Germany
+49-30-212-31-528
Scott D. Swain
Assistant Professor of Marketing
College of Business and Behavioral Science
Clemson University
Clemson, South Carolina, 29634
+1 (864) 656-5963
Acknowledgements: The authors thank Tom J. Brown, Michael J. Dorsch, and Sankar Sen for their
insightful comments, Anubhav Aggarwal and Jorge Fresneda for their research assistance, and the
anonymous company for its cooperation in carrying out this research.
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CORPORATE SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY, CUSTOMER ORIENTATION, AND THE
JOB PERFORMANCE OF FRONTLINE EMPLOYEES
This study examines frontline employee responses to corporate social responsibility (CSR) using
a multi-sourced dataset at a Global 500 financial services company. The authors find that
frontline employees identify with the organization (i.e., organizational identification) and with
customers (i.e., employee-customer identification) as a function of how much the employees
perceive management and customers (respectively) to support the company’s CSR activities.
However, these respective effects are stronger among employees for whom CSR is already tied
to their sense of self (i.e., CSR importance to the employee). Additionally, both organizational
identification and employee-customer identification are related to supervisor-rated job
performance; however, only the effect of employee-customer identification is mediated by
customer orientation − suggesting that these two targets of identification manifest through
distinct mechanisms. The research empirically addresses an open question of whether and when
CSR can yield observable changes in employee behavior, and alerts researchers to a novel target
of identification for frontline employees.
Key words: Corporate social responsibility, organizational identification, employee-customer
identification, customer orientation, job performance
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CORPORATE SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY, CUSTOMER ORIENTATION, AND THE
JOB PERFORMANCE OF FRONTLINE EMPLOYEES
More than fourteen million workers in the United States are in sales positions, and millions
more interact with customers on a daily basis as customer service representatives, wait staff,
cashiers, or other frontline occupations (Department of Labor 2012). These frontline employees
are charged with sensing market demand, disseminating information to customers about
offerings, and delivering value in ways that contribute to customer acquisition and customer
loyalty (Jaworski and Kohli 1993; Narver and Slater 1990), making them an essential conduit
between companies and their respective customer bases (e.g., Saxe and Weitz 1982; Homburg,
Wieseke, and Hoyer 2009). The importance of frontline employees to forging quality
relationships is evidenced by the finding that a customer’s loyalty to an employee can outweigh
the customer’s loyalty to the firm as a predictor of sales effectiveness and sales growth
(Palmatier, Scheer, & Steenkamp, 2007). While most managers acknowledge that the job
performance of frontline employees is critical to business success, many still struggle to get the
most out of their employees: Gallup (2013) reports that seventy percent of frontline workers are
not reaching their full potential at work.
In the search for additional levers to improve job performance, some managers have turned
to corporate social responsibility (CSR; defined as discretionary business practices and
contributions of corporate resources intended to improve societal well-being; Kotler and Lee
2005). Using CSR to enhance employee performance has been touted by Forbes as a major trend
(Mohin 2012) and practitioners such as Diane Melley, Vice President of Citizenship at IBM,
argue that “CSR is a new and different way to motivate employees to deliver superior client
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service.”1 But skepticism remains healthy in other quarters (Karnani 2011). Critics suggest that
while CSR might make frontline employees “feel good,” such an ethereal component of one’s
job is unlikely to produce observable changes in behavior beyond that which can be produced by
monetary incentives (McKinsey 2009). These concerns are echoed by scholars such as Vogel
(2005, p. 46) who argues that “while many people profess to care about CSR …relatively few act
on these beliefs.” There is thus a clear need for research that tests whether frontline employees’
perceptions about CSR can affect job performance in ways that are observable to supervisors.
The lack of consensus around this linkage is at first glance surprising because the positive
responses of consumers and non-frontline employees to CSR are well-documented, albeit mostly
through self-reported measures (see Bhattacharya, Sen and Korschun 2011; Peloza and Shang
2011). This literature suggests that CSR communicates the underlying values of the company,
which can lead individuals to form a strong psychological bond with it (i.e., organizational
identification) and thereby trigger company-benefiting behaviors. Digging deeper, though, it
seems that the CSR skeptics may have a point as it would be injudicious to simply extrapolate
prior research findings to the frontline context. Frontline employees are different in that they face
a uniquely bifurcated social landscape − the company on one side and customers on the other
(Anderson and Onyemah 2006) – which leads these employees to ask themselves “how much
should the customer be king?” (Homburg et al. 2011). To understand how CSR activities are
related to job performance, one must ask not only how CSR might affect a frontline employee’s
bond with the company, but also how CSR might help frontline employees confront a
“combination of intimacy and separateness” (Bartel 2001, p. 381) from the customers they face
in their daily routines. Thus, we assert that organizational identification alone is insufficient to
explain how CSR might encourage frontline employee to provide superior customer service and
1 Personal correspondence, February 24, 2012.
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thereby perform well. Disagreements over the relationship between CSR and frontline employee
job performance persist in part because the literature lacks an integrated model that examines
reactions to CSR in light of the unique frontline context.
In this paper, we develop such a model, one which recognizes that employees can identify
not only with the organization but also with customers (what we call employee-customer
identification). The model is developed using the extant literature as well as qualitative data
collected from frontline employees, and then tested in a field study at a Global 500 financial
services firm, where we match survey responses of 221 frontline employees with supervisor
ratings of individual-level job performance. We find that frontline employees identify with the
organization and with customers as a function of how much the employees perceive management
and customers (respectively) to support the company’s CSR activities, but that these respective
effects are significantly stronger among employees for whom CSR is important to their sense of
self. We also find that both organizational identification and employee-customer identification
are related to job performance; however, only the effect of employee-customer identification is
mediated by customer orientation − suggesting that these two targets of identification manifest
through distinct mechanisms.
Our study makes contributions to the social identity, CSR, and frontline employee literatures.
First, while social identity theorists allude to multiple targets of identification (Ashforth et al.
2008), marketers have overlooked customers as a salient and important target for identification
among frontline employees. Our finding that employee-customer identification is related to job
performance and that this relationship is mediated by customer orientation suggests that social
identification with customers is a powerful lens with which to examine when and why frontline
employees are motivated to serve customer needs. Furthermore, the findings suggest that CSR
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provides identity-related information that frontline employees can use to construct their sense of
self in relation to customers.
Second, whereas the CSR literature has confined itself to documenting how stakeholders
perceive CSR based on the characteristics of those programs (e.g., societal issue addressed,
magnitude of donation), we broaden the lens to show that frontline employees respond to CSR
based on how much they believe that the company’s CSR activities are supported by salient and
job-relevant others (i.e., management and customers). This suggests that frontline employees are
sometimes quite attuned to other stakeholders’ support for CSR, and they use those construals to
define themselves in relation to the company and its customers. The implication is that
companies not only need to increase awareness of their CSR activities among both employees
and customers separately, but must also selectively encourage CSR-based communication
between those various stakeholders so that frontline employees become aware if and when
customers support the company’s CSR activities.
Third, while the CSR literature suggests that non-frontline employees and customers
respond positively to CSR, most of this research relies on self-reported measures of dependent
variables. To our knowledge, we provide the first empirical evidence linking CSR to
independently assessed frontline employee job performance (supervisor ratings); this is observed
even after controlling for employees’ satisfaction with pay, the big five personality traits (Brown
et al. 2002), tenure at the company, and years of frontline experience. However, our finding that
responses become weaker as CSR importance to the employee decreases suggests that managers
need to be cognizant of individual differences across frontline employees when attempting to
leverage CSR. Overall, we contribute to theory and practice by helping to resolve an open
question (whether and how CSR is related to frontline employee job performance) that lies at the
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intersection of the social identity, frontline employee, and CSR literatures.
The Multifaceted Social Landscape for Frontline Employees
Organizational Identification
The organization can be a highly salient and compelling target for social identification (Mael
and Ashforth 1989; Dutton et al. 1994). For frontline employees, who act as representatives of
the company when dealing with customers, this target may be particularly relevant.
Organizational identification, defined as the extent to which an individual senses a oneness or
sameness with the organization (Ashforth et al. 2008), goes beyond simply evaluating the
organization positively. Rather, it involves depersonalizing the self and using the organization as
a vehicle for self-definition (Hogg and Terry 2000). This coalescence of the self with the
organization can be heard anecdotally when employees at companies such as UPS and IBM refer
to themselves as “UPSers” or “IBMers.”
Organizational identification is a well-established construct in both the CSR and frontline
employee literatures, making it a natural point of theoretical integration for the present
examination. The CSR literature suggests that CSR activities are more telling of a company’s
values than product information, financial statements, or job contracts (Bhattacharya and Sen
2004). This communication of values is what makes CSR a powerful means for stakeholders to
compare their own values with those of the company, a process which can lead to organizational
identification (Bartel 2001; Sen et al. 2006). The frontline employee literature documents some
of the consequences of organizational identification. For example, research has established
effects on outcomes such as cooperating with other employees (Bergami and Bagozzi 2000),
exhibiting decreased turnover intentions (Cole and Bruch 2006), and excelling at non-creative
tasks (Madjar et al. 2011). Overall, organizational identification is a promising point of departure
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to understand frontline employee responses to CSR. However, as noted earlier, the uniqueness of
the frontline employee context suggests that organizational identification cannot by itself fully
explain the potential effects of CSR on job performance.
Employee-Customer Identification
The experience of serving both the company and customers (Anderson and Onyemah 2006;
Homburg et al. 2011) creates heterogeneity in an employee’s perceived social landscape, and
such heterogeneity is known to activate social identity processes (Hogg and Terry 2000). Given
that customers are one of the most salient groups that frontline employees interact with, we argue
that customers are likely to be an additional target for identification. Surprisingly, such non-
organizational yet highly job-relevant targets of employee identification remain understudied in
the literature (Ashforth et al. 2008; Johnson et al. 2006).
We build upon and extend the notion of relational identities – that is, identities pertaining to a
work relationship with another individual or group (Sluss and Ashforth 2007) – and propose that
frontline employees may, in varying degrees, identify with customers. We call this phenomenon
employee-customer identification, defined as the extent to which an employee senses a sameness
or oneness with the organization’s customers. Employees who identify with customers consider
themselves to belong to a common social group with customers (see Tajfel and Turner 1986).
Employee-customer identification goes beyond attitudes about customers or perceived traits of
customers; rather it reflects the extent to which customers are perceived to be fellow members of
a social category and therefore are perceived as relevant to defining the self-concept. This is not
to say that all frontline employees will identify with customers, only that the frontline context
often presents employees with repeated opportunities to assess the degree of sameness or
oneness with customers. As with other forms of identification, employee-customer identification
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can coexist with other identities such as professional identities (e.g., accountant, doctor; Hekman
et al. 2009).
In the next section, we theorize a positive association between employee-customer
identification and customer orientation. Since these two constructs share some theoretical
territory, it is worth noting their significant conceptual distinctions. First, we note that there is
still debate over whether customer orientation is best conceptualized as a surface trait (Brown et
al. 2002; Donavan et al. 2004) or a set of behaviors (Rozell et al. 2004; Saxe and Weitz 1982;
Homburg et al. 2001). There are clear distinctions between employee-customer identification and
either conceptualization of customer orientation. The surface trait conceptualization portrays
customer orientation as a relatively stable predisposition to serve customers (Brown et al. 2002).
In contrast, employee-customer identification, as all forms of identification, is malleable and
dependent on salient characteristics of the frontline employee as well as the customers with
whom the employee comes into contact. Even more distinct from the notion of employee-
customer identification is the behavioral conceptualization of customer orientation (the
conceptualization adopted in this paper). This view characterizes customer orientation as
behaviors that are designed to satisfy customer needs over the long-term. In contrast, employee-
customer identification resides in the mind of the frontline employee as a self-other
categorization, with specific, identity-consistent behaviors expected to result from it. Thus,
frontline employees may help satisfy customer needs when they believe that the customers are
part of their in-group, but they may choose not to satisfy those needs if incentives to do so are
low (Evans, Landry, Po-Chien, and Shaoming 2007), or if the employee’s emotions vary widely
(Brown et al. 2002).
We now develop an integrated conceptual model that attempts to fully understand whether
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and how CSR is related to frontline employee outcomes.
Conceptual Model Development
To develop a conceptual model explaining how CSR is related to frontline employee job
performance in light of these two targets of identification, we augmented the literature review
with a focus group and individual interviews with sales people in multiple industries. The focus
group consisted of 10 frontline employees (six female) at a US subsidiary of a Global 500
financial services company (conducted at the company and lasting two hours). The employees
represented a diverse cross-section of experience levels, tenure, customer-type served, customer
contact frequency, customer contact mode, and work groups (e.g., new business development,
key accounts, operations relations, claims, strategic action team, payouts) and were screened for
varying levels of involvement in CSR (e.g., ranging from occasional donations to frequent
volunteering). The company engages in a variety of CSR activities that are typical of companies
of its size and industry. For example, it organizes fundraisers for disaster relief (e.g., wildfires in
Colorado), community programs (e.g., educational programs for kids), and environmental
sustainability initiatives (e.g., recycling efforts and selling environmentally responsible financial
instruments); similar to its peers, it also operates a foundation that donates money each year to
charitable organizations. To extend the scope of the exploratory exercise so that a variety of
perspectives was considered, we conducted six additional in-depth interviews (frontline
employees at multiple Fortune 1000 companies in the technology, healthcare, energy, financial
services, utilities, and pharmaceutical sectors). These companies were chosen to represent a
range of both CSR engagement and a variety of industries.
Discussions commenced by exploring participants’ general perceptions of their company,
including the extent to which it is socially responsible. Participants were then asked about their
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own involvement in social responsibility and the extent to which CSR is important to them. The
discussion next turned to their daily contact with customers and relationships they may or may
not have with those customers. Finally, we asked whether participants themselves made any
connections between the company’s CSR and their on-the-job behaviors.
The authors independently reviewed the transcripts and disaggregated the data, coding units
of meaning iteratively (Corbin and Strauss 1998) using a standard software package (QSR
International’s NVivo). A preliminary coding plan was jointly developed in which emerging
themes were labeled and defined as constructs, properties of the constructs specified, and
illustrative passages identified. The transcripts were then reviewed in light of these constructs by
two independent coders and examined for inter-rater agreement (Krippendorff’s α = .84). The
framework was checked for internal consistency via feedback from leading CSR and frontline
employee scholars as well as managers at the focal company.
Integrating extant theory with the results of the exploratory research yielded the conceptual
model shown in Figure 1. In the organizational identification pathway (upper portion of the
model), perceived management support for CSR is related to organizational identification
(contingent upon CSR importance to the employee), which is related to job performance through
its effect on customer orientation. In the employee-customer identification pathway (lower
portion of the model), a different set of construals become important; perceived customer support
for the company’s CSR is related to employee-customer identification (also contingent upon
CSR importance to the employee). This pathway again is related to job performance through its
incremental effect on customer orientation. We now describe the theoretical justification for each
path in more detail, and illustrate the posited relationships with quotations from the qualitative
exercise.
12
- Insert Figure 1 about here –
The Organizational Identification Pathway Between CSR and Job Performance
Perceived management support for CSR and organizational identification. Through both
their words and actions, senior management shape employees’ understanding of what the
company stands for (Albert and Whetten 1985; Dutton et al. 1994). Employees are known to be
cognizant of the views of upper management regarding how market oriented the company is
(Kennedy et al. 2003; Kirca et al. 2005) and they incorporate this into how they approach their
job (Grizzle et al. 2009). We argue that such construals can go beyond job-related information to
include the company’s CSR activities, and that frontline employees notice when organizational
leaders make statements or take actions that demonstrate strong support for the company’s social
responsibility activities and practices. We term this perceived management support for CSR,
defined as the extent to which an employee believes that the company’s executives or other
members of management enable, encourage, or embrace the company’s CSR activities. Members
of management are considered role models and therefore envoys of the company’s values (Lam
et al. 2010), so it carries weight when they refer to CSR in communications, participate
themselves, or encourage employees to participate in volunteering or fund raising. We heard this
from multiple participants in the qualitative research:
[You know that executives] back this wholly, because they are matching [employee donations] dollar for dollar.
They’re very supportive too…they give us the opportunity to [participate in CSR] through work.
There is considerable heterogeneity, however, in the degree to which individuals believe that
organizations should engage in CSR activity (Berger et al. 2007; Vogel 2005). Reed (2004) finds
that individuals place differing weights on information depending upon what they deem self-
relevant. That is, based on one’s self-view (what Reed refers to as self-importance), some
information is more diagnostic than other information. We extend this insight to the employee
13
realm, through the construct of CSR importance to the employee, defined as the extent to which
an employee feels it is important for companies to behave in socially responsible ways. CSR
importance differs from the construct of issue support (Sen and Bhattacharya 2001; e.g., support
for breast cancer research, support for efforts to reduce carbon emissions) in that it reflects a core
belief rather than an attitude about a particular societal issue. This belief is then used to assess
information during social comparison (of one’s own values relative to the organization’s values).
Unprompted, a number of employees we spoke with said they consider CSR to be important in
this way.
I’m a big person in giving back whenever I can. I definitely seek out what the company is doing.
I’m part of a whole millennial group …people say how socially responsible and aware our group is.
We posit that as this CSR importance to the employee increases, the relationship between
perceived management support and organizational identification becomes stronger. As CSR
importance to the employee heightens, CSR information becomes not only more salient, but also
more diagnostic of the values of the company (Reed 2004). It is therefore more likely to be used
by the employee as a criterion for organizational identification. Moreover, the ability of
employees to derive psychological benefits from the knowledge that management supports the
company’s CSR may also increase as CSR importance increases. These employees will feel a
greater sense of self-esteem knowing that CSR is pervasive at the company, and greater self-
coherence knowing that they work at a company where managers place a similar importance on
CSR as themselves (Bhattacharya et al. 2008). Such benefits make the organization a more
attractive target for social identification.
H1: Perceived management support for CSR is positively related to organizational
identification, and this effect is moderated by CSR importance to the employee.
The relationship between perceived management support for CSR and
organizational identification becomes stronger as CSR importance increases.
14
Organizational identification and job performance. Job performance, defined as “the extent
to which an employee contributes to organizational effectiveness given the expectations
associated with his/her work role” (Zablah et al. 2012, p. 25), is a complex concept
encompassing a range of behaviors directed both internally (towards managers and colleagues)
and externally (towards customers). Consistent with extant thought, we predict that
organizational identification is related to an employee’s job performance. The more employees
entwine their sense of self with and that of the company, the more they view the successes of the
company as their own and will perform on its behalf. Preliminary evidence for this expectation
comes from participants in the qualitative research who claimed that a strong bond with the
company motivates them to work hard and have successful dealings with clients.
You have a sense or a feeling of working for this great company. That’s going to come out in your
communication with the clients.
It gives me confidence that I’m bringing my customers to a good place, that I’m bringing something good to the
people I care about.
Employees who identify with the organization will adopt suggested workplace behaviors
(Hekman et al. 2009) and be motivated to support the company’s products and brands
(Drumwright 1996; Hughes and Ahearne 2010). But prior research (Homburg et al. 2009) also
prompts us to suggest that this effect will be mediated by the employee’s customer orientation.
Identification is known to encourage behaviors that benefit the collective (Dutton et al. 1994).
Thus, the more an employee identifies with the organization, the more he or she seeks
opportunities to contribute to company performance. Since serving customers’ needs is a key
way that frontline employees help the company maintain and deepen relationships with those
customers, such employees may view their own efforts to contribute to customer loyalty as
helping to drive long-term organizational success. Overall, we expect that organizational
identification will be associated with a dedication to satisfying customer needs, which will in
15
turn be related to job performance.
H2: Organizational identification is positively related to job performance and this
effect is mediated by customer orientation.
The Employee-Customer Identification Pathway Between CSR and Job Performance
Perceived customer support for CSR and employee-customer identification. For frontline
employees, customers are among the most salient external parties. An important part of a
frontline employee’s job is to be attuned to the preferences and desires of customers, because this
can help the employee be a better salesperson. Prior research shows that this assessment goes
beyond products or services; it includes employees’ construals of customer perceptions about the
company and its activities (Brown et al. 2006; Fuller et al. 2006; Smidts et al. 2001).
In the present context, we examine how employees construe customers’ support of the
organization’s CSR activities. Specifically, we focus on perceived customer support for CSR,
defined as the extent to which an employee believes that customers hold favorable attitudes or
perceptions regarding the company’s CSR activities. CSR has become a relatively common
element in communications with customers, and there are now numerous ways an employee can
develop beliefs about customers’ CSR perceptions. For example, some supermarkets invite
customers to drop donations in a bucket at the checkout line, providing frontline employees with
an opportunity to gauge how many customers participate. In retail stores, frontline employees
can form first-hand impressions of how interested customers are in purchasing “fair trade”
products (e.g., the department store Macy’s sells GoodWeave rugs that are guaranteed to be
produced ethically). In a call center, customers may mention their opinions about the company’s
CSR activities in conversation (e.g., “I saw your TV commercial about helping veterans”). Our
qualitative research participants reported varying accounts of customers’ support for the
company’s CSR.
16
I’ve mentioned [the CSR program]…They say, ‘that’s a neat thing.’
…someone in California or Florida might not care that we donate our time to Habitat for Humanity in [this
city].
The customer found out that we were supporting an organization, and they had been supporting the same
organization. It came up in conversation and [served] as an icebreaker in the conversation between [us]
and the customer.
Social responsibility activities can stimulate social comparison and social categorization
because such activities are often interpreted as a meaningful indication of one’s values (Bartel
2001). Employees may view customer perceptions about the company’s CSR as a window into
the soul or character of customers. To the degree that employees construe that customers support
the company’s CSR, they may view customers as “good people” who hold similar values to
themselves.
[CSR] is important to customers…so we’re able to speak to the same things and be on the same page …and
realize the similarities that we have.
It makes me think about when people talk about sports, and they like the same sports team, it bridges that
gap in the same way. I guess they put the barrier down and they are more likely to engage from the
customer and sales perspective. The same thing for corporate social responsibility, you have that special
bond and you both agree or value that.
As CSR importance to the employee increases, CSR activity becomes more self-relevant, and
therefore more likely to be used for group definition. When employees perceive customers’
support for CSR as similar to their own, it can serve as a “social glue” that unites them within a
common social group (Gaertner et al. 2000). For such employees the link between perceived
customer support for CSR and employee-customer identification will be stronger. In contrast,
perceived customer support for CSR is unlikely to be as salient or viewed as diagnostic when
CSR importance to the employee is lower, mitigating its use as a social categorization criterion.
H3: Perceived customer support for CSR is positively related to employee-customer
identification and this effect is moderated by CSR importance to the employee. The
relationship between perceived customer support for CSR and employee-customer
identification becomes stronger as CSR importance increases.
Employee-customer identification and organizational identification. We posit that the more
17
an employee identifies with customers, the more likely he or she will be to identify with the
organization. This proposition is based on findings in two literatures. First, the brand community
literature finds that customers who form bonds with other customers via their affiliation with the
organization tend to extend that kinship to the organization itself (Algesheimer et al. 2005;
Muniz Jr and O'Guinn 2001). Fombelle et al. (2011) find such an effect among members of a
zoo. They find that to the degree an organization is successful at unifying members under a
common identity, the individual members may identify with the organization itself. A second
literature that motivates the same prediction is the internal marketing literature, which suggests
that employees develop the strongest bonds with their employer when the job provides
psychological benefits (e.g., George 1990). Making a psychological connection with customers
can provide coherence to one’s sense of self. Interacting with customers who share values around
social responsibility enables the employee to view their work life as more consistent and
integrated with their home life (Bhattacharya et al. 2008). As the primary facilitator of this
psychological benefit, the company becomes a more attractive target for identification.
H4: Employee-customer identification is positively related to organizational
identification.
Employee-customer identification and job performance. Social psychology researchers find
that people consistently show greater trust in, and are more likely to equitably allocate scarce
resources for, fellow ingroup members than outgroup members (e.g., Brewer and Gaertner
2008). We extend this reasoning to the frontline employee context, and expect that the more an
employee identifies with customers, the better he or she will perform on the job due to a
heightened desire to fulfill customers’ needs. As an employee ties his or her self-concept to
customers, the employee may view the successes of customers as his or her own. Such
dissolution of socio-psychological boundaries is likely to place more emphasis on the
18
collectivistic nature of the relationship with customers. Prior research shows that a collectivistic
(versus individualistic) view tends to foster relational (versus transactional) exchanges (Flynn
2005) of the type analogous to customer orientation (Saxe and Weitz 1982). In relational
exchanges, each interaction is embedded in the context of a long-term commitment to
exchanging value.
Then the relationship is on a different level and I want to climb mountains to make that customer happy.
So if you both value the same thing, you end up bridging that gap, and I absolutely think that makes a difference
[in serving customers].
Thus, by encouraging employees to be more customer oriented, we expect employees who
identify strongly with customers to reach and exceed the expectations of their job. Customer
orientation not only affects job performance by motivating collaborative exchanges; it is also
thought to affect other components of job performance. For example, customer orientation can
encourage organizational citizenship behaviors on a work team (Donavan et al. 2004), which can
improve individual members’ job performance. Likewise, Bagozzi et al. (2012) find that
customer oriented employees tend to be highly knowledgeable about buying centers, which can
make those employees better prepared to sell effectively. Thus we predict that employee-
customer identification affects job performance through its effect on customer orientation.
H5: Employee-customer identification is positively related to job performance and this
effect is mediated by customer orientation.
Methodology
Design and Sample
In order to test the conceptual model, we sought to develop a dataset that not only included
measures of frontline employees’ responses to CSR but also an independently-sourced measure
of their job performance. With this in mind, we administered an employee survey at the financial
19
services company where the focus groups were conducted and matched survey responses with
supervisor ratings of job performance for each participant. We invited three hundred seventy-five
non-commission employees to participate in the study (focus group participants were not invited).
A total of 236 employees completed the survey, yielding a response rate of 62.9%. Performance
data were not available for 15 of these respondents (they were new hires), leaving a total sample
of 221 employees for whom there was both survey and job performance data. The average tenure
at the company was 6.3 years and the average experience in customer service was 14.8 years.
Measures
Measures were adapted from prior research and all items are listed in the Appendix.
Dependent variables. Consistent with prior research (Brown et al. 2002; Zablah et al. 2012),
we measured job performance using a global supervisor rating of each employee. The supervisor
rating of job performance was provided by the company. The measure was developed as part of a
company-wide initiative to create comparable indicators of job performance across all
employees; managers use it to inform all compensation, promotion, and internal hiring decisions.
Supervisors are asked to incorporate criteria such as “exceeding expectations,” “energizing the
organization,” and “working together.” Supervisors submitted ratings independently after the
survey data had been collected. As such, respondents had no knowledge of their individual
performance scores until after completing the survey. Customer orientation was measured with a
four-item self-report Likert scale that reflects the extent to which the employee engages in
behaviors that are likely to uncover and satisfy customer needs. The items were adapted from
Saxe and Weitz (1982) and Brown et al. (2002) and included statements such as “I respond very
quickly to customer requests.”
Mediating variables. To measure organizational identification, we used a four-item scale
20
adapted from Smidts et al. (2001). Regarding employee-customer identification, while no prior
measure was available, the construct primarily differs from organizational identification in terms
of the target of identification. Accordingly, we adapted the Smidts et al. (2001) scale with four
Likert items, including statements such as the extent to which the respondent feels “a strong
bond with customers.” The items measure respondents’ sense that customers share their values
and therefore are members of a common ingroup.
CSR antecedent variables. We used three Likert items adapted from Larson et al. (2008) to
measure perceived management support for CSR. These included statements such as “Managers
at [company] fully embrace social responsibility.” Similarly, perceived customer support for
CSR was assessed as the degree to which the employee believes that customers have favorable
opinions about the company’s CSR. To minimize the likelihood that responses would be based
only on the best or worst customers, the instructions directed participants to think about the
“typical customer,” “not customers who are unusual or have extreme views.” Finally, we drew
from prior research (Berger 2007; Reed 2004; Vogel 2005) to create a three-item Likert scale for
CSR importance to the employee, with statements such as “I'm the type of person who cares
deeply about companies being socially responsible.”
Control variables. Controls for personality, tenure at company, service experience, and pay
satisfaction were included for the endogenous constructs in the model. Items measuring the five
major dimensions of personality (activity, agreeability, conscientiousness, creativity, and
instability) were taken from Brown et al. (2002). We measured tenure in years using the item,
“How long have you worked at [company]?” Overall service experience was measured with the
item, “How much total experience do you have in customer service? (in years, including jobs not
at [company]).” Finally, we measured pay satisfaction (DeConinck and Stilwell 2004) with the
21
item, “Overall, how satisfied are you with your paycheck?” (1-7 scale, very dissatisfied / very
satisfied).
Ex-ante considerations to reduce common method variance. The present study analyzes data
from two independent sources, which helps rule out common methods variance (CMV) as an
alternative account for key relationships in the model. To mitigate concerns about CMV among
the variables reported by frontline employee participants, we deployed both ex ante and ex post
strategies. Regarding ex ante procedures, we first note that two of the model’s predictions are
interaction hypotheses. As Siemsen, Roth, and Oliveira (2010) show through analytical
derivation, such interaction effects cannot be an artifact of CMV but rather can only be deflated
by CMV. Additionally, and in accordance with Podsakoff et al. (2003, p. 888) we varied aspects
of the methodology such as the number of scale points (e.g., seven-point scales for perceived
management support for CSR, nine-point scales for personality measures), and the wording of
scale anchors (e.g., personality: “does not describe me at all/describes me perfectly”). We
complemented these ex ante strategies with a series of ex post analyses (see results section).
Analysis Strategy
The empirical model is depicted in Figure 2. To assess the model, we used a structural
equations approach with latent variables. To avoid imposing nonlinear parameter constraints and
to accommodate nonnormality introduced by the two latent interactions, we used the random
effects latent moderated structural equations method available in Mplus 7.0 (Muthén and Muthén
2012). This method uses maximum likelihood robust estimation and provides standard errors that
are more reliable and robust to nonnormality than product indicator approaches (Kelava et al.
2011; Klein and Moosbrugger 2000).2 We compared the hypothesized model to alternative
2 For comparison, we also estimated the model using Ping’s (1996) two-step method and Marsh et al.’s (2007)
unconstrained method. The path estimates were very similar, with no differences in statistical significance levels.
22
models using Satorra-Bentler scaled chi-square difference tests (Satorra and Bentler 2001).
- Insert Figure 2 about here -
Results
Measurement model. Confirmatory factor analysis indicated that the measurement model was
adequate (χ2(574) = 973.04, p < .01, χ
2/df = 1.69, GFI = .82, NFI = .87, CFI = .94, RMSEA =
.05, SRMR = .05). The χ2
statistic was significant but, as is commonly noted, it may be overly
sensitive to sample size. With the exception of one item for one construct (Activity dimension of
personality), all standardized factor loadings (see the Appendix) were larger than .60, and all
were statistically significant (p’s < .05). Composite reliability for the model constructs ranged
between .75 and .97 and average variance extracted (AVE) was greater than 50% for all
constructs (and in each case exceeded the highest squared correlation between the construct and
other constructs). See Table 1 for descriptive statistics and correlations between the constructs.
- Insert Table 1 about here -
Check for common methods variance. Although the study draws from two independent data
sources and the model includes interaction effects, there remains the potential for CMV between
other variables measured in the employee survey. We employed the ex post procedure
recommended by Podsakoff et al. (2003), in which an additional common methods factor is
introduced to the measurement model. This factor accounted for less than seven percent of the
variance in the indicator variables. We then conducted a marker variable analysis (Lindell and
Whitney 2001), with work flexibility as the marker variable. Work flexibility refers to the extent
to which an employee is able to arrange one's work hours (Hill et al. 2001) and was chosen
because although it is theoretically unrelated to variables in the model, it is cognitively
associated with work in general, and thus more likely than a non-work variable to help partial out
23
effects of CMV due to common sources such as implicit theories, consistency motif, or social
desirability. Work flexibility was measured with the item, “How much does your supervisor
enable you to determine your work schedule (i.e., which days and hours you work)?” (1-7 scale,
1 = not at all, 7 = very much, m = 3.88, s.d. = 1.77). In line with Lindell and Whitney (2001) and
Malhotra et al. (2006), we first used the second-smallest correlation (.038) among work
flexibility and the other constructs in the model as an estimate of CMV. We then adjusted the
correlation matrix accordingly and reassessed the structural model. The results were not different
from those obtained using the unadjusted correlation matrix. In sum, both ex post analyses
indicate no significant influence of CMV.
Structural model estimation. We began by estimating a model with only the simple effects
depicted in Figure 1 (i.e., excluding the two CSR interaction effects) plus the effects of the
control variables (Table 2: Model 1). We then estimated the proposed model (Table 2: Model 2),
which includes the two CSR interaction effects. Adding the two hypothesized interactions
significantly improved model fit ( (2) = 17.105, p < .01). The R
2 values also indicate that the
model explains a substantial proportion of variance in the endogenous variables (organizational
identification = 37.2%; employee customer identification = 33.1%; customer orientation =
63.9%; job performance = 19.0%).
- Insert Table 2 about here -
Hypothesis testing. The first hypothesis (H1) predicts that the relationship between perceived
management support for CSR and organizational identification becomes stronger as CSR
importance to the employee increases. The data support this notion; the interaction term of
management support for CSR × CSR importance to the employee is positive and significant (β =
.188, p < .05). This effect is probed further in Figure 3 (Panel A), where we see that management
24
support for CSR enhances organizational identification when CSR importance to the employee is
high (versus low). H2 predicts that as organizational identification increases, job performance
will increase and that this effect will be mediated by customer orientation. We find no evidence
for a direct effect of organizational identification on customer orientation (β = –.044, p > .05)
although we do find a positive significant effect of customer orientation on job performance (β
=.122, p < .05). However, as we describe later in the follow-up tests of alternative models, we
find a direct effect of organizational identification on job performance. In sum, we find partial
support for H2.
We now turn to the hypotheses that pertain to the pathway through employee-customer
identification. H3 predicts that the relationship between perceived customer support for CSR and
employee-customer identification becomes more positive as CSR importance to the employee
increases. This prediction is supported by the data. The interaction between perceived customer
support for CSR and CSR importance to the employee is positive and significant (β = .172, p <
.05). Panel B of Figure 3 depicts this effect; perceived customer support for CSR only enhances
employee-customer identification when CSR importance to the employee is high (versus low).
H4 predicts that employee-customer identification is positively related to organizational
identification. Consistent with this hypothesis, this effect is positive and significant (β = .177, p <
.05). H5 predicts that employee-customer identification affects job performance through its effect
on customer orientation. The data support this prediction. Paths between employee-customer
identification and customer orientation (β = .308, p < .01) and between customer orientation and
job performance are positive and significant (β = .123, p < .01). Moreover, there is no significant
improvement in model fit when a direct path is added from employee-customer identification to
job performance (Satorra-Bentler scaled chi-square difference test: (1) =.003, p = .855)
25
further supporting the mediation hypothesis.
Control variables. Effects of the control variables were consistent with prior research. Paths
from both agreeability and instability to customer orientation are significant, and the signs of the
coefficients are consistent with Brown et al. (2002). Agreeability, overall service experience, and
tenure (consistent with Ng and Feldman 2010) are related to job performance. Agreeability,
creativity, instability, and pay satisfaction (consistent with DeConinck and Stilwell 2004) are
significantly related to organizational identification. Finally, conscientiousness and overall
service experience are related to employee-customer identification.
Tests of alternative models. Some literature suggests that organizational identification can
lead to greater work effort (e.g., Drumwright et al. 1996) and that it can energize employees to
adopt suggested work behaviors more readily (Heckman et al. 2009). Therefore, we sought to
test whether organizational identification might directly affect job performance. To perform the
test, we included a direct path between organizational identification and job performance (Table
2: Model 3). Model fit significantly improved (Satorra-Bentler scaled chi-square difference test:
(1) = 3.940, p < .05), and organizational identification exhibited a positive and significant
direct effect on job performance (β = .041, p < .05).
We compared the modified model (Model 3) with two alternative models to assess the extent
to which organizational identification and employee-customer identification mediate the effects
of the CSR constructs on the key outcomes. The first alternative model includes the paths in
Model 3 but also frees the direct paths from the CSR constructs (and their hypothesized
interactions) to customer orientation. This did not provide a better fit than Model 3 ( (5) =
4.756, p = .45) and none of the added effects achieved significance (p’s > .10). A second
alternative model includes the paths in Model 3 but also frees the direct paths from the CSR
26
constructs (and their hypothesized interactions) to job performance. This second alternative
model provided marginally better fit than Model 3 ( (5) = 10.64, p = .06) due to a significant
direct effect of CSR importance (p < .05). However, no other effects were significant, including
the non-hypothesized paths involving the interactions (p’s > .10). In summary, the results of the
model comparisons support the notion that organizational identification and employee-customer
identification are the central mechanism linking CSR construals to the frontline employee
outcomes of customer orientation and job performance.
Overall, four of the five hypotheses are fully supported, and one hypothesis (H2) is partially
supported (see Table 3 for a summary of the findings). Additionally, the data are most consistent
with a slightly modified version of the proposed model (Model 3; freeing the direct path from
organizational identification to job performance). In the next section, we discuss the implications
of these findings for both scholars and practitioners.
Discussion
To our knowledge, this is the first study that documents when and how CSR is related to the
job performance of frontline employees (as rated by supervisors). We develop and test an
integrated model that explains this relationship based on two salient targets with whom frontline
employees can identify: the organization and its customers. Our findings have both theoretical
and managerial implications which we discuss next.
Theoretical Implications
Multiple targets of identification. Our model expands our understanding of frontline
employees by suggesting that identification is more complex than is typically portrayed in the
marketing literature. Pointing to the bifurcated nature of the frontline experience, we show that
these employees can identify simultaneously with both the organization and customers. The
27
employee-customer identification construct is particularly intriguing because it suggests that
frontline employees use what they know about customers as a means to define themselves at
work. We conceptualize employee-customer identification as existing alongside, and indeed a
potential contributor to organizational identification (H4). This approach is quite different from
other treatments in the frontline literature that conceptualize a tradeoff between serving the
company or serving customers (e.g., Anderson and Onyemah 2006). We take a dual rather than
dueling view of how frontline employees span the corporate boundary. Our finding is thus
redolent of one study (Fombelle et al. 2011) which finds that organizational identification can
result when the organization enables synergies across multiple identities. While the boundary
conditions are a potential subject for future study, our finding suggests that encouraging frontline
employees to identify with a group of constituents can also result in identification with the
organization.
Facilitators of multiple targets of identification. We contribute to the social identity and CSR
literatures by providing an interesting addition to the conventional line of antecedents to
identification. Past research in the CSR literature suggests that customers and employees respond
to CSR activities by evaluating specific characteristics of those activities. We broaden this line of
inquiry by showing that the extent to which frontline employees believe that other salient
stakeholders support the company’s CSR activities can also influence their bonds with both the
company and customers, especially if the employee considers CSR important to their self-
concept (H1 and H3). These effects are interesting because they are not simply valenced
construals that are generalized to both the company and its customers; rather, the evidence
suggests that they are stakeholder specific, whereby perceived management CSR support is used
to assess organizational identification while perceived customer CSR support is used to assess
28
employee-customer identification. Such a notion invites research on which stakeholders are most
salient to frontline employees and how analogous construals are formed. We examine two
identity targets, but additional internal targets such as co-workers or external targets such as
suppliers might also play a role in job performance, warranting further study. Our model could
also be extended to non-CSR contexts; specifically, a frontline employee might engage in social
comparison with customers based on other information that communicates the values of those
customers, such as membership in a brand community or the purchase of luxury goods.
Performance consequences of identification. We find that both organizational identification
and employee-customer identification are related to job performance, but only find support for
the notion that the effect of employee-customer identification is mediated by customer
orientation (H5). Our finding that organizational identification has a direct link with job
performance is upon reflection, consistent with theory on both constructs; organizational
identification has been shown to contribute to outcomes that are consistent with supervisor
expectations of job performance such as adoption of suggested workplace behaviors (Hekman et
al. 2009), motivation (Drumwright 1996), and intent to stay employed (Edwards and Cable
2009). Perhaps the more surprising result is that unlike Homburg et al. (2009), we do not find
evidence that the relationship between organizational identification and job performance is
mediated by customer orientation. One possible explanation for this discrepancy is that some of
the variance in customer orientation explained by organizational identification in that study may
in fact stem from employee-customer identification. That is, employee-customer identification is
a shared antecedent among both organizational identification and customer orientation. A second
explanation could be more contextual; that is, organizational identification may lead to different
sorts of behaviors depending on what is most valued at the company (Hogg and Terry 2000). A
29
frontline employee who identifies with an organization that is highly customer oriented may be
more likely to behave in customer oriented ways compared to an employee who identifies
equally strongly but with a company that is not as customer oriented. We encourage future
research to shed light on this issue by examining employee responses in varied contexts.
Additionally, Homburg et al. (2011) find that the positive effect of customer orientation on
self-reported job performance diminishes as customer orientation increases; the optimum level of
customer orientation depends upon the type of product sold, the pricing strategy pursued, and the
competitive intensity in the industry. This suggests a possibility that organizational
identification, employee-customer identification, or customer orientation could have curvilinear
effects. We explored this possibility by adding quadratic terms to Model 2 for each of these
constructs as predictors of job performance. None of the effects achieved significance (p’s >
.30). While we find no evidence for an inverted-U relationship, we recognize that taken to the
extreme, organizational identification and employee-customer identification could have some
additional and somewhat undesirable consequences from the company’s perspective.3 For
example, Umphress et al. (2010) show that organizational identification can lead employees to
engage in unethical behavior in order to drive short-term sales. Additionally, Brady et al. (2010)
finds that employees give unauthorized discounts and goods to some customers
(“sweethearting”), a potential unwanted consequence of employee-customer identification.
Additional research is needed to untangle the specific conditions under which identification
might lead to these additional negative consequences.
Managerial Implications
Leveraging CSR among frontline employees in a nuanced way. The Gallup (2013) poll cited
earlier suggests that encouraging frontline employees to perform well remains a major challenge
3 We thank an anonymous reviewer for this suggestion.
30
for managers. A number of companies now try to leverage their CSR activities in order to
motivate their frontline workforce (Mohin 2012). Since no prior study has examined this issue at
the individual frontline employee level, managers who believe that CSR plays a role sometimes
come against criticism from their more skeptical peers. This study shows that CSR can affect job
performance, but that it is not equally effective for all frontline employees (more so for those
who already find CSR to be important to their self-view) and only occurs to the extent that it
fosters identification with either the organization or customers (or both). Therefore, while we
encourage managers to integrate CSR into their core business strategies, we also caution
companies against relying upon CSR as an across the board solution. To cultivate the linkages
between CSR and job performance, managers need to first and foremost understand which
frontline employees place importance on CSR; our findings show that these are the employees
for whom the effects of CSR are strongest. We recommend that companies conduct market
research among frontline employees on an ongoing basis. For companies committed to using
CSR to encourage superior job performance, such research should begin at the earliest stages of
hiring; in fact, it could be used as one of the criteria for hiring new frontline employees.
However, managers should not restrict this research to frontline employees. Astute managers can
also conduct similar research among customers to determine which CSR activities are most
likely to inspire CSR-related dialogs between frontline employees and those customers.
Fostering organizational and employee-customer identification. Many managers operate
under the assumption that an employee’s bond with the company can be highly motivating. This
line of reasoning has been validated by recent work showing that employees’ organizational
identification can lead to numerous company-benefitting outcomes (e.g., Homburg et al. 2009).
Via our integrated model linking CSR and job performance, we show that frontline employees
31
have dual targets for identification, and that different targets operate in potentially distinct ways.
Our findings suggest that managers need to foster identification with both targets by
implementing CSR initiatives that are not only vetted by employees but by key customer
segments as well. Moreover, managers must measure and track both organizational identification
and employee-customer identification. But our results also suggest that managers need to be
cognizant of the potential relationships of these mediators with frontline outcomes. If job
performance requires superior customer service (i.e., customer orientation), a manager should
monitor employee-customer identification very closely; if, however, job performance goals are
more general and require more company-centric tasks such as work efficiency or cooperating
with coworkers, then monitoring organizational identification should be more of a priority.
Encouraging CSR communication within and across traditional stakeholder lines. We find
that frontline employees identify with the organization or customers to the extent that an
employee construes support for CSR among management or customers (respectively). This puts
the onus on companies to encourage communication across traditional stakeholder lines. It
suggests for example, that to encourage employee-customer identification, companies need to
first increase awareness of their CSR activities among both employees and customers. Once
these stakeholders are aware of the company’s CSR activities, companies may be able to achieve
additional gains (e.g., customer orientation and job performance) by encouraging communication
about CSR between those various stakeholders. This means, of course, that companies need to
actively monitor and subsequently match, if possible, frontline employees with those customers
who are most supportive of the company’s CSR activities. Companies may need to configure and
communicate more formal mechanisms of varying degrees to trigger these across stakeholder
conversations. One approach is that taken by leading companies such as HP, Starbuck’s, Cisco,
32
and SAP, each of which have experimented with volunteering programs that bring customers and
employees to the same site in order to create shared CSR experiences. To cite a specific example,
DHL, the German-based package delivery company operates a Global Volunteer day with
hundreds of community-building projects in the 220 countries and territories in which it
operates; customers and business partners are invited to join in these activities. Initiatives like
these unite the most enthusiastic employees with the most enthusiastic customers in a natural
setting, likely activating the identification processes and job performance benefits that we find in
our data.
Limitations
As in any study, our findings must be considered in light of some limitations. First, our single
company context enables us to isolate the effects of CSR by holding many company specific
factors constant (e.g., size, industry); however, additional insight may be derived from
replicating our research across populations, settings, and times to better understand whether
background variables do or do not interact with modeled variables. Second, our study’s design
enables us to record the cognitions and job performance of frontline employees, but it does not
permit us to match these thoughts to those of customers. It would be useful to understand how
changes in customer orientation and job performance are received by customers. Thus, we
encourage future research that examines these linkages from a dyadic perspective. Finally, we
recognize that cross-sectional designs are limited in their ability to demonstrate causality. To
establish that the proposed mechanisms are causal, we recommend examining individual
linkages in the model using lab or field experiments.
Conclusion
In the broadest sense, this research can be viewed as examining the intersection of three
33
corporate constituencies: society, employees, and customers. By asking whether CSR activity
can lead frontline employees to be customer oriented and perform well on the job, we investigate
whether the actions of an organization towards society (i.e., via CSR activities) can impact how a
second constituency (i.e., employees) is motivated to serve a third constituency (i.e., customers).
In keeping with the call of some scholars to expand the purview of marketing by considering the
linkages among and between multiple stakeholders (Gundlach and Wilkie 2010), we hope that
this research succeeds in widening the aperture of marketing thought.
34
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TABLE 1
DESCRIPTIVE STATISTICS AND CORRELATION MATRIX
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15
1. Perceived management support for CSR 1.000
2. Perceived customer support for CSR .335** 1.000
3. CSR importance to employee .240** .178* 1.000
4. Organizational identification .454** .328** .235** 1.000
5. Employee-customer identification .385** .285 .354** .369** 1.000
6. Customer orientation .205** .241** .383** .310** .631** 1.000
7. Job performance –.064 –.047 –.159* .099 .060 –.003 1.000
8. Activity .066 .087 .084 .048 .062 .139* –.096 1.000
9. Agreeability .191* .147* .424** .319** .371** .666** –.228 .214** 1.000
10. Conscientiousness .115 .115 .237** .129 .351** .311** –.013 .065 .258** 1.000
11. Creativity .056 .044 .156* .191** .202* .201** –.023 .235** .132* .213** 1.000
12. Instability –.090 .045 –.190* –.227** –.115 –.321** .086 .086 –.299** –.157* .065 1.000
13. Pay satisfaction .268** .114 .072 .392** .191** .193** .143* .012 .094 .080 .057 –.030 1.000
14. Tenure at company –.090 .038 –.046 –.119* –.026 –.099 .214** –.025 –.116 –.062 –.025 .075 –.042 1.000
15. Overall service experience –.006 .085 .008 –.028 .179* .196** .017 –.020 .085 .056 –.119 –.079 –.065 .557** 1.000
Mean 4.793 4.285 5.635 4.704 4.959 5.700 3.282 5.471 7.937 6.982 6.146 3.383 4.231 6.285 14.778
Standard deviation 1.203 0.887 1.018 1.308 1.073 .766 .318 1.972 1.349 1.491 1.733 1.83 1.466 4.848 8.001
* p < .05 (two-tailed) ** p < .01 (two-tailed)
44
TABLE 2
ESTIMATED UNSTANDARDIZED PATH COEFFICIENTS (STANDARD ERRORS)
Model Paths Model 1
(baseline) Model 2
(hypothesized) Model 3
(modified)
Job Performance (Supervisor rating)
Organizational identification − − .041 (.019)*
Customer orientation .125 (.040)**
.124 (.040)**
.122 (.040)**
Control variables
Agreeability –.087 (.023)**
–.087 (.023)**
–.096 (.022)**
Activity –.010 (.011) –.010 (.011) –.009 (.012)
Conscientiousness .004 (.013) .004 (.013) .005 (.013)
Creativity .001 (.013) .001 (.013) –.004 (.014)
Instability .007 (.011) .007 (.011) .012 (.012)
Overall service experience –.007 (.003)* –.007 (.003)
* –.007 (.003)
*
Tenure at company .020 (.005)**
.020 (.005)**
.021 (.005)**
Pay satisfaction .027 (.014) .027 (.014) .014 (.014)
Customer orientation
Organizational identification –.037 (.040) –.037 (.040) –.044 (.040)
Employee-customer identification .308 (.066)**
.308 (.065)**
.308 (.065)**
Control variables
Agreeability .253 (.040)**
.254 (.040)**
.255 (.040)**
Activity .006 (.022) .006 (.022) .006 (.022)
Conscientiousness –.000 (.030) –.000 (.030) –.001 (.030)
Creativity .027 (.025) .027 (.025) .028 (.025)
Instability –.059 (.025)* –.059 (.025)
* –.060 (.025)
*
Overall service experience .014 (.006)* .014 (.006)
* .014 (.006)
*
Tenure at company –.014 (.010) –.014 (.010) –.015 (.010)
Pay satisfaction .050 (.030) .050 (.030) .052 (.030)
Organizational Identification
Perceived management support for CSR .322 (.085)**
.286 (.084)**
.285 (.085)**
CSR importance to employee .000 (.108) .048 (.101) .044 (.101)
Perceived management support for CSR × CSR importance to employee − .189 (.090)* .188 (.090)
*
45 Employee-customer identification .192 (.089)
* .177 (.071)
* .177 (.072)
*
Control variables
Agreeability .134 (.076) .144 (.073)* .145 (.074)
*
Activity –.021 (.046) –.034 (.046) –.034 (.047)
Conscientiousness –.056 (.062) –.062 (.062) –.062 (062)
Creativity .102 (.050)* .103 (.049)
* .102 (.049)
*
Instability –.109 (.044)* –.109 (.043)
* –.108 (.043)
*
Overall service experience –.006 (.011) –.005 (.010) –.005 (.010)
Tenure at company –.001 (.020) –.004 (.019) –.003 (.019)
Pay satisfaction .238 (.054)**
.234 (.053)**
.234 (.053)**
Employee-Customer Identification
Perceived customer support for CSR .220 (.099)* .187 (.097) .186 (.097)
CSR importance to employee .246 (.085)* .246 (.078)
** .245 (.078)
**
Perceived customer support for CSR × CSR importance to employee − .172 (.079)* .172 (.079)
*
Control variables
Agreeability .140 (.068)* .123 (.067) .124 (.067)
Activity –.026 (.036) –.035 (.035) –.035 (.035)
Conscientiousness .143 (.055)**
.141 (.054)**
.141 (.054)**
Creativity .069 (.043) .069 (.041) .069 (.041)
Instability .009 (.044) .012 (.046) .012 (.046)
Overall service experience .026 (.010)* .024 (.010)
* .024 (.010)
*
Tenure at company –.012 (.016) –.012 (.016) –.012 (.016)
Pay satisfaction .094 (.050) .090 (.049) .090 (.049)
Model characteristics
Log-likelihood –11,031.551 –11,024.483 –11,021.946
Scaling Factor 1.479 1.472 1.471
Free parameters 181 183 184 * p < .05 (two-tailed)
** p < .01 (two-tailed)
46
Table 3
SUMMARY OF HYPOTHESES AND FINDINGS
Variables Relationship Finding
H1
Management support for CSR and
organizational identification
Positive, and moderated by CSR
importance to the employee Supported
H2
Organizational identification and job
performance
Positive, and mediated by customer
orientation
Partially supported,
relationship not mediated
H3
Customer support for CSR and
employee-customer identification
Positive, and moderated by CSR
importance to the employee Supported
H4
Employee-customer identification and
organizational identification Positive Supported
H5
Employee-customer identification and
job performance
Positive, and mediated by customer
orientation Supported
47
FIGURE 1
A MODEL LINKING CORPORATE SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY TO JOB PERFORMANCE AMONG FRONTLINE
EMPLOYEES
48
FIGURE 2
RESULTS OF MODEL ESTIMATION
* p<.05, ** p<.01
Control variables for endogenous variables: Activity, Agreeability, Instability, Conscientiousness, Creativity, Tenure at Company, Overall experience in
customer service, Satisfaction with pay.
Solid lines represent significant paths, dotted line is not significant.
49
FIGURE 3
MODERATING EFFECTS OF CSR IMPORTANCE TO THE EMPLOYEE
Panel A Panel B
Note: Figure depicts the simple slopes of Management Support for CSR (Panel A) and Customer Support for CSR
(Panel B) when CSR Importance to the employee is 1.5 standard deviations above and below its mean.
-1,5
-1,0
-,5
,0
,5
1,0
1,5
Low ManagementSupport for CSR
High ManagementSupport for CSR
Org
an
iza
tio
na
l Id
en
tifi
ca
tio
n
Low CSR importance
High CSR Importance
-1,5
-1,0
-,5
,0
,5
1,0
1,5
Low CustomerSupport for CSR
High CustomerSupport for CSR
Em
plo
ye
e-C
us
tom
er
Ide
nti
fic
ati
on
Low CSR importance
High CSR Importance
50
APPENDIX
APPENDIX: CONSTRUCT MEASURES AND STANDARDIZED FACTOR LOADINGS
Constructs and Measurement Items* Standardized
Loadings AVE
Construct
Reliability Source
Perceived management support for CSR Definition: extent to which an employee believes that the company’s executives or other members of
management enable, encourage, or embrace the company’s CSR activities.
1. For executives, [company]’s impact on society is a primary concern.
2. Management encourages employees to be involved in [company]’s social responsibility.
3. Managers at [company] fully embrace social responsibility.
.96
.80
.77
70.7% .88 New
Perceived customer support for CSR Definition: extent to which an employee believes that customers hold favorable attitudes or
perceptions regarding the company’s CSR activities.
1. Customers have a favorable impression of [company]’s social responsibility activity.
2. Customers have a positive attitude about [company]’s social responsibility activity.
3. [Company]’s social responsibility activity is appealing to customers.
.98
.90
.99
91.2% .97 Larson et al.
(2008)
CSR importance to the employee Definition: the extent to which an employee feels it is important for companies to behave in socially
responsible ways.
1. It's important to me that companies help out the communities where they operate.
2. I'm the type of person who cares deeply about companies being socially responsible.
3. I feel that companies need to make the world a better place.
.71
.90
.90
73.1% .89 Derived from
Vogel (2005)
and Reed
(2004)
Organizational identification Definition: extent to which an employee senses a sameness or oneness with the organization.
1. I experience a strong sense of belonging to [company].
2. I identify strongly with [company].
3. I feel a strong sense of membership in [company].
4. The values of [company] overlap with my own values.
.96
.94
.93
.82
82.0% .95 Smidts,
Pruyn, and
Van Riel
(2001)
Employee-customer identification:
Definition: extent to which an employee senses a sameness or oneness with the organization’s
customers.
1. Customers and I are on the same team.
2. I feel a strong kinship with customers.
3. When I refer to customers I say “we” rather than “they”.
.80
.87
.64
55.5% .83 Smidts,
Pruyn, and
Van Riel
(2001)
51 4. My values overlap with those of customers. .67
Customer orientation Definition: extent to which an employee practices the marketing concept by trying to help their
customers make purchase decisions that will satisfy customer needs.
1. I make every customer feel like he/she is the only customer.
2. I respond very quickly to customer requests.
3. I always have the customer's best interest in mind.
4. My number one priority is always customer loyalty.
.69
.76
.88
.85
60.4%
.86
Saxe and
Weitz (1984),
Brown et al.
(2002)
Personality (1-9, Extremely Inaccurate/ Accurate)
“How closely do the following statements describe your personality:”
Agreeability
1. Tender-hearted with others
2. Sympathetic
3. Kind to others
Instability
1. Emotions go way up and down
2. Moody more than others
3. Temperamental
4. Testy more than others
Activity
1. Have a hard time keeping still
2. Extremely active in my daily life
3. Have a hard time sitting around
Conscientiousness
1. Precise
2. Organized
3. Orderly
Creativity
1. Frequently feel highly creative
2. Imaginative
3. More original than others
.82
.93
.89
.95
.91
.78
.92
.95
.49
.63
.90
.95
.73
.75
.93
.95
76.4%
78.6%
51.4%
75.4%
77.1%
.91
.94
.75
.90
.91
Brown et al.
(2002)
* Unless otherwise indicated, scales were 1-7 (1 = disagree strongly, 7 = agree strongly)
