Multilevel impact of employee-oriented corporate social responsibility on daily job satisfaction and work engagement

Abstract

Employee-oriented or internal Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) brings about many benefits to organizations, but most previous studies have investigated its impact at the level of between-level variance. This study further elucidates its impact on the within-individual variance or daily state changes of workers. Based on the broaden-and-build theory, internal CSR leads to both daily job satisfaction and work engagement because positive emotions expand cognitive competence. Diary data method from bank employees over five consecutive days confirmed the influence of employee-oriented CSR on the fluctuations in job satisfaction at the end of the day and work engagement at the beginning of the next day. The ending-working day job satisfaction has a lasting effect on the next-day work engagement. The magnitude of this effect is higher among employees with higher job autonomy due to the possibility of task flexibility. However, there is no difference in the impact of internal social responsibility on daily job satisfaction. This finding demonstrates the relevance of foundation theory and the advantage of daily data through its ability to vividly reflect the work environment. These results are the groundwork for the application recommendations.