The impact of Organizational Leadership on Corporate Social

Responsibility
1. Introduction
Corporate social responsibility

Corporate social responsibility has emerged as one of the significant challenges to the
companies within the recent years especially when the focus is on the changing needs and
requirements of the companies. Corporate social responsibility involves the citizenship of the
companies, the sustainable company environment, and the responsibility of company towards
the society when it comes to the ethical and moral terms and conditions (Ali et al., 2020). A
study by Gorski et al. (2016) illustrated that corporate social responsibility involves the 5
dimensions including the stakeholders, social, economic, environmental, and voluntariness
which represents the overall responsibilities of company towards them in order to fulfil all the
ethical and moral demands.

Leadership

Leadership is defined as the ability of the company managers or leaders who are there to
direct other people working within the company in order to encourage them to do their work
in a proper way. A true leader is a person who direct the others in such a way that they get
highly motivated in giving their full effort in producing the desired results for their managers
or leaders which are in the best interest of the company (Jones Christensen et al., 2014).

2. Impact of Leadership on Corporate Social Responsibility

The current working environment has changed to great extent that now leadership and lack of
leadership both are responsible for all the happenings of the world nowadays. Within the
current world it is highly required to have a combination of leadership with ethics and moral
values as a leader who is lacking moral and ethical values concerned with the outer and inner-
corporation has greater chances of bringing decrease in the image as well as performance of
company (Singh et al., 2020).

A study was done by Alonso-Almeida et al. (2017) which focused on finding the influence of
organizational leadership on corporate social responsibility. The study conducted a survey
using quantitative research and found a positive and significant connection among the
organizational leadership and corporate social responsibility. The study illustrated that when
there is strong leadership within a company there are more chances of leaders being more
moral and ethical rather than being unethical to the society as well as the company as the
leaders have a built in quality of being fair to their subordinates as well as the society.

A study by Allen et al. (2017) illustrated that there is a positive and significant impact of
organizational leadership on corporate social responsibility as leaders have a sufficiently
great role within the promotion of moral and ethical behavior at the corporate level. The
study further illustrated that the leaders are the one who play a role of model for all of their
followers and subordinates of leaders within companies look forward at the behavior of their
leaders when it comes to moral and ethical terms as they totally rely on their leaders for
guidance. The study suggested that as organizational leadership is directly linked with
corporate social responsibility the leaders should focus on being more moral and ethical with
their subordinates as well as their outside environment in order to give good motivation to
their subordinates as well as create a positive image of company in the society.

Pasricha et al. (2018) focused on exploring the influence of organizational leadership on

corporate social responsibility where the study used survey sampling method and gathered
data from respondents using an adopted questionnaire. The study conducted regression
analysis which revealed that organizational leadership is directly linked with corporate social
responsibility. The study illustrated that leaders are the key players within the company and
their moral and ethical behavior should be highly visible within the company when it comes
to both internal and external level in a company. The study illustrated that when managers are
not good morally or ethically the result is very worst as the employees learn the same from
behavior of their leaders and perform unethical or immoral actions which effects the overall
company performance and image, and the external environment gets effect by immoral
behavior of leaders due to which the overall performance and image of company decreases.

A study by Myung and Choi (2017) focused on connection between organizational leadership
and corporate social responsibility and found a sufficiently notable change in corporate social
responsibility due to changes in organizational leadership. The study illustrated that morality
and ethics are the most important factors within a company as both are central roles of
leadership of a company based on which the overall behavior of the corporation changes. The
study stated that when the leaders or managers follow and give priority to morality and ethics
all the subordinates also pay attention towards these factors due to which eventually the
company is revealed as a socially responsible company whereas when the leaders of company
don’t pay attention towards the ethical and moral factors linked within internal and external
environment it eventually influences the decisions of subordinates also, which represents a
negative image of the company overall.

A study by Agudelo et al. (2019) focused on finding how changes in organizational

leadership brings changes in corporate social responsibility of a company while gathering
primary data from respondents using adopted questionnaire. The study conducted regression
analysis which revealed a positively significant influence of organizational leadership on
corporate social responsibility. The study stated that corporate social responsibility play a
great role in restoring trust of customers and other parties involved as it focused on the moral
and ethical factors linked with the society inside and outside a company. The study illustrated
that when the managers take care of the society being a responsible company, they gain trust
of their stakeholders to great interest as they make them feel they value them and care about
them as well not just their profits. When due to corporate social responsibility trust is
developed among the company and customers the overall profitability of that company
eventually increases.

A study by Khattak et al. (2019) focused on exploring the connection among organizational
leadership and corporate social responsibility. The study used ethical leadership for
organizational leadership and morality and authenticity as measurement tools for corporate
social responsibility. The study conducted regression analysis on the primary data gathered
from previous research and found a positively significant influence of organizational
leadership on corporate social responsibility. The study illustrated that ethical leadership is
highly required in order have a socially responsible company as if the company is not have
ethical leadership the company will lack its corporate social responsibility ability due to
which the trust of customers and other parties involved will decrease eventually leading to
great influence on the overall performance of the company. The study likewise illustrated that
ethical leaders are the one which are highly involved in bringing enhancement within the
performance and productivity of company while decreasing cost concerned with production
while being as much as possibly less harmful to the society. Due to this number of socially
responsible companies have started focusing on green management and business techniques
which not just helps the companies in meeting their goals but also are less harmful to society
or are more environment and society friendly.
A study was done by Du et al. (2013) which focused on exploring the impact of
organizational leadership on corporate social responsibility where the study considered
transactional as well as transformational leadership attributes as the measurement tools. The
study explored a sufficiently great impact of organizational leadership on corporate social
responsibility as increase in the transactional or transformational ability of the leaders
provides them with ability to be motivating towards positive and smooth running of the
company and its employees in order to achieve all the goals and objectives while being quite
fair with the employees and the outside environment. The study likewise stated that both
leadership styles helps in encouraging the achievement of organizational goals and
objectives. Likewise the study stated that the transactional leaders are the ones who focus
more on legal and economic terms when it comes to corporate social responsibility rather
than focusing on stakeholders and other things involved.

A study was done by Tuan (2012) on finding the influence of organizational leadership on
corporate social responsibility while using an adopted questionnaire from previous studies
and found a positive and significant influence of organizational leadership on corporate social
responsibility of companies. The study illustrated that the ethically strong leaders play a vital
role in enhancing the social responsibility of company in order to gain trust of their customers
and all other stakeholders concerned with the companies. The study suggested that leaders
should play a positive role within their companies when it comes to ethics and morality
concerned with society as unethical leaders give the same motivation to their subordinates
eventually leading to sufficiently great decrease in overall performance of companies along
with their image in market.

A study was done by Nazir et al. (2014) which focused on finding connection among
organizational leadership and corporate social responsibility using primary data collection
method through questionnaire survey and found a positively significant influence of
organizational leadership on corporate social responsibility. The study illustrated that with
increase in organizational leadership ethical attributes the corporate social responsibility of
leaders within companies eventually increases which helps in achieving trust as well as a
positive image of companies in the market and in sight of all the stakeholders of companies.
The study likewise illustrated that company’s uses economic and environment friendly
attributes and their leaders encourage their subordinates to play their role in enhancing the
contribution of company.
Another study by Ming et al. (2018) found a positive effect of organizational leadership on
corporate social responsibility while considering ethical and moral leadership. The study
stated that when the ethical and moral qualities improves within leaders it eventually leads to
bringing increase in their ability to run the company as a socially responsible company
whereas when the companies are lacking in certain abilities there are greater chances of
decrease in corporate social responsibility of company which reduces the image of company
in front of its stakeholders and also brings decrease in performance of company due to
decrease in trust of stakeholders or customers on company. The study suggested the managers
to play their positive role in improving the moral and ethical abilities of their leaders by
setting certain rules and regulations and providing them with proper training which
eventually leads to increase in overall corporate social responsibility on company.

A study was done by Ho et al. (2015) which focused on exploring how changes in
organizational leadership brings changes in corporate social responsibility of a company. The
study focused on transformational and transactional leadership as measurement tools for
organizational leadership and used primary research to gather response from the respondents.
Multiple regression analysis was done to test the primary data which revealed a positively
significant impact of both transactional and transformational leadership on corporate social
responsibility on a company. The study illustrated that both forms of leaderships are
positively focused on doing such actions and activities which are in the best interest of the
company as well as the other people who are linked directly or indirectly with the company.
Likewise the study stated that both leaders are highly ethical in nature and always pay
attention towards making their subordinates also follow the same path. Similar was the result
concluded by () who focused on transformational and transactional leadership influence on
corporate social responsibility of a company and found a direct connection among the two
variable.

3. Conclusion
The current study focused on exploring the influence of organizational leadership on
corporate social responsibility. The study used previous secondary data to find the connection
among two variables. The previous literature revealed that organizational leadership is
positively linked with corporate social responsibility as with increase in organizational
leadership there is a positive and significant increase in corporate social responsibility of
companies as when the leadership within a company is strong and ethical there are more
chances of them doing all the moral and ethical activities which will eventually help the
company in being socially responsible at both internal and external levels eventually leading
to great extent of increase in the trust of customers on company, increase in performance, and
profitability of the company in long run.

References
Agudelo, M. A. L., Jóhannsdóttir, L., & Davídsdóttir, B. (2019). A literature review of the
history and evolution of corporate social responsibility. International Journal of Corporate
Social Responsibility, 4(1), 1-23.
Ali, H. Y., Danish, R. Q., & Asrar‐ul‐Haq, M. (2020). How corporate social responsibility
boosts firm financial performance: The mediating role of corporate image and customer
satisfaction. Corporate Social Responsibility and Environmental Management, 27(1), 166-
177.
Allen, G. W., Attoh, P. A., & Gong, T. (2017). Transformational leadership and affective
organizational commitment: mediating roles of perceived social responsibility and
organizational identification. Social Responsibility Journal.
Alonso‐Almeida, M. D. M., Perramon, J., & Bagur‐Femenias, L. (2017). Leadership styles
and corporate social responsibility management: Analysis from a gender
perspective. Business Ethics: A European Review, 26(2), 147-161.
Du, S., Swaen, V., Lindgreen, A., Sen, S. (2013).The roles of leadership styles in corporate
social responsibility. J. Bus. Ethics, 114, 155–169.
Gorski, H., Fuciu, M., and Dumitrescu, L. (2016). Corporate Social Responsibility and
Marketing Communication. Revista Economică, 68(2), 86-106.
Ho, J. A., Ang, Y. H., & Tee, K. K. (2015). Institutional corporate social responsibility (CSR)
practices: The influence of leadership styles and their perceived ethics and social
responsibility role. Pertanika Journal of Social Sciences & Humanities, 23, 17-32.
Jones Christensen, L. I. S. A., Mackey, A., & Whetten, D. (2014). Taking responsibility for
corporate social responsibility: The role of leaders in creating, implementing, sustaining, or
avoiding socially responsible firm behaviors. Academy of Management Perspectives, 28(2),
164-178.
Khattak, S. I., Jiang, Q., Li, H., & Zhang, X. (2019). Corporate social responsibility (CSR)
and leadership: Validation of a multi-factor framework in the United Kingdom (UK). Journal
of Business Economics and Management, 20(4), 754-776.
Ming, W. W. P., Tee, N. E., & Hua, C. C. (2018). Transformational leadership, motivation,
and organizational commitment towards corporate social responsibility in banking service
industry, sarawak. Global Business and Management Research, 10(2), 58-70.

Myung, J. K., & Choi, Y. H. (2017). The influences of leaders’ dark triad trait on their
perception of CSR. Asian Journal of Sustainability and Social Responsibility, 2(1), 7-21.
Nazir, A., Arshad, M., & Shakaib, M. (2014). How does managers' leadership styles
influence institutional CSR activities? Employees perspective”. Journal of Basic and Applied
Scientific Research, 4(5), 175-180.
Pasricha, P., Singh, B., & Verma, P. (2018). Ethical leadership, organic organizational
cultures and corporate social responsibility: An empirical study in social enterprises. Journal
of Business Ethics, 151(4), 941-958.
Singh, S. K., Del Giudice, M., Chierici, R., & Graziano, D. (2020). Green innovation and
environmental performance: The role of green transformational leadership and green human
resource management. Technological Forecasting and Social Change, 150, 119762.
Tuan, L. T. (2012). Corporate social responsibility, leadership, and brand equity in healthcare
service. Social Responsibility Journal.