See discussions, stats, and author profiles for this publication at: https://www.researchgate.

net/publication/350736429

The effect of corporate social responsibility on employee advocacy behaviors:

a perspective of conservation of resources

Article in Chinese Management Studies · April 2021

DOI: 10.1108/CMS-08-2020-0325

CITATIONS READS

20 1,095

5 authors, including:

Yulang Guo Junyun Liao

Guangdong University of Finance and Economics Jinan University (Guangzhou, China)
18 PUBLICATIONS 407 CITATIONS 36 PUBLICATIONS 850 CITATIONS

SEE PROFILE SEE PROFILE

Yanping Li Xu Wang
Wuhan University Shanghai International Studies University
44 PUBLICATIONS 521 CITATIONS 7 PUBLICATIONS 71 CITATIONS

SEE PROFILE SEE PROFILE

All content following this page was uploaded by Xu Wang on 23 February 2022.

The user has requested enhancement of the downloaded file.

 The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available on Emerald Insight at:
https://www.emerald.com/insight/1750-614X.htm

Employee
The effect of corporate social advocacy
responsibility on employee behaviors

advocacy behaviors: a perspective

of conservation of resources
Zonghua Liu Received 4 August 2020
Revised 21 October 2020
Economics and Management School, China Three Gorges University, 9 December 2020
Yichang, China 11 January 2021
Accepted 2 February 2021
Yulang Guo
School of Business Administration, Guangdong University of Finance and
Economics, Guangzhou, China
Junyun Liao
School of Management, Jinan University, Guangzhou, China
Yanping Li
Economics and Management School, Wuhan University, Wuhan, China, and
Xu Wang
Economics and Management School, China Three Gorges University,
Yichang, China

Abstract
Purpose – Despite past studies revealed the positive effect of corporate social responsibility (CSR) on
consumer advocacy behavior, little research has paid attention to employee advocacy behavior. This research
aims to examine the relationship between CSR and employee advocacy behavior, the mediating role of
meaningful work as well as the moderating effect of person–supervisor fit on CSR perception – meaningful
work relationship.
Design/methodology/approach – This study used 263 employee samples to examine the relationship
between CSR and employee advocacy behavior and its influence mechanism. Hierarchical regression analyses
and bootstrap approach were applied to analyze the data.
Findings – The results show that CSR perception is positively related to employee advocacy behavior,
meaningful work mediates the link between CSR perception and employee advocacy behavior, and the
strength of the relationship between CSR perception and meaningful work depends on person–supervisor fit.
Research limitations – This study only investigated the effect of perceived CSR on employee advocacy
behavior, future studies should explore the alternative mediation mechanism through which external/internal
CSR perception or different CSR dimensions influence employee advocacy behavior.
Practical implications – This study has practical implications for organizational managers. First, firms
should undertake CSR practices and make employee interpret them in a right way. Second, meaningful work
is of significance for employees and training and development, challenging jobs and job rotation are
conducive to create a sense of meaning in employees’ work.

Chinese Management Studies

This study is supported by the National Social Science Foundation and the Social Responsibility of © Emerald Publishing Limited
1750-614X
New Ventures from the Per DOI 10.1108/CMS-08-2020-0325
CMS Originality/value – This study discussed how and when CSR influences employee advocacy in the
Chinese context.
Keywords Corporate social responsibility, Person–supervisor fit, Meaningful work,
Advocacy behavior
Paper type Research paper

1. Introduction
Corporate social responsibility (CSR) is a series of policies and activities launched by
organizations based on comprehensively considering the stakeholders’ social, economic and
environmental expectations, as well as other multiple performance indicators (Turker, 2009;
Wang and Zhang, 2019). To date, most research has been conducted at the organizational
level of analysis (De Roeck et al., 2016; Wang and Zhang, 2019) and mainly explored the
effect of CSR on firm performance (Callan and Thomas, 2011; Suganthi, 2019; Yang et al.,
 c, 2018; Park, 2019; Wang et al.,
2019), corporate reputation (Song et al., 2016; Vercic and Cori
2020), competitive promotion of corporations (Zheng and Zhang, 2016) and innovative
capacity (Halkos and Skouloudis, 2018) . However, employees, as a key group of
stakeholders in an organization, have not received enough attention (Aguilera et al., 2007;
Wang and Zhang, 2019). Until relatively recently, some scholars (Rupp and Mallory, 2015;
De Roeck et al., 2016; Afsar et al., 2018; Hur et al., 2019) have proposed the concept of micro-
CSR from the individual level, focusing on the impact of stakeholders’ CSR perceptions on
stakeholders’ psychology and behaviors, especially the impact of employees’ CSR
perceptions on employees’ attitudes and behaviors. At present, micro-CSR studies mainly
advance in two avenues. Some researchers examine the influence of perceived CSR on
external stakeholders (i.e. customers) (Gatti et al., 2012; Han et al., 2019; Park and Kim, 2019;
Xie et al., 2019). Others investigate the influence of employees’ perceptions of CSR on
employees within the organization (Youn et al., 2018; Sarfraz et al., 2018; Wang and Zhang,
2019). From a micro-level perspective, existing research has explored the impact of micro-
CSR on employee attitudinal and behavioral variables such as organizational identification
(Glavas and Godwin, 2013; Farooq et al., 2017; Wang et al., 2017; Afsar et al., 2018; Chang
et al., 2019; John et al., 2019), work engagement (Opoku-Dakwa et al., 2018; Rupp et al., 2018;
Jia, Yan et al., 2019), organizational citizenship behavior (Chang et al., 2019; John et al., 2019;
Sarfraz et al., 2018), job crafting (Hur et al., 2019), green behavior (De Roeck and Farooq,
2018; Su and Swanson, 2019), innovative work behavior (Afridi et al., 2020) and
counterproductive work behavior(Shin et al., 2017; Wang and Zhang, 2019). Despite micro-
CSR research has contributed to increasing our understanding of CSR, little attention is paid
to the influence of employees’ perceptions of CSR on advocacy behavior. However, prior
research has found a positive relationship between customers’ perceptions of CSR on
customer advocacy behavior (Castro-Gonzalez et al., 2019; Xie et al., 2019), relatively little
research has focused on the influence of employees’ perceptions of CSR on advocacy
behavior (Vlachos et al., 2017). This indicates the lack of examination of the relationship
between perceived CSR and employee advocacy behavior, and that few empirical
approaches have investigated the significance of the link between perceived CSR and
employee advocacy behavior.
Employee advocacy behavior is defined as “a behavioral construct, that is, the voluntary
promotion or defense of a company, its products, or its brands by an employee externally” (Men,
2014, p. 262). Advocacy behavior for a company represents a type of organizational citizenship
behavior (Burmann, 2005), is not directly called on or explicitly rewarded by organizations
(Tsarenko et al., 2018; Walden and Kingsley Westerman, 2018). Employee advocacy is critical
because it can enhance corporate reputation (Walden and Kingsley Westerman, 2018), job Employee
satisfaction (Yeh, 2014), organizational commitment (Yeh, 2014), job embeddedness (Ghosh and advocacy
Gurunathan, 2014; Ng et al., 2019) and reduce employee’s turnover intention (Li et al., 2016; Ng
et al., 2019). To organizations, employee advocacy behavior helps to create opportunities to
behaviors
increase sales (Tsarenko et al., 2018), build and strengthen corporate reputation (Tsarenko et al.,
2018; Walden and Kingsley Westerman, 2018) and drive organizational productivity and
effectiveness (Tsarenko et al., 2018; Walden and Kingsley Westerman, 2018), ultimately
promoting the success of the organization (Tsarenko et al., 2018). Although organizations
encourage employees to advocate behaviors that have social and economic benefits, such
behaviors are voluntary, go beyond an employee’s formal role requirements and can be difficult
to be motivated (Tsarenko et al., 2018). Subsequently, organizations seeking to promote
employee advocacy behavior need a strong understanding of key drivers, underlying
mechanisms and boundary conditions that facilitate advocacy behavior (Tsarenko et al., 2018).
Employees evaluate their organization with its CSR practices (Sen and Bhattacharya,
2001), which align their attitudes and behaviors with the organization (Castro-Gonzalez
et al., 2019). Drawing on the conservation of resources (CORs) theory (Hobfoll, 1989), this
study argues that CSR acts as organizational resources, which in turn enhance employee
attitudes and behaviors. A firm’s CSR initiatives can secure and develop resources for its
employees and emphasize how resources can be used to promote the advancement of
employees and organizations (Kuntz et al., 2017). This study proposes that CSR practices
that provide employees with various resources, such as good salaries and benefits (Wang
and Zhang, 2019), a fair employment environment (Wang and Zhang, 2019), training
(Stevens et al., 2005) and guidelines (Weaver et al., 1999), resulting in greater meaningfulness
for employees (Aguinis and Glavas, 2019), and those employees who experience meaningful
work are more willing to say good things about their firm to external audiences. Specifically,
when firms implement CSR activities, employees find meaningfulness through work
(Aguinis and Glavas, 2019), in turn, employees are more likely to speak positively (i.e.
advocate) about their firm (Walden and Kingsley Westerman, 2018). This study attempts to
test these proposed relationships.
Person–supervisor fit refers to the extent to which employees perceive that their
characteristics (i.e. values, personality traits and preferences) are similar to those of their
supervisor (Kristof-Brown et al., 2005a, 2005b; Van Vianen et al., 2011). When employees feel
similar to their supervisor, they are more likely to build positive leader–member relationship
based on mutual respect, trust and understanding (Engle and Lord, 1997; Chi et al., 2020). As
supervisors have control over valuable resources (e.g. training opportunities and promotion)
that are useful to solve employees’ task-related problems, high person–supervisor fit
enhances the willingness of supervisors to share these rare and valuable resources to help
their employees in need (Van Vianen et al., 2011; Chi et al., 2020). Supervisors, as agents of
the organization, strongly reflect the character of the organization (Astakhova, 2016), put the
values or norms of the organization into practice (Guay et al., 2019), help to orient and
socialize employees and provide developmental opportunities for employees in the eyes of
employees (Guay et al., 2019). Person–supervisor fit is positively related to employee
outcomes such as organizational commitment (Van Vianen et al., 2011; Astakhova, 2016),
work engagement (Zhang and Gu, 2017), job satisfaction (Kristof-Brown et al., 2005a, 2005b;
Klaic et al., 2018; Guay et al., 2019), psychological capital (Safavi and Bouzari, 2020),
psychological empowerment (Kim and Kim, 2013), organizational citizenship behavior
(Guay et al., 2019) and task performance (Chi et al., 2020). Past research has argued that if an
employee perceives a fit with the supervisor, he/she is satisfied with the job and general
work environment (Van Vianen et al., 2011), which can result in experiencing
CMS meaningfulness at work (Aguinis and Glavas, 2019). The COR theory holds that person–
supervisor fit as a resource will play a significant role in finding meaningfulness at work
(Chen and Zhang, 2020). Previous research has indicated the importance of the moderating
role of fit for CSR effects (Sohn et al., 2012; Im et al., 2017). However, as the role of the fit
between person and supervisor has yet to be examined, this research empirically
investigates the moderating effect of person–supervisor fit for the relationship between
perceived CSR and meaningful work.
Our study attempts to contribute to the relevant literature in several ways. First, this
study extends the extant research on CSR and employee outcomes by empirically testing the
effect of micro-CSR on employee advocacy behavior. Second, this study contributes to the
present literature by introducing the COR theory to examine the psychological mechanism
underlying the linkage CSR perception and employee advocacy behavior. This
demonstrates that perceived CSR can enhance employee advocacy behavior through
meaningful work. Third, this study aims to explore the boundary condition that affects the
relationship between CSR perception and meaningful work.

2. Theory and hypotheses

2.1 Corporate social responsibility perceptions and employee advocacy behavior
CSR has been defined as “corporate behaviors which aim to affect primary social, secondary
social, primary nonsocial and secondary nonsocial stakeholders positively and goes beyond
its economic interest” (Turker, 2009, pp. 413–414). The dominant focus in micro-CSR
research has been on the influence of employees’ perceptions of CSR on employees’ outcomes
(Glavas, 2016). As employees are a key group of stakeholders (Afsar et al., 2018), both
academics and practitioners have started to realize the linkage micro-CSR and employee
advocacy behavior. Employee advocacy behavior is a cross-border employee outcome that
can facilitate CSR performance and help spread the positive CSR interpretation and goodwill
on behalf of the firm and external stakeholders (Vlachos et al., 2017). Although prior studies
have explored how customer perception of CSR impact customer advocacy behavior (Castro-
Gonzalez et al., 2019; Xie et al., 2019), few focus on how employee advocacy behavior can be
fueled by CSR.
The COR theory provides an important theoretical basis for explaining the link between
employees’ perceptions of CSR and employee advocacy behavior. The COR theory holds
that individuals strive to obtain, protect, foster and build resources that they value resources
(Hobfoll, 1989). The core principle of the COR theory is that individuals possessing
abundant resource have the tendency to take proactive resource gain strategy to acquire
resources and invest their current resources to maintain their resource pool (Halbesleben
et al., 2014; Luu, 2019). In recent years, researchers regard the COR theory as an important
theoretical basis for explaining how individuals gain resources (Wu and Lee, 2020). There
are three reasons why this research uses the COR theory as the main theoretical base. First,
CSR practices are important organizational resources and the COR theory is the primary
theory applied to explain how individuals behave in response to personal resources
(Halbesleben and Wheeler, 2015). Second, individuals invest the current resources to
generate resource gain spiral (Halbesleben and Wheeler, 2015). Third, as a well-developed
theory, the COR theory can be applied to discuss how organizational resources translate into
employee workplace outcomes (i.e. advocacy behavior).
Based on the COR theory, employees will invest resources to acquire additional resources
or develop new resources. Employees who possess ample resources have more probabilities
of acquiring more resources. CSR initiatives are an important resource reservoir and
advocacy behavior is a favorable means of acquiring resources. Thus, employees with a
good amount of resources are more likely to participate in advocacy behavior. CSR is viewed Employee
as a firm’s investment to improve social welfare and relationship with its external and advocacy
internal stakeholders (Farooq et al., 2014; Lee et al., 2018). Therefore, the various CSR
practices such as family-friendly policies (Turker, 2009), training and development
behaviors
investments (Manimegalai and Baral, 2018), environmental programs and activities
(Brammer et al., 2015) and philanthropic and community development (Farooq et al., 2014)
can increase employees’ resources, such as satisfying employees’ instrumental, relational
and deontic needs (Vlachos et al., 2017). Possessing ample resources from CSR practices and
activities, employees are inclined to invest these resources in advocacy behavior. When
employees perceive, share and approve of CSR practices (Castro-Gonzalez et al., 2019), they
will engage in advocacy. As the process of advocacy behavior provides employees with an
opportunity for demonstrating their loyalty, ability and sense of responsibility, it is a good
way to develop their resources (i.e. organizational support, trust and appreciation).
Moreover, advocacy behavior that benefits the firm, such as increasing a firm’s image and
reputation, is a way for employees to experience resource gain spirals. Based on this
discussion, we introduce the following proposition:

H1. CSR perception is positively related to employee advocacy behavior.

2.2 Meaningful work as a mediator

In recent years, meaningful work has garnered much attention among scholars and
practitioners. Meaningful work refers to “work experienced as particularly significant and
holding more positive meaning for individuals” (Rosso et al., 2010, p. 95), or more precisely,
“an inclusive state of being that contains meaning and purpose of one’s life through
activities (work) that comprise most of our waking hours” (Chalofsky, 2010, p. 19).
Meaningful work is regarded as the primary motive and employee’s fundamental right
(Usman et al., 2019). Therefore, providing meaningful work experience to employees is
viewed as an organizations’ moral obligation (Michaelson, 2005). Previous research suggests
that meaningful work is influenced by that leadership styles such as empowering leadership
(Kim and Beehr, 2018), narcissistic leadership (Ghislieri et al., 2019), transformational
leadership (Arnold et al., 2007; Chen et al., 2018), responsible leadership (Lips-Wiersma et al.,
2020), job feedback (De Boeck et al., 2019), learning goal orientation(Matsuo et al., 2019),
workplace incivility (Peng et al., 2020), generativity opportunities (Peng et al., 2020) and
worthy work (Lips-Wiersma et al., 2020). However, Raub and Blunschi (2014), Shen and
Benson (2016) and Supanti and Butcher (2019) suggest that CSR practices may influence
employee meaningful work. Research has indicated that meaningful work has relationships
with a laundry list of desirable work-related behaviors and outcomes such as affective
commitment, work motivation, job satisfaction, work engagement, well-being,
organizational citizenship behavior and performance (Michaelson et al., 2014; Allan et al.,
2019; Keskes et al., 2018; Sawhney et al., 2020; Supanti and Butcher, 2019; Usman et al.,
2019). On the other hand, however, research has also suggested that employees who regard
their work as a meaningless contribution toward the organizations can lead to negative
outcomes such as emotional exhaustion (Kim and Beehr, 2018), social loafing (George, 1992),
cynicism (Cartwright and Holmes, 2006), withdrawal intentions (Steger et al., 2012) and
cyberloafing (Usman et al., 2019). Steger et al. (2012) have conceptualized meaningful work
as a three-dimensional structure: meaning-making, greater good motivation and positive
meaning. According to previous research (Sawhney et al., 2020; Usman et al., 2019), we test
the role of overall meaningful work as the mediator of the relationship between CSR and
employee advocacy behavior.
CMS Based on COR theory, CSR practices are key job resources because they can help
employees increase their meaning of work. Organizations’ CSR practices can serve as a
source of meaningful work. CSR practices such as commitment to justice, good
organizational culture, harmonious working atmosphere, career development opportunities
and competitive remuneration (Turker, 2009) can enhance employees’ needs of security and
safety (Bauman and Skitka, 2012), self-esteem (Bauman and Skitka, 2012; Newman et al.,
2015), feelings of belongingness (Bauman and Skitka, 2012; Akdog an et al., 2016), fair and
respectful treatment and honest communication (Akdog an et al., 2016), and they are more
likely to find their work meaningful, valuable and worthwhile (Hackman and Oldham, 1975).
Also, CSR toward social and non-social stakeholders, such as concerning for customers
health (Manimegalai and Baral, 2018), caring for community welfare (Bunderson and
Thompson, 2009) and protecting the environment (Bunderson and Thompson, 2009),
embodies the values and principles of the organization (Du et al., 2007) and reflects a good
citizen image of the organization’s contribution to society (Li et al., 2016). Employees feel
privileged to be a member of their organization that dedicates resources to meet its external
and internal stakeholders’ interests (Barnett, 2007; Godfrey et al., 2009). Working for such an
organization can enhance employees’ self-evaluation (Shariff and Tracey, 2009; Zander et al.,
1972), satisfy employees’ face concerns (Wan et al., 2016) and signal higher social status to
others (Ng et al., 2019). Furthermore, CSR practices that promote an organization’s goals,
values and beliefs (Supanti and Butcher, 2019) can help enhance employees’ “sense of
purpose, agency and impact, which are experienced as meaningful” (Leal et al., 2015, p. 115).
As reported in CSR literature, CSR is more likely to enhance employees’ meaningful work
(Raub and Blunschi, 2014; Newman et al., 2015; Akdog an et al., 2016).
According to the COR theory, meaningful work, an important internal resource (Yeoman,
2014; Kim and Beehr, 2018) that represents a fundamental human need (Yeoman, 2014), is a
notable precursor of an employee’s behavior. According to the key principle of resource gain
spiral, employees use the advantage of the resource of meaningful work to obtain additional
resources (Tan et al., 2019). Meaningful work will encourage employees to focus more on
their work and invest more resources into the work (Joo et al., 2019). Driven by high-level
meaningful work, employees may increase the resource investment in such altruistic
behavior as advocacy behavior to obtain new resources. The COR theory proposes that high
levels of manifesting desired behavior depend on the number of employee resources (Liu
et al., 2020). Based on this logic, employees who perceive their job as meaningful have more
access to complementary resources and more willing to engage in advocacy behavior. From
a COR perspective, employees with more meaningful work reservoirs are more inclined to
accumulate these resources over time by manifesting advocacy behavior. Therefore, CSR
practices viewed as organizational resources can facilitate the acquisition of meaningful
work resources (Aguinis and Glavas, 2019) and then enable employees to advocate as a
means to yield additional resource gains (Guan and Frenkel, 2019). Based on this discussion,
we introduce the following proposition:

H2. Meaningful work mediates the relationship between CSR perception and employee
advocacy behavior.

2.3 Person–supervisor fit as a moderator

Person–supervisor fit concerns the extent to which employees perceive the similarities (i.e. values,
personalities and preferences) with their supervisors (Kristof-Brown et al., 2005a, 2005b). As
supervisors entirely control valuable resources (e.g. promotion opportunities, reward distribution
and work assignment) that are useful to address employees’ task-related problems, high person–
supervisor fit enhances the willingness of supervisors to share these valuable resources to help Employee
their employees (Chi et al., 2020). Especially, the Chinese culture emphasizes the formal power of advocacy
supervisors and the value of the supervisor–employee relationship (Chen et al., 2002; Van Vianen
et al., 2011). In Chinese culture, supervisors not only have high legitimacy over their employees,
behaviors
but also have established a personalized relationship with them (Van Vianen et al., 2011).
Therefore, Chinese employees’ decisions rely on their relationship with their supervisor. Thus,
employee perceived person–supervisor fit has been reported to be positively related employee
outcomes such as job satisfaction (Kristof-Brown et al., 2005a, 2005b), organizational commitment
(Astakhova, 2016), supervisor commitment (Van Vianen et al., 2011) and in-role performance
(Hamstra et al., 2019).
This study contends that employees’ person–supervisor fit perceptions are an important
determinate of the extent to which a firm’s CSR practices are related to employee meaningful
work. There are three main reasons for this. First, employees with a high level of fit with
supervisors can understand and interpret the organization’s values and goals to employees.
Employees with high person–supervisor fit will undertake task instructions and
requirements that are aligned with the company’s CSR practices, which in turn may create
such meaningfulness. Second, when there are higher levels of person–supervisor fit, the
supervisors will be interpreted as being committed to benefit the employees rather than as
being self-serving (Kim and Kim, 2013), CSR practices are conducive to gain greater
acceptance. Therefore, when employees perceive high fit with their supervisor, CSR
practices serving as employees are more effective in depicting their work as being
meaningful. In contrast, for employees with a low level of person–supervisor fit, however,
CSR practices will be less positively related to meaningful work, because these employees
may not support the organization’s values. These low-fitting supervisors may create
misunderstandings and uncertainty between supervisors and employees (Hamstra et al.,
2019), which will impede the effects of CSR practices on meaningful work. Third, employees
with high person–supervisor fit may objectively evaluate CSR practices. Namely, employees
with high person–supervisor fit are more likely to make a significant contribution to a useful
purpose in the execution of their work (Albrecht, 2015) that is aligned with the goals and
values of CSR practices. Based on this reasoning, we contend that person–supervisor fit
affects the extent to which CSR practices are related to employees’ meaningful work. Based
on this discussion, we introduce the following proposition:

H3. Person–supervisor fit moderates the relationship between CSR perception and

meaningful work such that the positive relationship between CSR perception and
meaningful work becomes stronger as person–supervisor fit increases.
Based on the above discussion, we build a research model as Figure 1.

3. Method
3.1 Participants and procedure
Data were collected from employees and their immediate supervisors from 11 firms in China.
To avoid the common method variance (Podsakoff et al., 2012), this study used employee–
supervisor pair samples to conduct a questionnaire survey. Before administering the survey,
we contacted the senior executives or the managers of the HR departments in these firms to
introduce the purpose and confidentiality measures of the study. The HR departments
provided information (employee numbers, e-mails and addresses) of 326 employees and their
64 supervisors. Supervisors filled in survey questionnaires on advocacy behavior,
employees filled in survey questionnaires on CSR, meaningful work and person–supervisor
fit questionnaires. A total of 326 employee questionnaires and 64 supervisors were
CMS requested to participate in this study. We used a match code to classify the response of each
employee with that of his/her supervisor. In total, 297 employee questionnaires and 59
supervisor questionnaires were returned. Because of unmatched or incomplete (i.e. missing
responses) data, 34 questionnaires were excluded. Finally, 263 employee responses were
found usable, whereas 53 supervisor responses were valid. Among the employees, 66.5%
(n = 175) were male, whereas 33.5% (n = 88) were female. In terms of age, 160 employees
(60.8%) were 21–30 years old, 89 employees (33.8%) were 31–40 years old, 11 employees
(4.2%) were 41–50 years old and 3 employees (1.1%) were over 50 years. In terms of
respondents’ education level, 6.5% (n = 17) were high school graduates, 23.6% (n = 62) had
junior college degree, 54.4% (n = 143) had bachelor degree and 15.6% (n = 41) had graduate-
level education. In terms of organizational tenure, 13.3% (n = 35) employees had worked
more than 1–2 years, 27.4% (n = 72) had worked more than 2–4 years, 31.2% (n = 82) had
worked for more than 4–6 years, 24.0% (n = 63) had worked for more than 6–8 years and
3.0% (n = 8) had worked for more than 8–10 years, 1.1% (n = 3) had worked for more than
10 years. Employees of private enterprises composed 77.6% of participants and 22.4%
worked for state-owned enterprises. About 8.4% employees worked in enterprises with 1–50
employees, 16.7% employees worked in enterprises with 51–100 employees, 28.9%
employees worked in enterprises with 101–150 employees, 18.6% employees worked in
enterprises with 151–200 employees, 14.4% employees worked in enterprises with 201–250
employees and 12.9% employees worked in enterprises with more than 250 employees. The
average age of enterprises is 3.8 (SD = 2.3).

3.2 Measures
The measures used in this study were originally developed in English. We created Mandarin
versions according to the back-translation techniques recommended by Brislin (1980).
Following prior research (Tian and Robertson, 2019; Afridi et al., 2020), we conceptually
define CSR as employees’ perceptions of firms’ CSR. We used eight-item scale of Ong et al.
(2018) to measure CSR perceptions. Sample items are “this firm helps the local community”
and “this firm is active in social responsibility.” Items were answered on a five-point Likert-
type scale ranging from 1 (strongly disagree) to 5 (strongly agree). In this study, Cronbach’s
a was 0.937. We used 10-item scale of Steger et al. (2012) to measure meaningful work.
Sample items are “I have found a meaningful career” and “the work I do serves a greater
purpose.” Items were answered on a five-point Likert-type scale ranging from 1 (strongly
disagree) to 5 (strongly agree). In this study, Cronbach’s a was 0.934. We used three-item
scale of Cable and DeRue (2002) to measure person–supervisor fit. Sample items are “the
things I value in life are similar to the things my supervisor values” and “my supervisor’s
values provide a good fit with the things that I value in life.” Items were answered on a five-
point Likert-type scale ranging from 1 (strongly disagree) to 5 (strongly agree). In this study,
Cronbach’s a was 0.904. Employee advocacy behavior was measured using a four-item scale
developed by Walden and Kingsley Westerman (2018). Sample items are “I will speak

Person-supervisor fit

Figure 1.
Research model Corporate social responsibility Meaningful work Advocacy behavior
favorably about my organization in public” and “I will say positive things about the Employee
organization to other people.” In this study, Cronbach’s a was 0.909. advocacy
Previous research indicates that demographic characteristics could influence employees’
meaningful work and advocacy behavior (Vlachos et al., 2017; Demirtas et al., 2017).
behaviors
Therefore, we controlled gender (0 = male, 1 = female), age (1 = 21–25 years, 2 = 26–30
years, 3 = 31–35 years, 4 = 36–40 years and 5 = more than 40 years), level of education(1 =
high school or below, 2 = diploma, 3 = bachelor’s degree, 4 = postgraduate diploma and 5 =
master’s degree or higher) and organizational tenure (1 = 1–2 years or less, 2 = 2–4 years,
3 = 4– 6 years, 4 = 6–8 years, 5 = 8–10 years and 6 = 11 years or above).

4. Results
4.1 Confirmatory factor analysis
In the beginning, we conducted confirmatory factor analysis using AMOS 22.0 to verify the
distinctiveness of the four constructs. Results revealed that the four-factor model provided a
good fit to the data ( x 2 = 575.724, df = 269, x 2/df = 2.140, RMR = 0.033, IFI= 0.937, TLI =
0.929, CFI = 0.936, RMSEA = 0.066). We compared the fitness of the four-factor model with
that of one-factor model, one two-factor model and one three-factor model. As presented in
Table 1, the four-factor model fitted significantly better than the alternative models,
including the three-factor model where CSR perception and meaningful work were
combined ( x 2 = 1,268.669, df = 272, x 2/df = 4.664, RMR = 0.057, IFI = 0.795, TLI = 0.772,
CFI = 0.793, RMSEA = 0.118), the two-factor model where CSR perception, meaningful work
and person–supervisor were combined ( x 2 = 1778.747, df = 274, x 2/df = 6.492, RMR =
0.070, IFI = 0.544, TLI = 0.584, CFI = 0.688, RMSEA = 0.145) and the one-factor model with
all items loaded on a single ( x 2 = 2,170.404, df = 252, x 2/df = 8.613, RMR = 0.079, IFI =
0.586, TLI = 0.544, CFI = 0.584, RMSEA = 0.170). Given these results, the four variables in
the conceptual model were applied in subsequent analyses.

4.2 Descriptive analysis

Table 2 presents means, standard deviations and correlations of all key variables. As
presented in Table 2, CSR perception was positively related to employee advocacy (r =
0.421, p < 0.0.01) and meaningful work (r = 0.626, p < 0.0.01) and meaningful work was
positively related to employee advocacy behavior (r = 0.407, p < 0.001). The correlation
analysis results support the positive relationships between CSR perception, meaningful
work and employee advocacy behavior.

4.3 Hypothesis test

H1 proposes that CSR perception is positively related to employee advocacy behavior. We
examined the hypothesis using a hierarchical regression analysis run by SPSS. As presented
in Table 3, we found a statistically significant association between CSR perception and
advocacy behavior ( b = 0.436, p < 0.001). Thus, H1 was supported.

Model x2 Df x 2/df RMR IFI TLI CFI RMSEA

Four-factor model 575.724 269 2.140 0.033 0.937 0.929 0.936 0.066
Three-factor mode 1268.669 272 4.664 0.057 0.795 0.772 0.793 0.118 Table 1.
Two-factor mode 1778.747 274 6.492 0.070 0.690 0.658 0.688 0.145 Confirmatory factor
One-factor model 2170.404 252 8.613 0.079 0.586 0.544 0.584 0.170 analysis results
CMS Variables Mean SD 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8

1. Gender 0.335 0.473 1

2. Age 1.456 0.634 0.011 1

3. Education 2.791 0.780
0.037 0.024 1

4. Organizational tenure 2.795 1.110 0.124* 0.378** 0.003 1

5. CSR perception 4.063 0.666 0.151* 0.052 0.020 0.045 1

6. Meaningful work 3.921 0.668 0.111
0.043
0.085 0.061 0.626** 1

7. Person–supervisor fit 4.281 0.680
0.057 0.046 0.080 0.171** 0.075 0.079 1

Table 2.
Means, standard 8. Advocacy behavior 3.671 0.658
0.019
0.067 0.096
0.084 0.421** 0.407** 0.137* 1
deviations and
reliabilities of study
variables Notes: n = 263. **p < 0.01, *p < 0.05

Meaningful work Advocacy behavior

Model 1 Model 2 Model 3 Model 4 Model 5

Gender 0.099 0.004
0.007
0.072
0.073

Age
0.071
0.100
0.044
0.064
0.039
Table 3. Education
0.080
0.095 0.097 0.086 0.111*
Results of the Organizational tenure 0.076 0.070
0.067
0.071
0.088
hierarchical CSR perception 0.630*** 0.436*** 0.276***
meaningful work 0.255***
regression analyses R2 0.025 0.0412 0.018 0.203 0.242
for the mediating DR2 0.386*** 0.186*** 0.038***
effect of meaningful
work Notes: n = 263. ***p < 0.001, *p < 0.05

H2 predicts the mediating effect of meaningful work on the relationship between CSR
perception and advocacy behavior. First, we examined the relationship between CSR
perception and meaningful work. The results showed that CSR perception was a significant
direct predictor of meaningful work ( b = 0.630, p < 0.001). Second, when CSR perception
and meaningful work were entered simultaneously, meaningful work had a significant
effect on advocacy behavior ( b = 0.255, p < 0.001), and CSR perception had a reduced
relationship with advocacy behavior ( b = 0.276, p < 0.001). Therefore, meaningful work
partially mediated CSR perception and advocacy behavior. Furthermore, by using
PROCESS macro developed by Hayes (2013) (model 4, version 2.16), we tested whether there
was a direct influence of CSR perception on advocacy behavior and/or indirect through
meaningful work. In this study, we employed 5,000 bootstrap samples with 95% CI. The
results suggest that the relationship between CSR perception and advocacy behavior is
partially mediated by meaningful work (b = 0.159, Boot SE = 0.048, p < 0.05, 95% CI [0.070,
0.259]) (Table 4).
 H3 predicts that person–supervisor fit amplifies the positive relationship between CSR Employee
perception and employee advocacy behavior. To support H3, the coefficients of the advocacy
interaction terms (CSR perception  person–supervisor fit) in the model should be
significant. As it was noticed in Model 3 in Table 5, the results showed a significant
behaviors
interaction between CSR perception and person–supervisor fit on meaningful work ( b =
0.113, p < 0.05).
We further test the role of person–supervisor fit by using Model 1 of the PROCESS macro
developed by Hayes (2013). In the analysis, 95% confidence intervals and 5,000 samples for
bootstrapping were run. As depicted in Table 6 and Figure 2, when person–supervisor fit
was high (high: b = 0.350, 95% CI [0.087, 0.612])/mean (mean: b = 0.267, 95% CI [0.022,
0.516]), the positive relationships between CSR perception and meaningful work were
stronger (the slopes were steeper). Conversely, we detected no significant relationship
between CSR perception and meaningful work when employees perceived a low level of
person–supervisor fit (low: b = 0.189, 95% CI [
0.064, 0.441]), lending evidence for H3.

Path b T p Boot SE 95% CI

Total effect: CSR perception ! Advocacy behavior 0.432 7.734 0.000 0.056 [0.322, 0.541] Table 4.
Indirect effect: CSR perception ! Meaningful work ! Bootstrap analyses
Advocacy behavior 0.159 0.048 [0.070, 0.259] for the mediating
Direct effect: CSR perception! Advocacy behavior 0.273 3.887 0.000 0.070 [0.135, 0.410]
effect of meaningful
Notes: CI = confidence interval, b = unstandardized coefficient work

Meaningful work
Model 1 Model 2 Model 3

Gender 0.099 0.007 0.004

Age
0.071
0.099
0.106*
Education
0.080
0.098*
0.092
Organizational tenure 0.076 0.064 0.058
CSR perception 0.627*** 0.636***
Person–supervisor fit 0.034 0.035 Table 5.
CSR perception * Person–supervisor fit 0.113*
R2 0.025 0.413 0.425
Regression analyses
DR2 0.025 0.387 0.012* for testing
moderating effect of
Notes: n = 263. ***p < 0.001, *p < 0.05 person–supervisor fit

Level b Boot SE Boot LLCI Boot ULCI

Table 6.
3.601 (
1 SD ) 0.189 0.123
0.064 0.441
4.821 (Mean) 0.267 0.125 0.022 0.516
Bootstrap analyses
4.962 (þ1 SD) 0.350 0.133 0.087 0.612 for the moderating
effect of person–
Notes: CI = confidence interval, b = unstandardized coefficient supervisor fit
CMS 9

Meaningful work
5 Person-supervisor fit

4
high
3
Figure 2. med
2
Interaction effects of
CSR perception and 1 low
person–supervisor fit
on meaningful work 0
low CSR perception high

5. Discussion
5.1 Theoretical contributions
The findings of our research make three theoretical contributions. First, our study suggests
that employees’ CSR perceptions can positively affect their advocacy. The major
contribution of our research is the confirmation that CSR is an important antecedent
variable of employee advocacy behavior, which may enrich CSR and advocacy behavior
literature. CSR literature called for a greater understanding of micro-level CSR (Hur et al.,
2019; Cheema et al., 2020) There has been increasing academic attention paid to employees’
CSR perceptions. CSR studies shift the focus from macro-level analysis of CSR to exploring
the effect of micro-CSR on employees’ attitudes and behaviors. Previous research suggests
that perceived CSR influences employees’ outcomes through their sensemaking of their
organization’s CSR actions (Glavas, 2016; Vlachos et al., 2017; Hur et al., 2019; Afridi et al.,
2020). However, very few studies investigate the impact of CSR perception on employee
advocacy behavior (Vlachos et al., 2017). To our knowledge, this study is the first to bridge
the research gap by offering a firm’s CSR as a micro-level factor that effects advocacy
among employees in the Chinese context, which thus sheds new light on the macro concept
of CSR and individual-level outcomes linkage.
Second, our study investigates the mediating role of meaningful work as a linking
mechanism between employees’ perceptions about their firm’s CSR and advocacy behavior.
Micro-CSR literature suggests that CSR perception may influence employee behavior
through different psychological and social processes. However, so far, how and when CSR
perception influences employee outcomes remain largely unknown (Glavas, 2016; Hur et al.,
2019). Past studies such as Ko et al.(2018) and Cheema et al.(2020) reveal that CSR perception
influences employee outcomes principally through a motivational social and psychological
process (i.e. organizational identification). Similarly, CSR perception is more likely to result
in employee outcomes through a psychological process (i.e. meaningful work). This study
verified the CSR perception–employee advocacy relationship by exploring the mediation
process based on the COR theory. This study demonstrated that CSR perception can induce
meaningful work, and in turn increases employee advocacy behavior. As such, our study
provides an important insight into the nature of the psychological process in which CSR
perception influences employee behavior. In addition, the result of this hypothesis is
consistent with previous studies such as Hur et al.(2019) and Afridi et al.(2020), which
argued employee behavior is influenced by a firm’s policies and activities of concern for Employee
employees. Besides, our study significantly contributes to the CSR research by answering advocacy
calls to focus on the underlying mechanisms that how CSR perception affects individual-
level outcomes (Aguinis and Glavas, 2019; Seiling, 2008; Wallace and De Chernatony, 2009;
behaviors
Tsarenko et al., 2018).
Third, this study offers further understanding by testing the moderating effect of
person–supervisor fit on employees’ perceived CSR-meaningful work linkage. By offering
person–supervisor fit as a moderator in the link between CSR perception and meaningful
work, this study provided empirical evidence that person–supervisor fit strengthens the
influence of CSR perception on meaningful work, which is consistent with the views of prior
studies (John et al., 2019; Hur et al., 2019; Cheema et al., 2020), which suggested that
boundary conditions may influence the CSR perception–employee outcome relationship.
The finding indicates that the fit between employees and their supervisor overtly revealed
by the organization will lead to employees’ positive response. The discovery of the
moderating role of person–supervisor fit is of particular significance, which provides useful
theoretical and methodological guidelines for organizations to increase the meaningful work
of new generation employees (i.e. post-1990s employees) in China. In doing so, our study
contributes to micro CSR literature by exploring its moderating effect between CSR
perception and meaningful work.

5.2 Managerial implications

This research also has several important implications for organizational managers. First,
this study suggests that CSR perception influences employee advocacy behavior. This result
suggests that organizations should develop CSR initiatives that reflect firms’ mission and
vision and make employees acknowledge the CSR practices as value driven. For firms, to
build sustainable management philosophy is an effective measure to communicate CSR
initiatives to employees. For instance, firms should shift the concept of pursuing profit
maximization at the cost of destroying the environment and neglecting social demands and
firm operation actively contributes to the economic, social and ecological development. For
employees, organizations enable employees to become aware of CSR practices through
awareness programs, CSR reports, special CSR training, seminars, corporate online channels
and events. For example, employee participation in CSR programs is considered to provide a
better understanding of CSR strategy. When employees perceive that CSR actions develop
goodwill among various stakeholders and employees being part of the stakeholders in the
corporate, they tend to participate in advocacy on behalf of their firm.
Second, based on the finding that meaningful work is a pivotal mediator of CSR
perception and employee advocacy behavior relationship, firms would be advised to develop
employee’s meaningful work as a means of enhancing employee advocacy behavior. Thus,
organizations need to not only internalize CSR strategy and practices into the employees’
perceptions, but also enable employees to find meaningfulness through work. To foster
employees’ work meaningfulness, scholars have proposed that organizations need to
implement CSR initiatives (Raub and Blunschi, 2014). Therefore, increasing the perceived
meaning in work through CSR practices is a good way to spur employee advocacy behavior.
Especially, post-1990s and millennial employees in China often manifest unique job
characteristics and value career development. To raise employees’ work meaningfulness,
firms can adopt CSR practices such as supporting family programs, supporting sports clubs,
non-discrimination, fair remuneration diversity, good working environment and conditions,
open and transparent communication and media about CSR activities. In essence, employees
readily consider their work as meaningful when they have the chance to observe and
CMS experience how firm’s CSR practices are implemented in their daily work. Once employees
make sense of CSR, they will generate a sense of meaning in their work, which then leads to
positive outcomes (i.e. advocacy behavior).
Third, to enable employees to find more meaningfulness through work that embeds CSR,
our result suggests that organizations should especially emphasize a fit between employees
and supervisors. In China, with a high power distance culture (Gao et al., 2018), supervisor-
employee fit reflects the extent that supervisors’ morals and values align with those of
employees and determines efficiently working with one another. Consequently, organizations
can increase supervisor-employee fit by developing and emphasizing special values, trust,
respect, skills, objectives and interests between supervisors and their employees. In the staffing
stage, supervisors should understand employees’ various distinctive characteristics and assign
employees with similar characteristics in the same team or division.

5.3 Limitations and future directions

Like all studies, this research has several limitations. First, the data was obtained from a
sample of 263 subordinate supervisor, which makes it difficult to eliminate the common
method bias. Future research can use longitudinal or experimental approaches to obtain
stronger causal inferences. Second, this study only investigated one mediating path. Previous
research suggested that CSR perception may influence employee outcomes through multiple
pathways (Farooq et al., 2017). Similarly, the CSR literature identifies multiple psychological
processes, such as authenticity and employee volunteerism, through which affects employee
outcomes (Su and Swanson, 2019; Afridi et al., 2020). Moreover, past studies suggested that
different forms of perceived CSR (i.e. external/internal CSR perception) lead to different sorts of
employee outcomes via the effect of different mechanisms (i.e. prestige and respect) (Farooq
et al., 2017). To better understand the CSR perception-advocacy behavior link, future studies
should explore the alternative mediation mechanisms (i.e. organizational trust and
organizational identification) (Farooq et al., 2017) through which perceived external/internal
CSR or different CSR dimensions influence employee advocacy behavior. Third, though an
important form of fit, person–supervisor fit is only one form of fit (Kristof-Brown et al., 2005a,
2005b; Byza et al., 2019), there are other forms of fit such as person-organization fit, person-
team fit, person-job fit and person-task fit in an organization. It may be interesting to examine
the moderating role of a variety of fit in future research.

6. Conclusion
This study theorized and examined the direct and indirect link between CSR perception and
employee advocacy behavior. This study also examined the moderating role of person–
supervisor fit. Using data collected from a sample of 263 employees, this study found that CSR
perception was directly related to employee advocacy behavior. In particular, CSR perception
was found to affect employee advocacy behavior via meaningful work. Additionally, person–
supervisor fit moderated the positive relationship between CSR perception and meaningful
work, such that the link was strong when person–supervisor fit was high.

References
Afridi, S.A., Afsar, B., Shahjehan, A., Rehman, Z.U., Haider, M. and Ullah, M. (2020), “Perceived
corporate social responsibility and innovative work behavior: the role of employee volunteerism
and authenticity”, Corporate Social Responsibility and Environmental Management, Vol. 27
No. 4, pp. 1-13, doi: 10.1002/csr.1932.
Afsar, B., Cheema, S. and Javed, F. (2018), “Activating employee’s pro-environmental behaviors: the Employee
role of CSR, organizational identification, and environmentally specific servant leadership”,
Corporate Social Responsibility and Environmental Management, Vol. 25 No. 5, pp. 904-911. advocacy
Aguilera, R.V., Rupp, D.E., Williams, C.A. and Ganapathi, J. (2007), “Putting the S back in corporate behaviors
social responsibility: a multilevel theory of social change in organizations”, Academy of
Management Review, Vol. 32 No. 3, pp. 836-863.
Aguinis, H. and Glavas, A. (2019), “On corporate social responsibility, sensemaking, and the search for
meaningfulness through work”, Journal of Management, Vol. 45 No. 3, pp. 1057-1086.
Akdo gan, A.A., Arslan, A. and Demirtas , Ö. (2016), “A strategic influence of corporate social
responsibility on meaningful work and organizational identification, via perceptions of ethical
leadership”, Procedia - Social and Behavioral Sciences, Vol. 235, pp. 259-268.
Albrecht, S.L. (2015), “Meaningful work: some key questions for research and practice”, in Burke, R.J.,
Page, K.M. and Cooper, C. L. (Eds), Flourishing in Life, Work and Careers: Individual Well-Being
and Career Experiences, Edward Elgar, Cheltenham, pp. 210-234.
Allan, B.A., Batz-Barbarich, C., Sterling, H.M. and Tay, L. (2019), “Outcomes of meaningful work: a
Meta-analysis”, Journal of Management Studies, Vol. 56 No. 3, pp. 500-528.
Arnold, K.A., Turner, N., Barling, J., Kelloway, E.K. and McKee, M.C. (2007), “Transformational
leadership and psychological well-being: the mediating role of meaningful work”, Journal of
Occupational Health Psychology, Vol. 12 No. 3, pp. 193-203.
Astakhova, M.N. (2016), “Explaining the effects of perceived person-supervisor fit and person-
organization fit on organizational commitment in the US and Japan”, Journal of Business
Research, Vol. 69 No. 2, pp. 956-963.
Barnett, M. (2007), “Stakeholder influence capacity and the variability of financial returns to corporate
social responsibility”, Academy of Management Review, Vol. 32 No. 3, pp. 794-816.
Bauman, C.W. and Skitka, L.J. (2012), “Corporate social responsibility as a source of employee
satisfaction”, Research in Organizational Behavior, Vol. 32, pp. 63-86.
Brammer, S., He, H. and Mellahi, K. (2015), “Corporate social responsibility, employee organizational
identification, and creative effort: the moderating impact of corporate ability”, Group and
Organization Management, Vol. 40 No. 3, pp. 323-352.
Brislin, R.W. (1980), “Translation and content analysis of oral and written material”, Handbook of
Cross-Cultural Psychology, Vol. 2 No. 2, pp. 349-444.
Bunderson, J.S. and Thompson, J.A. (2009), “The call of the wild: zookeepers, callings, and the
double-edged sword of deeply meaningful work”, Administrative Science Quarterly, Vol. 54
No. 1, pp. 32-57.
Burmann, C. (2005), “Building brand commitment: a behavioral approach to internal brand
management”, Journal of Brand Management, Vol. 12 No. 4, pp. 279-300.
Byza, O.A.U., Doerr, S.L., Schuh, S.C. and Maier, G.W. (2019), “When leaders and followers match: the
impact of objective value congruence, value extremity, and empowerment on employee
commitment and job satisfaction”, Journal of Business Ethics, Vol. 158 No. 4, pp. 1097-1112.
Cable, D.M. and DeRue, D.S. (2002), “The convergent and discriminant validity of subjective fit
perceptions”, Journal of Applied Psychology, Vol. 87 No. 5, pp. 875-884.
Callan, S.J. and Thomas, J.M. (2011), “Executive compensation, corporate social responsibility, and
corporate financial performance: a multi-equation framework”, Corporate Social Responsibility
and Environmental Management, Vol. 18 No. 6, pp. 332-351.
Cartwright, S. and Holmes, N. (2006), “The meaning of work: the challenge of regaining employee engagement
and reducing cynicism”, Human Resource Management Review, Vol. 16 No. 2, pp. 199-208.
Castro-Gonzalez, S., Bande, B., Fernandez-Ferrín, P. and Kimura, T. (2019), “Corporate social
responsibility and consumer advocacy behavior: the importance of emotions and moral virtues”,
Journal of Cleaner Production, Vol. 231, pp. 846-855.
CMS Chalofsky, N.E. (2010), Meaningful Workplaces: Reframing How and Where we Work, John Wiley and
Sons, San Francisco.
Chang, T.W., Chen, F.F., Luan, H.D. and Chen, Y.S. (2019), “Effect of green organizational identity,
green shared vision, and organizational citizenship behavior for the environment on green
product development performance”, Sustainability, Vol. 11 No. 3, p. 617
Cheema, S., Sadia, B., Al-Ghazalil, B.M. and Maqsoom, A. (2020), “How employee’s perceived corporate
social responsibility affects employee’s pro-environmental behaviour? the influence of
organizational identification, corporate entrepreneurship, and environmental consciousness”,
Corporate Social Responsibility and Environmental Management, Vol. 27 No. 2, pp. 616-629.
Chen, N. and Zhang, L. (2020), “Mediating role of meaningful work and vocational identity on the
relationship between perceived family supportive supervisor behaviour and career satisfaction”,
Journal of Psychology in Africa, Vol. 30 No. 4, pp. 295-299.
Chen, S.J., Wang, M.J. and Lee, S.H. (2018), “Transformational leadership and voice behaviors: the mediating
effect of employee perceived meaningful work”, Personnel Review, Vol. 47 No. 3, pp. 694-708.
Chi, N.W., Fang, L.C., Shen, C.T. and Fan, H.L. (2020), “Detrimental effects of newcomer person-job
misfit on actual turnover and performance: the buffering role of multidimensional person-
environment fit”, Applied Psychology, Vol. 69 No. 4, pp. 1361-1395.
De Boeck, G., Dries, N. and Tierens, H. (2019), “The experience of untapped potential: towards a
subjective temporal understanding of work meaningfulness”, Journal of Management Studies,
Vol. 56 No. 3, pp. 529-557.
Demirtas, O., Hannah, S.T., Gok, K., Arslan, A. and Capar, N. (2017), “The moderated influence of
ethical leadership, via meaningful work, on followers’ engagement, organizational identification,
and envy”, Journal of Business Ethics, Vol. 145 No. 1, pp. 183-199.
Du, S., Bhattacharya, C.B. and Sen, S. (2007), “Reaping relational rewards from corporate social
responsibility: the role of competitive positioning”, International Journal of Research in
Marketing, Vol. 24 No. 3, pp. 224-241.
Engle, E.M. and Lord, R.G. (1997), “Implicit theories, self-schemas, and leader-member exchange”,
Academy of Management Journal, Vol. 40 No. 4, pp. 988-1010.
Farooq, O., Payaud, M., Merunka, D. and Valette-Florence, P. (2014), “The impact of corporate social
responsibility on organizational commitment: exploring multiple mediation mechanisms”,
Journal of Business Ethics, Vol. 125 No. 4, pp. 563-580.
Farooq, O., Rupp, D.E. and Farooq, M. (2017), “The multiple pathways through which internal and
external corporate social responsibility influence organizational identification and multifoci
outcomes: the moderating role of cultural and social orientations”, Academy of Management
Journal, Vol. 60 No. 3, pp. 954-985.
Gao, B., Li, X., Liu, S. and Fang, D. (2018), “How power distance affects online hotel ratings: the positive
moderating roles of hotel chain and reviewers’ travel experience”, Tourism Management,
Vol. 65, pp. 176-186.
Gatti, L., Caruana, A. and Snehota, I. (2012), “The role of corporate social responsibility, perceived
quality and corporate reputation on purchase intention: implications for brand management”,
Journal of Brand Management, Vol. 20 No. 1, pp. 65-76.
George, J.M. (1992), “Extrinsic and intrinsic origins of perceived social loafing in organizations”,
Academy of Management Journal, Vol. 35 No. 1, pp. 191-202.
Ghislieri, C., Cortese, C.G., Molino, M. and Gatti, P. (2019), “The relationships of meaningful work and
narcissistic leadership with nurses’ job satisfaction”, Journal of Nursing Management, Vol. 27
No. 8, pp. 1691-1699.
Ghosh, D. and Gurunathan, L. (2014), “Linking perceived corporate social responsibility and intention
to quit: the mediating role of job embeddedness”, Vision: The Journal of Business Perspective,
Vol. 18 No. 3, pp. 175-183.
Glavas, A. (2016), “Corporate social responsibility and organizational psychology: an integrative Employee
review”, Frontiers in Psychology, Vol. 7, p. 144.
advocacy
Glavas, A. and Godwin, L.N. (2013), “Is the perception of ‘goodness’ good enough? Exploring the
relationship between perceived corporate social responsibility and employee organizational
behaviors
identification”, Journal of Business Ethics, Vol. 114 No. 1, pp. 15-27.
Godfrey, P.C., Merrill, C.B. and Hansen, J.M. (2009), “The relationship between corporate social
responsibility and shareholder value: an empirical test of the risk management hypothesis”,
Strategic Management Journal, Vol. 30 No. 4, pp. 425-445.
Guan, X. and Frenkel, S.J. (2019), “Explaining supervisor-subordinate guanxi and subordinate
performance through a conservation of resources lens”, Human Relations, Vol. 72 No. 11,
pp. 1752-1775.
Guay, R.P., Kim, Y.J., Oh, I.S. and Vogel, R.M. (2019), “The interaction effects of leader and follower
conscientiousness on person-supervisor fit perceptions and follower outcomes: a cross-level
moderated indirect effects model”, Human Performance, Vol. 32 Nos 3/4, pp. 181-199.
Hackman, J.R. and Oldham, G.R. (1975), “Development of the job diagnostic survey”, Journal of Applied
Psychology, Vol. 60 No. 2, pp. 159-170.
Halbesleben, J.R.B. and Wheeler, A.R. (2015), “To invest or not? the role of coworker support and trust
in daily reciprocal gain spirals of helping behavior”, Journal of Management, Vol. 41 No. 6,
pp. 1628-1650.
Halbesleben, J.R., Neveu, J.P., Paustian-Underdahl, S.C. and Westman, M. (2014), “Getting to the “COR”
understanding the role of resources in conservation of resources theory”, Journal of
Management, Vol. 40 No. 5, pp. 1334-1364.
Halkos, G. and Skouloudis, A. (2018), “Corporate social responsibility and innovative capacity:
intersection in a macro-level perspective”, Journal of Cleaner Production, Vol. 182, pp. 291-300.
Hamstra, M.R., Van Vianen, A.E. and Koen, J. (2019), “Does employee perceived person-organization fit
promote performance? The moderating role of supervisor perceived person-organization fit”,
European Journal of Work and Organizational Psychology, Vol. 28 No. 5, pp. 594-601.
Han, H., Yu, J. and Kim, W. (2019), “Environmental corporate social responsibility and the strategy to
boost the airline’s image and customer loyalty intentions”, Journal of Travel and Tourism
Marketing, Vol. 36 No. 3, pp. 371-383.
Hayes, A.F. (2013), Introduction to Mediation, Moderation, and Conditional Process Analysis: A
Regression-Based Approach, Guilford Press, New York, NY.
Hobfoll, S.E. (1989), “Conservation of resources: a new attempt at conceptualizing stress”, American
Psychologist, Vol. 44 No. 3, pp. 513-524.
Hur, W.M., Moon, T.W. and Choi, W.H. (2019), “The role of job crafting and perceived organizational
support in the link between employees’ CSR perceptions and job performance: a moderated
mediation model”, Current Psychology, pp. 1-15, doi: 10.1007/s12144-019-00242-9 (online.).
Im, S., Chung, Y.W. and Yang, J.Y. (2017), “Employees’ participation in corporate social responsibility
and organizational outcomes: the moderating role of person–CSR fit”, Sustainability, Vol. 9 No. 1,
p. 28
Jia, Y., Yan, J., Liu, T. and Huang, J. (2019), “How does internal and external CSR affect employees’ work
engagement? Exploring multiple mediation mechanisms and boundary conditions”,
International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, Vol. 16 No. 14, p. 2476
John, A., Qadeer, F., Shahzadi, G. and Jia, F. (2019), “Getting paid to be good: how and when employees
respond to corporate social responsibility?”, Journal of Cleaner Production, Vol. 215, pp. 784-795.
Joo, B.K., Bozer, G. and Ready, K.J. (2019), “A dimensional analysis of psychological empowerment on
engagement (online earlycite)”, Journal of Organizational Effectiveness: People and Performance,
Vol. 6 No. 3, pp. 186-203.
CMS Keskes, I., Sallan, J.M., Simo, P. and Fernandez, V. (2018), “Transformational leadership and
organizational commitment: mediating role of leader-member exchange”, Journal of
Management Development, Vol. 37 No. 3, pp. 271-284.
Kim, M. and Beehr, T.A. (2018), “Organization-based self-esteem and meaningful work mediate effects
of empowering leadership on employee behaviors and well-being”, Journal of Leadership and
Organizational Studies, Vol. 25 No. 4, pp. 385-398.
Kim, T.Y. and Kim, M. (2013), “Leaders’ moral competence and employee outcomes: the effects of
psychological empowerment and person-supervisor fit”, Journal of Business Ethics, Vol. 112
No. 1, pp. 155-166.
Klaic, A., Burtscher, M.J. and Jonas, K. (2018), “Person-supervisor fit, needs-supplies fit, and team fit as
mediators of the relationship between dual-focused transformational leadership and well-being in
scientific teams”, European Journal of Work and Organizational Psychology, Vol. 27 No. 5, pp. 669-682.
Ko, S.H., Moon, T.W. and Hur, W.M. (2018), “Bridging service employees’ perceptions of CSR and
organizational citizenship behavior: the moderated mediation effects of personal traits”, Current
Psychology, Vol. 37 No. 4, pp. 816-831.
Kristof-Brown, A., Barrick, M.R. and Kay Stevens, C. (2005a), “When opposites attract: a multi-sample
demonstration of complementary person-team fit on extraversion”, Journal of Personality,
Vol. 73 No. 4, pp. 935-958.
Kristof-Brown, A.L., Zimmerman, R.D. and Johnson, E.C. (2005b), “Consequences of individuals’ fit at
work: a meta-analysis of person-job, person-organization, person-group, and person supervisor
fit”, Personnel Psychology, Vol. 58 No. 2, pp. 281-342.
Kuntz, J., Connell, P. and Näswall, K. (2017), “Workplace resources and employee resilience: the role of
regulatory profiles”, Career Development International, Vol. 22 No. 4, pp. 419-435.
Leal, S., Rego, A. and Cunha, M.P. (2015), “How the employees’ perceptions of corporate social
responsibility make them happier and psychologically stronger”, OIDA International Journal of
Sustainable Development, Vol. 8 No. 9, pp. 113-126.
Lee, C.K., Kim, J.S. and Kim, J.S. (2018), “Impact of a gaming company’s CSR on residents’ perceived
benefits, quality of life, and support”, Tourism Management, Vol. 64, pp. 281-290.
Li, G., Yan, A.M. and T, X. (2016), “The impact of employee perceived corporate social responsibility on
turnover intention: a moderated mediation model”, Chinese Journal of Management, Vol. 13
No. 6, pp. 847-854.
Lips-Wiersma, M., Haar, J. and Wright, S. (2020), “The effect of fairness, responsible leadership and
worthy work on multiple dimensions of meaningful work”, Journal of Business Ethics, Vol. 161
No. 1, pp. 35-52.
Liu, Y., He, H. and Zhu, W. (2020), “Motivational analyses of the relationship between negative
affectivity and workplace helping behaviors: a conservation of resources perspective”, Journal of
Business Research, Vol. 108, pp. 362-374.
Luu, T.T. (2019), “Green human resource practices and organizational citizenship behavior for the
environment: the roles of collective green crafting and environmentally specific servant
leadership”, Journal of Sustainable Tourism, Vol. 27 No. 8, pp. 1167-1196.
Manimegalai, S. and Baral, R. (2018), “Examining the mediating role of organizational trust in the
relationship between CSR practices and job outcomes”, Social Responsibility Journal, Vol. 14
No. 3, pp. 433-447.
Matsuo, M., Arai, K. and Matsuo, T. (2019), “Empowering leadership and meaningful work: the
mediating role of learning goal orientation”, International Journal of Training and Development,
Vol. 23 No. 4, pp. 328-338.
Men, L.R. (2014), “Why leadership matters to internal communication: linking transformational
leadership, symmetrical communication, and employee outcomes”, Journal of Public Relations
Research, Vol. 26 No. 3, pp. 256-279.
Michaelson, C. (2005), “Meaningful motivation for work motivation theory”, Academy of Management Employee
Review, Vol. 30 No. 2, pp. 235-238.
advocacy
Michaelson, C., Pratt, M.G., Grant, A.M. and Dunn, C.P. (2014), “Meaningful work: connecting
business ethics and organization studies”, Journal of Business Ethics, Vol. 121 No. 1,
behaviors
pp. 77-90.
Newman, A., Nielsen, I. and Miao, Q. (2015), “The impact of employee perceptions of organizational
corporate social responsibility practices on job performance and organizational citizenship
behavior: evidence from the chinese private sector”, The International Journal of Human
Resource Management, Vol. 26 No. 9, pp. 1226-1242.
Ng, T.W., Yam, K.C. and Aguinis, H. (2019), “Employee perceptions of corporate social
responsibility: effects on pride, embeddedness, and turnover”, Personnel Psychology, Vol. 72
No. 1, pp. 107-137.
Opoku-Dakwa, A., Chen, C.C. and Rupp, D.E. (2018), “CSR initiative characteristics and employee
engagement: an impact-based perspective”, Journal of Organizational Behavior, Vol. 39 No. 5,
pp. 580-593.
Park, E. and Kim, K.J. (2019), “What drives “customer loyalty? The role of corporate social
responsibility”, Sustainable Development, Vol. 27 No. 3, pp. 304-311.
Peng, Y., Xu, X., Jex, S.M. and Chen, Y. (2020), “The roles of job-related psychosocial factors and work
meaningfulness in promoting nurses’ bridge employment intentions”, Journal of Career
Development, Vol. 47 No. 6, pp. 701-716.
Podsakoff, P.M., Mackenzie, S.B. and Podsakoff, N. (2012), “Sources of method bias in social science
research and recommendations on how to control it”, Annual Review of Psychology, Vol. 63 No. 1,
pp. 539-569.
Raub, S. and Blunschi, S. (2014), “The power of meaningful work: how awareness of CSR initiatives
fosters task significance and positive work outcomes in service employees”, Cornell Hospitality
Quarterly, Vol. 55 No. 1, pp. 10-18.
Rosso, B.D., Dekas, K.H. and Wrzesniewski, A. (2010), “On the meaning of work: a theoretical
integration and review”, Research in Organizational Behavior, Vol. 30, pp. 91-127.
Rupp, D.E. and Mallory, D.B. (2015), “Corporate social responsibility: psychological, person-centric, and
progressing”, Annual Review of Organizational Psychology and Organizational Behavior, Vol. 2
No. 1, pp. 211-236.
Rupp, D.E., Shao, R., Skarlicki, D.P., Paddock, E.L., Kim, T.Y. and Nadisic, T. (2018), “Corporate
social responsibility and employee engagement: the moderating role of CSR-specific
relative autonomy and individualism”, Journal of Organizational Behavior, Vol. 39 No. 5,
pp. 559-579.
Safavi, H.P. and Bouzari, M. (2020), “How can leaders enhance employees’ psychological capital?
Mediation effect of person-group and person-supervisor fit”, Tourism Management Perspectives,
Vol. 33, p. 100626.
Sarfraz, M., Qun, W., Abdullah, M. and Alvi, A. (2018), “Employees’ perception of corporate social
responsibility impact on employee outcomes: mediating role of organizational justice for small
and medium enterprises (SMEs)”, Sustainability, Vol. 10 No. 7, p. 2429.
Sawhney, G., Britt, T.W. and Wilson, C. (2020), “Perceiving a calling as a predictor of future work
attitudes: the moderating role of meaningful work”, Journal of Career Assessment, Vol. 28 No. 2,
pp. 187-201.
Seiling, J.G. (2008), “The role of the customer advocate: contextual and task performance as advocacy
participation abstract”, Journal of Management and Organization, Vol. 14 No. 2, pp. 127-140.
Sen, S. and Bhattacharya, C.B. (2001), “Does doing good always lead to doing better? Consumer
reactions to corporate social responsibility”, Journal of Marketing Research, Vol. 38 No. 2,
pp. 225-243.
CMS Shen, J. and Benson, J. (2016), “When CSR is a social norm: how socially responsible human
resource management affects employee work behavior”, Journal of Management, Vol. 42
No. 6, pp. 1723-1746.
Shin, I., Hur, W.M., Kim, M. and Kang, S. (2017), “Hidden roles of CSR: perceived corporate social
responsibility as a preventive against counterproductive work behaviors”, Sustainability, Vol. 9
No. 6, p. 955.
Sohn, S.Y., Han, J.K. and Lee, S.H. (2012), “Communication strategies for enhancing perceived fit in the
CSR sponsorship context”, International Journal of Advertising, Vol. 31 No. 1, pp. 133-146.
Song, L., Liang, Q., Lu, Y. and Li, X. (2016), “Why Chinese entrepreneurial firms selectively perform
corporate social responsibility issues?”, Chinese Management Studies, Vol. 10 No. 2, pp. 272-290.
Steger, M.F., Dik, B.J. and Duffy, R.D. (2012), “Measuring meaningful work: the work and meaning
inventory (WAMI)”, Journal of Career Assessment, Vol. 20 No. 3, pp. 322-337.
Stevens, J.M., Kevin Steensma, H., Harrison, D.A. and Cochran, P.L. (2005), “Symbolic or substantive
document? The influence of ethics codes on financial executives’ decisions”, Strategic
Management Journal, Vol. 26 No. 2, pp. 181-195.
Su, L. and Swanson, S.R. (2019), “Perceived corporate social responsibility’s impact on the well-being
and supportive green behaviors of hotel employees: the mediating role of the employee-corporate
relationship”, Tourism Management, Vol. 72, pp. 437-450.
Suganthi, L. (2019), “Examining the relationship between corporate social responsibility, performance,
employees’ pro-environmental behavior at work with green practices as mediator”, Journal of
Cleaner Production, Vol. 232, pp. 739-750.
Supanti, D. and Butcher, K. (2019), “Is corporate social responsibility (CSR) participation the pathway to
foster meaningful work and helping behavior for millennials”, International Journal of
Hospitality Management, Vol. 77, pp. 8-18.
Tan, K.L., Lew, T.Y. and Sim, A.K. (2019), “Is meaningful work the silver bullet? Perspectives of the
social workers”, Journal of Asia Business Studies, Vol. 13 No. 4, pp. 612-632.
Tian, Q. and Robertson, J.L. (2019), “How and when does perceived CSR affect employees’ engagement
in voluntary pro-environmental behavior”, Journal of Business Ethics, Vol. 155 No. 2, pp. 399-412.
Tsarenko, Y., Leo, C. and Tse, H.H.M. (2018), “When and why do social resources influence employee
advocacy? The role of personal investment and perceived recognition”, Journal of Business
Research, Vol. 82, pp. 260-268.
Turker, D. (2009), “How corporate social responsibility influences organizational commitment”, Journal
of Business Ethics, Vol. 89 No. 2, pp. 189-204.
Usman, M., Javed, U., Shoukat, A. and Bashir, N.A. (2019), “Does meaningful work reduce cyberloafing?
Important roles of affective commitment and leader-member exchange”, Behaviour and
Information Technology, pp. 1-15, doi: 10.1080/0144929X.2019.1683607 (online).
Van Vianen, A.E., Shen, C.T. and Chuang, A. (2011), “Person-organization and person–supervisor fits:
employee commitments in a Chinese context”, Journal of Organizational Behavior, Vol. 32 No. 6,
pp. 906-926.
 c, D.S. (2018), “The relationship between reputation, employer branding and
Vercic, A.T. and Cori
corporate social responsibility”, Public Relations Review, Vol. 44 No. 4, pp. 444-452.
Vlachos, P.A., Panagopoulos, N.G., Bachrach, D.G. and Morgeson, F.P. (2017), “The effects of
managerial and employee attributions for corporate social responsibility initiatives”, Journal of
Organizational Behavior, Vol. 38 No. 7, pp. 1111-1129.
Walden, J.A. and Kingsley Westerman, C.Y. (2018), “Strengthening the tie: creating exchange
relationships that encourage employee advocacy as an organizational citizenship behavior”,
Management Communication Quarterly, Vol. 32 No. 4, pp. 593-611.
Wallace, E. and De Chernatony, L. (2009), “Service employee performance: its components and
antecedents”, Journal of Relationship Marketing, Vol. 8 No. 2, pp. 82-102.
Wan, L.C., Poon, P.S. and Yu, C. (2016), “Consumer reactions to corporate social responsibility brands: Employee
the role of face concerns”, Journal of Consumer Marketing, Vol. 33 No. 1, pp. 52-60.
advocacy
Wang, W., Fu, Y., Qiu, H., Moore, J.H. and Wang, Z. (2017), “Corporate social responsibility and
employee outcomes: a moderated mediation model of organizational identification and moral
behaviors
identity”, Frontiers in Psychology, Vol. 8, p. 1906
Wang, X.X., Pan, H.Y. and Xue, K.K. (2020), “Can multiple large shareholders promote
corporate social responsibility?”, Chinese Management Studies, doi: 10.1108/CMS-08-
2019-0304.
Wang, Z. and Zhang, A.Q. (2019), “The effects of internal CSR on employees’ counterproductive work
behavior: based on the mediation role of organizational identification and the moderator role of
idealism ethical ideology”, Economic Management, Vol. 8, pp. 130-146.
Weaver, G.R., Treviño, L.K. and Cochran, P.L. (1999), “Corporate ethics programs as control systems:
influences of executive commitment and environmental factors”, Academy of Management
Journal, Vol. 42 No. 1, pp. 41-57.
Wu, W.L. and Lee, Y.C. (2020), “Do work engagement and transformational leadership
facilitate knowledge sharing? A perspective of conservation of resources theory”,
International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, Vol. 17 No. 7,
p. 2615
Xie, C., Bagozzi, R.P. and Grønhaug, K. (2019), “The impact of corporate social responsibility on
consumer Brand advocacy: the role of moral emotions, attitudes, and individual differences”,
Journal of Business Research, Vol. 95, pp. 514-530.
Yang, M., Bento, P. and Akbar, A. (2019), “Does CSR influence firm performance indicators?
Evidence from Chinese pharmaceutical enterprises”, Sustainability, Vol. 11 No. 20,
pp. 5656
Yeh, Y.P. (2014), “Exploring the impacts of employee advocacy on job satisfaction and
organizational commitment: case of Taiwanese airlines”, Journal of Air Transport
Management, Vol. 36, pp. 94-100.
Yeoman, R. (2014), “Conceptualizing meaningful work as a fundamental human need”, Journal of
Business Ethics, Vol. 125 No. 2, pp. 235-251.
Youn, H., Lee, K. and Lee, S. (2018), “Effects of corporate social responsibility on employees in the
casino industry”, Tourism Management, Vol. 68, pp. 328-335.
Zander, A., Fuller, R. and Armstrong, W. (1972), “Attributed pride or shame in group and self”, Journal
of Personality and Social Psychology, Vol. 23 No. 3, pp. 346-352.
Zhang, Z. and Gu, Y.H. (2017), “The influence mechanism of person-supervisor fit on R&D
employee job engagement”, Science and Technology Progress and Policy, Vol. 34 No. 4,
pp. 134-139.
Zheng, H. and Zhang, Y. (2016), “Do SOEs outperform private enterprises in CSR? Evidence from
China”, Chinese Management Studies, Vol. 10 No. 3, pp. 435-457.

Further reading
Hadley, C.N. (2014), “Emotional roulette? Symmetrical and asymmetrical emotion regulation outcomes
from coworker interactions about positive and negative work events”, Human Relations, Vol. 67
No. 9, pp. 1073-1094.
Hsieh, H.H., Wang, Y.C. and Huang, J.T. (2019), “Core self-evaluations, perceived organizational
support, and work-related well-being: testing a moderated mediation model”, Personnel Review,
Vol. 48 No. 3, pp. 659-671.
Khansa, L., Kuem, J., Siponen, M. and Kim, S.S. (2017), “To cyberloaf or not to cyberloaf: the impact of
the announcement of formal organizational controls”, Journal of Management Information
Systems, Vol. 34 No. 1, pp. 141-176.
CMS Khari, C. and Sinha, S. (2017), “Impact of workplace spirituality on knowledge sharing intention: a
conceptual framework”, Journal of Human Values, Vol. 23 No. 1, pp. 27-39.
Kim, J., Kim, H.R., Lacey, R. and Suh, J. (2018), “How CSR impact meaning of work and
dysfunctional customer behavior”, Journal of Service Theory and Practice, Vol. 28 No. 4,
pp. 507-523.
Ong, M., Mayer, D.M., Tost, L.P. and Wellman, N. (2018), “When corporate social responsibility
motivates employee citizenship behavior: the sensitizing role of task significance”,
Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, Vol. 144, pp. 44-59.

Corresponding author
Zonghua Liu can be contacted at: liuzonghua168@sina.com

For instructions on how to order reprints of this article, please visit our website:
www.emeraldgrouppublishing.com/licensing/reprints.htm
Or contact us for further details: permissions@emeraldinsight.com

View publication stats