Skip to main content
Disciplines
Automotive Business IT + Informatics Construction + Real Estate Electrical Engineering + Electronics Energy + Sustainability Insurance + Risk Finance + Banking Management + Leadership Marketing + Sales Mechanical Engineering + Materials
Events
DE
EN
Books
Journals
Topic Page
Marketing
Start single access now
Access for companies
EXTENDED SEARCH
Log in
Top
Published in:
The Limitations of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR): A Philosophy at Odds with Its Surroundings Read chapter Read first chapter

2019 | OriginalPaper | Chapter

7. Employee Worth: Why Every Hour Worked Doesn’t Add Value (but Counts)

Author : Ivan Hilliard

Published in: Coherency Management

Publisher: Springer International Publishing

Log in

Activate our intelligent search to find suitable subject content or patents.

search-config
loading …

Abstract

This chapter begins by assessing the problems of improving employee engagement and commitment in the modern business environment. It also looks at how these are affected by concepts of organizational justice and social identity theory, and the importance of aligning organizational and individual values. It continues by outlining the positive effects on employees of responsible business practices in relation to these issues. It finishes by explaining how coherency management, when applied to the company-employee relationship, can improve overall productivity and commitment to more responsible organizational behavior.

Dont have a licence yet? Then find out more about our products and how to get one now:

Springer Professional "Wirtschaft+Technik"

Online-Abonnement

Mit Springer Professional "Wirtschaft+Technik" erhalten Sie Zugriff auf:

  • über 102.000 Bücher
  • über 537 Zeitschriften

aus folgenden Fachgebieten:

  • Automobil + Motoren
  • Bauwesen + Immobilien
  • Business IT + Informatik
  • Elektrotechnik + Elektronik
  • Energie + Nachhaltigkeit
  • Finance + Banking
  • Management + Führung
  • Marketing + Vertrieb
  • Maschinenbau + Werkstoffe
  • Versicherung + Risiko

Jetzt Wissensvorsprung sichern!

inform now

Springer Professional "Wirtschaft"

Online-Abonnement

Mit Springer Professional "Wirtschaft" erhalten Sie Zugriff auf:

  • über 67.000 Bücher
  • über 340 Zeitschriften

aus folgenden Fachgebieten:

  • Bauwesen + Immobilien
  • Business IT + Informatik
  • Finance + Banking
  • Management + Führung
  • Marketing + Vertrieb
  • Versicherung + Risiko




Jetzt Wissensvorsprung sichern!

inform now
previous chapter Organizational Squares: How Straight Lines Limit Vision
next chapter The Tipping Points of Organizations: Why They Are Not Fed Correctly
Footnotes
1
This seems to be of particular importance for organizations that operate internationally, crossing different cultures, sectors, trading blocs, and regulatory zones.
 
2
These concepts—values and external recognition—are also known as self-evaluation and reflected evaluation (Collier and Esteban 2007).
 
3
It is also increasingly being accepted that a good relationship between a business and its employees is a precondition for a broader organizational-wide responsibility (Lee et al. 2013).
 
4
Mirvis and Googins (2006) have identified these stages as elementary, engaged, innovative, integrated, and transformative.
 
5
For example, employees on a volunteering program or managers participating in an academic workshop on equality will both probably end up in an in-house electronic newsletter of some sort.
 
6
Interestingly, in the mentioned study, this potential was only realized in the case that the manager demonstrated that he or she shared the commitment to more responsible behavior.
 
7
This is particularly important given that most analysis takes place only once professed identity is aimed at certain groups, becoming projected identity (Chong 2009). In other words, it is only when a message reaches a receiver, that its impact can be evaluated by the sender, at which point it will be too late to alter in the case that the message is not received as the sender intended it to be.
 
8
Indeed, Balmer et al. (2007) argue that responsible management must be holistic by nature if it is to have any chance of success.
 
9
This goes some away to explaining the increasing popularity of recognition processes such as Great Place to Work (Great Place to Work, n.d.). They not only highlight areas related to how employees as stakeholders are treated, and issues such as job security, atmosphere, safety, accessibility, and evaluation transparency. They also demonstrate how such issues affect workers views of the organization in general.
 
10
Thus the popularity of greenwashing. A positive evaluation in one aspect of a company’s responsibility can paint a positive picture in the public’s mind of the company and help to mitigate scandals or other discomforting news down the line.
 
11
A transactional approach is incompatible with a genuine commitment to behaving responsible, in that it fails to provide any opportunity for change in the organizational purpose, with all its inconsistencies.
 
12
This may include rumors, informal internal communication channels, employees personal knowledge gleaned from external sources, accidental or intentional leaks, communication and document control errors, etc.
 
13
It is sometimes the case that an overemphasis on the legal relationship blinds us to this interlocking relationship and reduces it to a simple utilitarian approach focusing on contractual obligations (Kerr and Slocum 1987). This may suit those who promote the argument that rewards should be distributed based on contractual claims (employees, suppliers, etc.) and residual claims (shareholders), despite the massive inequality such a system is generating in the world, and the extremely rich continue to amuse ever larger shares of the world’s wealth.
 
14
For example, the growth of evaluation systems whereby employees participate in their own evaluation, either individually or as a group (Beehr et al. 2001; Chiang et al. 2014), can be considered an advance in internal procedural and interactive justice by improving the information by which decisions are made, and opening up how those decisions are made. However, this hasn’t led to any changes in distributive justice for employees.
 
15
To bring up a very old case, that of Enron, in a company of 26,000 people, it is believed (and agreed upon by the investigators and courts) that only three people were involved in the illegal decisions that led to its downfall. Admittedly, they were highly placed persons, but still only three from 26,000.
 
Literature
Aguilera, R. V., Rupp, D. E., Williams, C. A., & Ganapathi, J. (2007). Putting the S back in corporate social responsibility: A multilevel theory of social change in organizations. Academy of Management Review, 32(3), 836–863.CrossRef
Ashforth, B. E., & Mael, F. (1989). Social identity theory and the organization. Academy of Management Review, 14(1), 20–39.CrossRef
Badaracco, J. L., Jr., & Webb, A. P. (1995). A view from the trenches. California Management Review, 37(2), 8–28.
Ballou, B., Godwin, N. H., & Shortridge, R. T. (2003). Firm value and employee attitudes on workplace quality. Accounting Horizons, 17(4), 329–341.CrossRef
Balmer, J. M. T., Fukukawa, K., & Gray, E. R. (2007). The nature and management of ethical corporate identity: A commentary on corporate identity, corporate social responsibility and ethics. Journal of Business Ethics, 76(1), 7–15.CrossRef
Beehr, T. A., Ivanitskaya, L., Hansen, C. P., Erofeev, D., & Gudanowski, D. M. (2001). Evaluation of 360 degree feedback ratings: Relationships with each other and with performance and selection predictors. Journal of Organizational Behavior: The International Journal of Industrial, Occupational and Organizational Psychology and Behavior, 22(7), 775–788.CrossRef
Brammer, S., Millington, A., & Rayton, B. (2007). The contribution of corporate social responsibility to organizational commitment. The International Journal of Human Resource Management, 18(10), 1701–1719.CrossRef
Brickley, J. A., Smith, C. W., Jr., & Zimmerman, J. L. (2002). Business ethics and organizational architecture. Journal of Banking & Finance, 26(9), 1821–1835.CrossRef
Brown, M. E., & Treviño, L. K. (2006). Ethical leadership: A review and future directions. The Leadership Quarterly, 17(6), 595–616.CrossRef
Chiang, Y.-H., Hsu, C.-C., & Hung, K.-P. (2014). Core self-evaluation and workplace creativity. Journal of Business Research, 67(7), 1405–1413.CrossRef
Chong, M. (2009). Employee participation in CSR and corporate identity: Insights from a disaster-response program in the Asia-Pacific. Corporate Reputation Review, 12(2), 106–119.CrossRef
Collier, J., & Esteban, R. (2007). Corporate social responsibility and employee commitment. Business Ethics: A European Review, 16(1), 19–33.CrossRef
Colquitt, J. A., Noe, R. A., & Jackson, C. L. (2002). Justice in teams: Antecedents and consequences of procedural justice climate. Personnel Psychology, 55(1), 83–109.CrossRef
Cropanzano, R., Byrne, Z. S., Bobocel, D. R., & Rupp, D. E. (2001). Moral virtues, fairness heuristics, social entities, and other denizens of organizational justice. Journal of Vocational Behavior, 58(2), 164–209.CrossRef
Cullen, J. B., Parboteeah, K. P., & Victor, B. (2003). The effects of ethical climates on organizational commitment: A two-study analysis. Journal of Business Ethics, 46(2), 127–141.CrossRef
Davis, K., & Blomstrom, R. L. (1971). Business, society, and environment: Social power and social response. New York, NY: McGraw-Hill.
de Madariaga, J. G., & Valor, C. (2007). Stakeholders management systems: Empirical insights from relationship marketing and market orientation perspectives. Journal of Business Ethics, 71(4), 425–439.CrossRef
Folger, R., & Konovsky, M. A. (1989). Effects of procedural and distributive justice on reactions to pay raise decisions. Academy of Management Journal, 32(1), 115–130.
Frynas, J. G. (2005). The false developmental promise of corporate social responsibility: Evidence from multinational oil companies. International Affairs, 81(3), 581–598.CrossRef
Greening, D. W., & Turban, D. B. (2000). Corporate social performance as a competitive advantage in attracting a quality workforce. Business & Society, 39(3), 254–280.CrossRef
Hameed, I., Riaz, Z., Arain, G. A., & Farooq, O. (2016). How do internal and external CSR affect employees’ organizational identification? A perspective from the group engagement model. Frontiers in Psychology, 7, 788.CrossRef
Herzberg, F. I. (1966). Work and the nature of man. Cleveland, OH: World Publishing Co.
Heslin, P. A., & Ochoa, J. D. (2008). Understanding and developing strategic corporate social responsibility. Organizational Dynamics, 37(2), 125–144.CrossRef
Johnston, P. (2001). Corporate responsibility in employment standards in a global knowledge economy. In Perspectives on the New Economy of Corporate Citizenship, 43–47. Copenhagen, Denmark: The Copenhagen Centre.
Kerr, J., & Slocum, J. W., Jr. (1987). Managing corporate culture through reward systems. Academy of Management Perspectives, 1(2), 99–107.CrossRef
Kim, J., & de Dear, R. (2013). Workspace satisfaction: The privacy-communication trade-off in open-plan offices. Journal of Environmental Psychology, 36, 18–26.CrossRef
Kwan, W., & Tuuk, E. (2012). Corporate social responsibility: Implications for human resources and talent engagement. Center for Advanced Human Resource Studies Report.
Lamberti, L., & Lettieri, E. (2011). Gaining legitimacy in converging industries: Evidence from the emerging market of functional food. European Management Journal, 29(6), 462–475.
Lee, E. M., Park, S.-Y., & Lee, H. J. (2013). Employee perception of CSR activities: Its antecedents and consequences. Journal of Business Research, 66(10), 1716–1724.CrossRef
Lee, J. (2001). Leader-member exchange, perceived organizational justice, and cooperative communication. Management Communication Quarterly, 14(4), 574–589.CrossRef
Mann, A., & Harter, J. (2016, January 7). The worldwide employee engagement crisis. Gallup Business Journal.
Mirvis, P. (2012). Employee engagement and CSR: Transactional, relational, and developmental approaches. California Management Review, 54(4), 93–117.CrossRef
Mirvis, P., & Googins, B. (2006). Stages of corporate citizenship. California Management Review, 48(2), 104–126.CrossRef
Moingeon, B., & Soenen, G. (2002). Corporate and organizational identities: Integrating strategy, marketing, communication and organizational perspectives. London, UK: Routledge.
Perrin, T. (2007). Towers Perrin study finds significant “engagement gap” among global workforce. Retrieved January 10, 2008.
Ramachandran, V. (2011). Strategic corporate social responsibility: A ‘dynamic capabilities’ perspective. Corporate Social Responsibility and Environmental Management, 18(5), 285–293.CrossRef
Redington, I. (2005). Making CSR happen: The contribution of people management. Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development London, UK.
Riordan, C. M., Gatewood, R. D., & Bill, J. B. (1997). Corporate image: Employee reactions and implications for managing corporate social performance. Journal of Business Ethics, 16(4), 401–412.CrossRef
Rodrigo, P., & Arenas, D. (2008). Do employees care about CSR programs? A typology of employees according to their attitudes. Journal of Business Ethics, 83(2), 265–283.CrossRef
Rowley, T., & Berman, S. (2000). A brand new brand of corporate social performance. Business and Society, 39(4), 397.CrossRef
Rupp, D. E., Ganapathi, J., Aguilera, R. V., & Williams, C. A. (2006). Employee reactions to corporate social responsibility: An organizational justice framework. Journal of Organizational Behavior, 27(4), 537–543.CrossRef
Schwartz, M. (2001). The nature of the relationship between corporate codes of ethics and behaviour. Journal of Business Ethics, 32(3), 247–262.CrossRef
Sen, S., Bhattacharya, C. B., & Korschun, D. (2006). The role of corporate social responsibility in strengthening multiple stakeholder relationships: A field experiment. Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science, 34(2), 158–166.CrossRef
Senge, P. M., Smith, B., Kruschwitz, N., Laur, J., & Schley, S. (2008). The necessary revolution: How individuals and organizations are working together to create a sustainable world. New York, NY: Crown Business.
Sharma, S., Sharma, J., & Devi, A. (2009). Corporate social responsibility: The key role of human resource management. Business Intelligence Journal, 2(1), 205–213.
Sims, R. L., & Keon, T. L. (1997). Ethical work climate as a factor in the development of person-organization fit. Journal of Business Ethics, 16(11), 1095–1105.CrossRef
Skarlicki, D. P., & Kulik, C. T. (2004). Third-party reactions to employee (mis)treatment: A justice perspective. Research in Organizational Behavior, 26, 183–229.CrossRef
Turker, D. (2009). How corporate social responsibility influences organizational commitment. Journal of Business Ethics, 89(2), 189.CrossRef
Tyler, T. R., & Bies, R. J. (1990). Beyond formal procedures: The interpersonal context of procedural justice. Applied Social Psychology and Organizational Settings, 77, 98.
Tyler, T. R., & Blader, S. L. (2002). Autonomous vs. comparative status: Must we be better than others to feel good about ourselves? Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, 89(1), 813–838.
Tziner, A., Oren, L., Bar, Y., & Kadosh, G. (2011). Corporate social responsibility, organizational justice and job satisfaction: how do they interrelate, if at all? Revista de Psicología Del Trabajo y de Las Organizaciones, 27(1), 67–72.
Viswesvaran, C., & Ones, D. S. (2002). Examining the construct of organizational justice: A meta-analytic evaluation of relations with work attitudes and behaviors. Journal of Business Ethics, 38(3), 193–203.CrossRef
Welford, R. (2005). Corporate social responsibility in Europe, North America and Asia. Journal of Corporate Citizenship, 17(1), 33–52.CrossRef
Wheeler, A. R., Richey, R. G., Tokkman, M., & Sablynski, C. J. (2006). Retaining employees for service competency: The role of corporate brand identity. Journal of Brand Management, 14(1–2), 96–113.CrossRef
Yavuz, M. (2010). The effects of teachers perception of organizational justice and culture on organizational commitment. African Journal of Business Management, 4(5), 695–701.
Zhu, Q., Yin, H., Liu, J., & Lai, K. (2014). How is employee perception of organizational efforts in corporate social responsibility related to their satisfaction and loyalty towards developing harmonious society in Chinese enterprises? Corporate Social Responsibility and Environmental Management, 21(1), 28–40.CrossRef
Metadata
Title
Employee Worth: Why Every Hour Worked Doesn’t Add Value (but Counts)
Author
Ivan Hilliard
Copyright Year
2019
Book
Coherency Management

Print ISBN: 978-3-030-13522-5

Electronic ISBN: 978-3-030-13523-2

Copyright Year: 2019

DOI
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-13523-2_7