Religiosity, CSR Attitudes, and CSR Behavior: An Empirical Study of Executives’ Religiosity and CSR

It is important to make a distinction between spirituality and religiosity. Spirituality is concerned with qualities of the human spirit, including positive psychological concepts, such as love and compassion, patience, tolerance, forgiveness, contentment, personal responsibility, and a sense of harmony with one’s environment (Fry et al. 2011). Religiosity is concerned with a system of beliefs, feelings and behaviours such as prayers, rites and ceremonies (Fry and Slocum 2008; Cornwall et al. 1986). Fry and Slocum (2008) state that translating religion into workplace spirituality can foster zealotry at the expense of organizational goals, offend constituents and customers, and decrease morale and employee well being.

In literature, the concept of corporate social performance (CSP) is often used for behavioral aspects of CSR in terms of the observed CSR policies, processes and outcomes of a company’s activities (Crane et al. 2008), whereas the definitions of CSR also depend on motivation, meaning that it is the intent of an activity that counts.

The main religion within the Netherlands, as well as in the world, is Christianity. This is reflected by our research sample consisting of 80% Christians, although the percentage of Protestants is relatively high [48%, while the other 32% Christians within the sample are either Roman Catholic (18%) or Evangelical (14%)]. This is due to the fact that two of the three employers’ organizations in our research have a Protestant identity, thereby attracting Protestant members. The percentage of non-religious executives in our research sample is relatively low (11% while this is 40% for the Netherlands). The Christian identity of the employers’ organizations has therefore led to a bias in the research sample. This was intentional, because these organizations were among the three largest non-sector specific employers’ organizations within the Netherlands, and because the subject of our research, the relationship between religiosity and CSR, is better served by analyzing a religious sample than a non-religious sample.

Zhao et al. (2010) emphasize the condition that the mediator variable has to be distinct from the dependent and independent variables. In our model, this requirement has been met as CSR attitude is clearly different from religiosity and CSR behavior as has been shown by the definition and operationalization of these variables.

For a macro that allows an easy application of bootstrap technique proposed by Preacher and Hayes (2008) in SPSS, see http://​www.​afhayes.​com/​spss-sas-and-mplus-macros-and-code.​html.

Zhao et al (2010) distinguish competitive mediation from complementary mediation. In the latter case, the signs of the mediation paths (and the direct effect if applicable) are equal. In the first case, the mediation paths (and the direct effect) have different signs and then the total effect may be close to zero.