An investigation of the employees’ positive and negative corporate social responsibility (CSR) perceptions and their engagement in work: empirical evidence from the luxury hospitality industry

The majority of past research regarding the effect of corporate social responsibility (CSR) on employee outcomes focused on the positive side of CSR whereas its negative side was largely ignored. The present study considered both positive and negative CSR perceptions from an employee perspective and investigated the effects of these perceptions on employee engagement. The study also examined the roles of altruistic preference and the relevance of CSR to employee interests. Through a survey with 411 luxury hotel customers from China and Structural Equation Modelling analysis, it was found that employees can both negatively and positively perceive luxury hotels’ CSR initiatives, resulting in different engagement outcomes. Employee engagement is increased by the perceptions of corporate citizenship and shared value creation and reduced by the perceptions of corporate hypocrisy and CSR washing. The above CSR perceptions are determined by the relevance of CSR to employee interests. In addition, employees’ altruistic preferences moderate the effect of the relevance of CSR on CSR perceptions. As a result, the fit between CSR and luxury in the hospitality industry is determined by how employees perceive CSR initiatives while how they perceive CSR initiatives is determined by the relevance of CSR to employee interests and their altruistic preferences.