Corporate hypocrisy and counterproductive work behavior: A moderated mediation model of organizational identification and perceived importance of CSR

Abstract

When companies say one thing and do another in a corporate social responsibility context, they run the risk of corporate hypocrisy. Apart from the negative attitudes within customers, the purpose of our study was to explore what consequence corporate hypocrisy would cause on employees. This study investigated the possible link between corporate hypocrisy and employees’ counterproductive work behaviors with a moderated mediation model. Based on social identity theory, our research found that the influence of corporate hypocrisy on organization-directed counterproductive work behaviors was partially mediated by organizational identification, while the first stage of mediation is moderated by the levels of employees’ perceived importance of corporate social responsibility. Data from 259 employees in China, collected across three time periods, suggest that corporate hypocrisy will lead to a decrease of organizational identification, triggering CWB against the company. The indirect effect of corporate hypocrisy on CWB-O via organizational identification is enhanced when employees’ perceived importance of corporate social responsibility is high. Our findings provide contributions to both corporate running and theoretical research.