Catering to the Needs of an Aging Workforce: The Role of Employee Age in the Relationship Between Corporate Social Responsibility and Employee Satisfaction
Catering to the Needs of an Aging Workforce: The Role of Employee Age in the Relationship Between Corporate Social Responsibility and Employee Satisfaction
Barbara Wisse 0
Rob van Eijbergen 0
Eric F. Rietzschel 0
Susanne Scheibe 0
Rob van Eijbergen 0
0 Department of Psychology, Faculty of Behavioral and Social Sciences, University of Groningen , Grote Kruisstraat 2/1, 9712 TS Groningen , The Netherlands
Contemporary organizations often reciprocate to society for using resources and for affecting stakeholders by engaging in corporate social responsibility (CSR). It has been shown that CSR has a positive impact on employee attitudes. However, not all employees may react equally strongly to CSR practices. Based on socio-emotional selectivity theory (Carstensen in Science 312:1913-1915, 2006), we contend that the effect of CSR on employee satisfaction will be more pronounced for older than for younger employees, because CSR practices address those emotional needs and goals that are prioritized when people's future time perspective decreases. In one multi-source field study (N = 143) and one experimental study (N = 500), we demonstrate that CSR indeed has a stronger positive effect on employee satisfaction for older relative to younger employees. Accordingly, engaging in CSR can be an attractive tool for organizations that aim to keep their aging workforce satisfied with their job.
Corporate social responsibility; Employee age; Future time perspective; Satisfaction; Work attitudes
Introduction
The steadily rising age of the working population has a
tremendous impact on organizational life
(Hedge and
Borman 2012)
. One consequence is that organizations need
to develop and implement age-sensitive organizational
policies and practices
(Hertel and Zacher 2015; Truxillo
et al. 2015)
. Specifically, management finds itself
challenged with the task to keep older workers satisfied with
their work in order to maintain organizational
effectiveness. Indeed, research has shown that employee satisfaction
is positively related to, for instance, employee motivation,
performance, and pro-social work behavior
(Ilies et al.
2009; Judge et al. 2001; Ostroff 1992)
, indicating that
organizations may benefit from high levels of satisfaction
of their workers. Therefore, identifying factors that
positively affect job satisfaction aging workers might provide
important benefits to organizations. We argue that
corporate social responsibility (CSR) practices might be such a
factor.
CSR has been defined as ‘‘context-specific
organizational actions and policies that take into account
stakeholders’ expectations and the triple bottom line of
economic, social, and environmental performance’’
(Aguinis 2011, p. 855)
. In this definition, stakeholders are
those (groups of) individuals who can affect or are affected
by the achievement of the organization’s objectives or who
have a direct or indirect interest in the company
(Verdeyen
et al. 2004)
. By engaging in CSR activities (ranging from
donations and protecting consumer rights to developing
socially responsible products and services), organizations
thus aim to reciprocate to society for using ecological
resources and for affecting employees, customers, and the
wider social fabric in order to legitimately make a profit. A
growing body of evidence indicates that the extent to which
an organization exhibits CSR also substantially affects a
stakeholder group that arguably is of primary importance to
the organization: the employees within the company.
Indeed, CSR has been shown to positively affect employee
attitudes and work-related behaviors
(Aguinis and Glavas
2012; Rupp et al. 2013)
.
The current study builds on this research and
investigates employee age as a potentially crucial moderator in
the relationship between CSR and employee satisfaction.
Based on socio-emotional selectivity theory
(Carstensen
2006)
, we contend that the effect of CSR on employee
satisfaction will be more pronounced for older employees
compared to younger employees, because CSR practices
address exactly those needs and goals that are stronger
when people’s future time perspective is more limited. This
research contributes to our understanding of CSR by
identifying age as a factor that may explain why some
employees react more strongly to CSR practices than
others. Notably, insight into the way age affects the
relationship between CSR and employee satisfaction is of
particular importance, since the average age of the
workforce in many developed countries has been increasing and
will further increase over the years to come
(Ng and
Feldman 2010; Schalk et al. 2010)
.
The Effects of CSR on Employee Satisfaction
Although most studies have taken a macro-perspective on
CSR (focusing, for instance, on the effects of CSR at the
institutional or organizational level), the number of studies
that have taken a micro-level perspective (e.g., focusing on
the effect that CSR efforts have on individuals) is (...truncated)