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Article

The Impact of Perceived Corporate Social Responsibility on Frontline Employee’s Emotional Labor Strategies

by
Seonggoo Ji
1 and
Ihsan Ullah Jan
2,*
1
Department of Business Administration and Accounting, Hanbat National University, Daejeon 34158, Korea
2
Department of Business Administration, Hanbat National University, Daejeon 34158, Korea
*
Author to whom correspondence should be addressed.
Sustainability 2019, 11(6), 1780; https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.3390/su11061780
Submission received: 21 January 2019 / Revised: 14 March 2019 / Accepted: 21 March 2019 / Published: 25 March 2019
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) in Developing Countries: Current Trends and Development)
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Versions Notes

Abstract

:
This study explores the relationship between corporate social responsibility and emotional labor strategies of frontline employees. In particular, the research focuses on the impact of perceived motives of corporate social responsibility on the cynicism, authenticity, and subsequently, the effect of cynicism and authenticity on surface acting and deep acting of frontline employees. Based on the online survey of 258 frontline employees in South Korea and structural equation modeling of the data, the findings show that the selfish motives of corporate social responsibility (CSR) increase cynicism whereas the altruistic motives of corporate social responsibility increase authenticity and decrease cynicism of frontline employees. In addition, this study reveals that CSR-cynicism leads to surface acting and reduces deep acting whereas CSR-authenticity increases deep acting and does not significantly affect surface acting of frontline employees.

1. Introduction

Corporate social responsibility (CSR) has been discussed in the business environment for decades. A significant number of studies in the prior literature have found that CSR practices around the globe have positive impact on the success of business [1,2]. Primarily, scholars and practitioners hold the same view that one of the key component of an organization’s competitive advantage and ultimate success relates to its responsibility to employees and its undertaken efforts for CSR [3,4,5].
Despite the emerging importance of the CSR on the businesses a handful studies have focused on the influence of CSR on the employees in general and frontline employees in particular. For instance, a few studies have investigated job satisfaction [6], organizational commitment [7], and employee’s attachment [8], in relation to CSR activities. More recently, Onkila has discussed the perception of CSR for employees in the Finish financial firms and concluded that positive perception of CSR leads to positive outcomes such as satisfaction whereas negative perception leads to dissatisfaction [9]. Similarly, in the context of South Korea too, the perception of CSR has been explored in relation to the employees such as customer-directed counter work behaviors [10], organizational commitment and organizational citizenship behaviors [11], organizational identification [12], creativity, compassion, and intrinsic motivation of employees [13]. Hence, new empirical studies are needed to further broaden the significance of perceived CSR in the literature with respect to some overlooked attitudinal and behavioral outcomes of employees.
Since, frontline employees play pivotal roles as boundary spanners in the service industry. Because of their frequent interactions to customers frontline employees experience emotional exhaustion and burnout which eventually lead to turnover [14]. Hence, it is imperative for service managers to formulate strategies in order to overcome emotional labors of frontline employees. In this regard, the perception and importance of CSR has not been studied in the prior literature. Therefore, the current study attempts to investigate the perception of CSR in dealing with emotional labor strategies of frontline employees. In other words, the perception of CSR will be studied with respect to surface acting and deep acting of emotional labor strategies.
As far as the perception of CSR goes, the prior literature has outlined the perception of CSR to CSR authenticity and CSR cynicism. Thus, consistent with the prior literature CSR authenticity refers to “the perception of a company’s CSR actions as a genuine and true expression of the company’s beliefs and behavior toward society that extend beyond legal requirements” [15] (p. 1243). Whereas, CSR cynicism refers to the belief of lacking integrity about the initiatives of CSR of the company. In addition, the current study will also determine the motives of CSR of the firm and their impact on the perception of CSR authenticity and CSR cynicism of frontline employees. Specifically, selfish-motives and altruistic-motives will be studied in relation to CSR cynicism and CSR authenticity respectively.
Theoretically, our study will contribute in several ways. First, the current study will be the first study in our best knowledge which examines the dual path model of CSR authenticity and CSR cynicism to the deep and surface acting of the service providers. Second, our study will explore CSR selfish motives as antecedent to the CSR cynicism and CSR altruistic motives to the CSR authenticity.
Managerially, firms can utilize the insights of this study to understand the effect of CSR on the emotional labor strategies of the frontline employees. Firms can leverage CSR activities in order to alleviate the surface acting and accentuate deep acting of frontline employees.

2. Literature Review

2.1. CSR Motives

Prior literature reveals that holistically it is very difficult to make a satisfying definition of CSR [16], however, the underlying idea of all the definitions given in the past studies are, to conduct the operations of businesses in such a way which eventually address social and environmental concerns of the society [17]. More precisely, according to the Dutch Social Economic Council, “CSR is the conscious direction of business activities towards creating value in three dimensions in the longer term: not only in terms of financial-economic variables, such as profitability and share value, but also in ecological and social sense” [17,18]. In other words, CSR is the Triple-P bottom line: profit (the economic dimension), people (the social dimension), and planet (the ecological dimension) [19]. Particularly, the social dimension of CSR demonstrates concerns for human beings inside and outside of the organization in term of good labor relations, health, and safety [17]. Waddock defines the broader concept of corporate responsibility as “the degree of (ir)responsibility manifested in a company’s strategies and operating practices as they impact stakeholders and the natural environment day to day” [20] (p. 10).
Align with the aforementioned definition of CSR the current study utilizes stakeholder theory as a framework to investigate the relationship of CSR initiatives and their effects on attitudinal and behavioral outcomes of employees. In fact, stakeholder theory explains the relationship between management and other key stakeholders such as suppliers, regulators, creditors, employees, customers, the government, national and international donor agencies, and shareholders [21,22,23]. As one of the internal stakeholders, employees of the firm play a very important role in the overall profit-maximization process of the organization. Hence, proper consideration to the employees whilst designing CSR initiatives and their implementation are helpful in achieving the objectives of the firms [24,25,26].
Prior literature shows that primarily there are two types of perceived motives for the CSR of the companies, which are the public-serving and self-serving motives [15,27,28,29]. For instance, Chung and Lee argued public-serving motives of CSR as efforts which are undertaken to benefit society or a cause that the company supports [28]. Whereas, self-serving motives of the CSR activities are those activities which are undertaken to benefit the company.
In particular, various past studies have labeled these two primary motives of CSR differently, such as altruistic versus egoistic, extrinsic versus intrinsic, exogenous versus endogenous, other-versus self-centered, and sincere versus image-promotional [30,31,32].
Likewise, Alhouti, Johnson, and Holloway refer to self-serving motives of CSR is “the degree to which the CSR initiatives is perceived to be motivated by the self-interests of the company rather than serving the public good” [15] (p. 1244). Ellen, Webb, and Mohr further classified the two traditional perceived motives of the CSR into four categories of motives [33]. The authors conducted two studies and differentiated four types of motives: self-centered motives are the strategic and egoistic motives whereas as other-centered motives as values driven and stakeholder-driven motives of the CSR.
The perception of the motives of the companies to the CSR play an important role as determinant to the attitude and behavior intentions of the public towards the company [34]. Some of the past studies demonstrated that consumer perception of the motives of the CSR significantly impacts on their outcome variables. Specifically, if the consumers believe that the CSR activities of the company are sincere, genuine, and serving the public, then it can increase their purchase intention, patronage intention, and word-of-mouth intentions [35,36,37].

2.2. CSR-Authenticity and CSR-Cynicism

As a construct, authenticity is prevalent in philosophy, psychology, marketing, and leadership [38,39,40]. In the prior literature, authenticity has been defined as “being true to oneself” such as the actions and behaviors that are aligned with one’s core values and beliefs [41,42,43].
A substantial number of studies show that the authenticity of CSR has positive impact on the consumers as well as employees. Particularly, companies who practice CSR authentically are rewarded by customer trust and loyalty [34,44,45]. Employee’s perception of authenticity leads to high affective attachment, decreases their intention to leave, higher organizational identification, and social connection [46,47]. Conversely, perceptions of skepticism of the companies who are engaged in CSR deteriorate success of the CSR campaigns [38,48].
Similarly, cynicism is a predominant construct in the literature of management and organization since 1990 [19,27,49,50,51]. Studies show that cynicism of employees leads to negative outcomes, such as low job performance, job satisfaction and organizational commitment, and high level of intention to quit [46]. In the prior literature, the researchers have outlined CSR cynicism as the perception of CSR wherein the initiatives are instrumented to achieve only organizational objectives [15].
Specifically, an empirical study showed that if employees perceive that the underlying reason of CSR activities of their firm is to obtain benefits, such as better corporate image, consumer loyalty, or attraction of investment, then they will tend to conclude CSR activities of their firm are inauthentic, which eventually lead to their cynicism [45]. Similarly, another qualitative study by Beckman, Colwell, and Cunningham revealed that instrumental motives of CSR (selfish CSR) of the firms are perceived as inauthentic by their employees [52]. Hence, for the current study we propose that;
Hypothesis H1a.
Perceived selfish motives of CSR positively influence perceived CSR cynicism.
Hypothesis H1b.
Perceived selfish motives of CSR negatively influence perceived CSR authenticity.
A study in the prior literature demonstrated that perception of CSR activities influence internal stakeholders’ attitudes [53]. Similarly, another study has shown that “employees not only reacted by their organizations, but also how others are treated. To be very specific, if an employee perceives that his or her organization behaves in a highly socially responsible manner-even toward those outside and apart from the organization, he or she will likely have positive attitudes about the company and work more productively on its behalf” [54] (p. 31). Likewise, some researchers stated that employees perceive CSR of the firm authentic when they perceive the engaged CSR activities of the firm is in order to fulfill moral and philosophical ideals toward the wider society [46]. Hence, we hypothesize that;
Hypothesis H2a.
Perceived altruistic motives of CSR positively influence perceived CSR authenticity.
Hypothesis H2b.
Perceived altruistic motives of CSR negatively influence perceived CSR cynicism.

2.3. Emotional Labor Strategies

Emotional labor is one of the most relevant constructs in the interaction of employees and customers studies. Emotional labor refers to “effort, planning, and control needed to express organizationally desired emotions during interpersonal transactions” [55]. Similarly, according to Ashforth and Humpherey emotional labor occurs, when the emotions of employees are not consistent with the desired emotions of firm that are to be displayed during interaction with the customers [29]. In compliance, with the desired emotions of the firm, the service employees generally utilize surface acting and deep acting strategies [56,57,58].
Specifically, surface acting refers to the act of displaying an emotion that is not genuinely felt or fake and suppression of actual felt emotions [29,30]. In other words, surface acting is the expression of feign emotions and lack of authenticity [59]. Whereas, deep acting is the expression of an employee’s organizationally desired emotions by attempting to create the emotions within themselves [30].
Prior literature shows that emotional labor has several positive and negative consequences for the employees as well as the customers. For instance, emotional labor leads to negative psychological outcomes such as employee’s stress, low job satisfaction, depression, self-alienation, burnout, and emotional exhaustion [60,61,62,63,64,65]. Likewise, some of the studies addressed emotional labor in the context of customers and found the relationship between displayed emotions and loyalty intention [66] customer service encounter evaluation and positive mood [67], customer satisfaction [68], effective delivery [59], and perceived customer orientation and service quality [69]. Grandey, Mattila, Jansen, and Sideman argued that authenticity of emotions of frontline employees lead to positive customer outcomes, whereas negatively expressed motives lead to negative consequences [42]. Although, previous studies have explored the relationships among job characteristics, individual characteristics and emotional labor strategies of frontline employees in various industries [70]. However, the impact of perceived authenticity and cynicism of CSR on the emotional labor strategies are never been discussed. So, in the current study we hypothesize that;
Hypothesis H3a.
Perceived CSR cynicism positively influences surface acting.
Hypothesis H3b.
Perceived CSR cynicism negatively influences deep acting.
Hypothesis H4a.
Perceived CSR authenticity positively influences deep acting.
Hypothesis H4b.
Perceived CSR authenticity negatively influences surface acting.
Figure 1 shows the conceptual framework of the current study which portrays the impact of perceived selfish and altruistic motives of CSR on CSR cynicism, CSR authenticity, surface acting, and deep acting of frontline employees.

3. Research Methodology

3.1. Study Design and Data Collection

To investigate the relationships among the variables the current study has adopted quantitative method via an online survey in the context of South Korea. This is because in the context of South Korea many academics and researchers have given considerable attention to study CSR and explored it in relation to various stakeholders of firm such as customers, shareholders, government, employees and so on and so forth [2,10,11,12,13]. Consistent with the literature, our study extends the perception of CSR to the employees and its attitudinal and behavioral consequences particularly in regard to authenticity, cynicism and emotional labor. Moreover, because of the inherent stressful nature of service jobs as well as highly stressful environment, frontline employees in South Korea frequently experience high emotional labor which eventually affects their attitudinal and behavioral outcomes. Therefore, the current study attempts to find ways to deal with emotional labor strategies by leveraging the perception of CSR motives. Lastly, CSR is one of the most familiar and important phenomenon of the businesses in South Korea. To be very specific, according to the latest report of the Federation of Korean Industries in 2018, approximately $24 Billion has been invested on CSR by 205 amongst the 500 biggest companies of South Korea [71]. Therefore, the general public, employees, and consumers have high awareness regarding the activities of CSR of the firms. Hence, the respondents do not face any difficulty while responding to the survey regarding the CSR activities of the firms.
Primarily, the questionnaire was prepared in English and then the authors have translated it into Korean language in order to collect data with precision. Before administrating the questionnaire for the collection of data, the authors have used back-translation approach to ensure the accuracy of the translation from English to Korean [72].
In order to conduct the survey, the authors have contacted to H-Research, which is a largest marketing and opinion poll survey firm in South Korea. Subsequently, as per request, the survey firm has approached to 800,000 of its individuals in their data-base. Among them, 450 respondents have responded to the survey. For the analysis a pretest was conducted to retain only those questionnaires which were appropriate for our study. As the primary unit of analysis of the study is those frontline employees, who are working for those organizations, which involved in CSR initiatives. Therefore, the presence of CSR activities in the operation of the businesses is assured by asking questions such as “Is your company doing social responsibility activities?” next, “please select all the CSR activities which your company is doing”. And finally “do you directly involve in the CSR of your company?” These questions have helped us to retain only those questionnaires which have made compliance to the pre-conditions such as presence and types of CSR activities in the company and the personal involvement of frontline employees. Furthermore, to select the final respondents of the study, we first defined frontline employees as those service providers of the company, who directly interact with customers and clients of the company such as the salespeople, insurance agents, receptionists and front-disk consultants. Accordingly, we refined those surveys which were responded by frontline employees only and eliminated all those surveys which came from operational-managers and directors in order to test the proposed hypotheses.
After the pretest and removing missing data, 258 questionnaires were selected for final analysis. Table 1 shows profile of respondents indicating their gender, education and industries, out of 258 respondents, 65.9% (170) were males, and 34.1% (88) were females. Furthermore, the largest number of respondents were from Wholesale and retailing industry which were 26% (67) followed by Finance and Insurance 25.6% (66). And the largest number of respondents was university graduates who were 50% (129) of the sample.

3.2. Measurements

The measurements for all the constructs were identified and adapted from the prior literature. All the responses were assessed by 5-point Likert-type response format ranging from strongly disagree (1) to strongly agree (5). The CSR selfish motive was measured by three items taken and adapted from the study of Alhouti [15]. Four items were taken and adapted to measure CSR altruistic motive from the study of Lichtenstein [35]. Similarly, CSR cynicism was measured by seven items taken and adapted from the study of Stanley [73] and CSR authenticity was measured by four items adapted from Alhouti [74], Spiggle [75] and Wagner [76]. Finally, emotional labor scale of Brotheridge was used to measure surface acting and deep acting of frontline employees with three six items [77]. All measurement items used in the current study are provided in Appendix A.

3.3. Validation of Measurements

In order to check the reliability and validity of the measurements, confirmatory factor analysis was conducted by AMOS 20.0. The model included items of CSR selfish motives, CSR altruistic motives, CSR cynicism, CSR authenticity, surface acting and deep acting. In general, all the construct measures showed very good psychometric properties. Table 2, demonstrates that model provide strong fit to the data (χ² = 349.91, df = 237, p < 0.01, χ²/df = 1.48, RMR = 0.03, GFI = 0.90, CFI = 0.99). All scales showed high reliabilities such as the Cronbach’s alphas were greater than the recommended cutoff value of 0.70 [78]. Similarly, all the composite reliabilities and average variance extracted (AVE) were above the threshold value of 0.70 and 0.50 respectively, which confirmed high reliability and validity [79]. Moreover, all the indicators showed significant loadings on their respective latent constructs (p < 0.01) giving strong support for reliability and validity [80].
Finally, the values of square roots of AVE are higher than correlations among constructs which established the discriminant validity of the constructs [79]. Table 3 has demonstrated the square roots of AVE with respective to correlations at the diagonal. To examine the common method bias we used Harmon’s single-factor method [81] by loading all the items of constructs in a single factor with un-rotated factor solution. Our analysis revealed that no single factor account for 29% variance which is less than the 50%, thus confirmed the absence of common method bias in our measurements.

4. Results

The hypotheses of the study were tested by using structural equation modeling estimation. The model fit indices show strong fit to the data (χ² = 379.53, df = 243, p < 0.01, χ²/df = 1.56, RMR = 0.04, GFI = 0.89, CFI = 0.97). H1a posits that CSR selfish motives influence CSR cynicism positively. Our results show a significant positive relationship (β = 0.35, p < 0.01). Thus, the perceived selfish motives of corporate social responsibility of the firm increase the perceived cynicism of the frontline employees regarding the corporate social responsibility activities.
H1b proposes that CSR selfish motives decreases the perceived authenticity of CSR activities, which was statistically not significant (β = −0.06, p > 0.05). The results of H1b are consistent with previous study wherein researchers explored the perception of self-serving motives of CSR on the perception of CSR authenticity for customers [15]. H2a proposes CSR altruistic motives influences CSR authenticity positively. In accordance with the proposed hypothesis, our results show a statistically significant relationship between CSR altruistic motives and CSR authenticity (β = 0.79, p < 0.01). Thus, the perceived altruistic motives of corporate social responsibility increase frontline employee’s perceived CSR authenticity. H2b of our study proposes the negative relationship between CSR altruistic motives and CSR cynicism, which is statistically significant (β = 0.21, p < 0.01).
Our results show that both H3a and H3b are statistically significant, wherein CSR cynicism relates positively to the surface acting (β = 0.36, p < 0.01) and negatively relates to the deep acting (β = −0.12, p < 0.05). Thus, it is revealed that perceived CSR cynicism of the firm accentuate the surface acting and attenuate deep acting of the frontline employees. Finally, the results revealed that there is a significant positive relationship between the perceived authentic CSR and deep acting (β = 0.27, p < 0.01) whereas our results show that authentic CSR is not significantly related to the surface acting (β = 0.06, p > 0.05). All the results are shown in Table 4.

5. Discussions and Conclusions

In exploring the CSR authenticity and cynicism of frontline employees in the organizations, our study was to examine the impact of CSR authenticity and CSR cynicism on the surface and deep acting of frontline employees. In other words, our study has postulated that relationship between selfish motives and altruistic motives of CSR on CSR cynicism and CSR authenticity. Based on the stakeholder theory [21,22,23] the results of our study revealed that there is a significant positive relationship between CSR selfish motives and CSR cynicism and CSR altruistic motives and CSR authenticity (H1a and H2a supported). Moreover, our study showed that CSR altruistic motive has a negative relationship on CSR cynicism whereas selfish motive of CSR on CSR authenticity was not supported (H2b supported). Finally, our results demonstrated that CSR cynicism is positively related to the surface acting and negatively related to the deep acting (H3a and H3b supported). Similarly, CSR authenticity effect positively to the deep acting and does not significantly affect surface acting (H4a supported).

5.1. Thoretical Implications

The current study provides contributions to several streams of research. First, it shed light on the CSR selfish motives and CSR cynicism. Although CSR-cynicism has rarely discussed in the extant literature [9], hence, in the current study we investigated one of the dark sides of CSR as cynicism and subsequently demonstrated the relationship between selfish motives of CSR and CSR cynicism.
Second, in the current study we investigated CSR authenticity and CSR cynicism in a single framework which is a relatively new frontier in the context of internal stakeholders (employees) of the firm. This is unlike the past studies, which have extensively discussed CSR authenticity and cynicism separately [27,44,45,51].
Finally, our study has contributed to the CSR literature by showing the perceived CSR authenticity and cynicism on the emotional labor strategies of frontline employees. Specifically, the introduction of the relationship between CSR authenticity and deep acting and CSR cynicism and surface acting is the most important contribution to the literature of frontline employee’s emotional labor strategies.

5.2. Managerial Implications

The current study has also uncovered several important insights for practitioners. First, the findings of this study suggest that practitioners (i.e., Marketing and Sales Managers) should formulate strategies which focus on the perception of altruistic motives of CSR and discourage the selfish motives of CSR, because these motives eventually affect the authenticity and cynicism of corporate social responsibility perceptions. The practitioners can achieve these objectives by showing and effectively communicating the factual evidence of the impacts of CSR activities on the society.
Second, regarding the perception of CSR activities, our study empirically indicates that the degree of perception of altruistic motives is an important check-point for assessing frontline employee’s perception of authenticity. Therefore, managers should understand the sensitivity of the motives behind CSR activities which can lead to authenticity or cynicism of the CSR perception.
Third, by promoting the authentic perception of CSR in the organization, managers can pave the path to nurture the deep acting strategies and influence frontline employees during their moment-of-truth of service delivery and customer interactions.
Finally, in the context of South Korea, where engagements in CSR activities are of an instrumental nature, such as restoring their damaged image and reputation, and creating a favorable impression by corporate donations through media [13]. These handful of advantages of CSR divert the attention of firm to invest on the society and community frequently. However, our study has shown that investment in an altruistic orientation of CSR not only a tool for restoring a firm’s damaged reputations, but it can also have a positive effect on the deep acting of the frontline employees.

5.3. Limitation and Future Research

This current study has investigated the selfish and altruistic motives of CSR which influence the CSR authenticity and CSR cynicism. However, there are several other types of motives of CSR which are discussed in the literature, for instance, strategic, value-driven, egoistic, or stakeholder-driven motives [11,23]. Future research can address how these aforementioned motives can change the CSR authenticity and CSR cynicism.
One of the limitations of this study is the outcome variable of emotional labor strategies. Although, this current study investigated the impact of CSR authenticity and CSR cynicism on the emotional labor strategies of frontline employees. However, the ultimate consequences of the emotional labor strategies such as employee’s stress, low job satisfaction, depression, self-alienation, burnout, and emotional exhaustion are not discussed [49,50,51,52,53,54]. Therefore, future research can extend the current study for the ultimate consequences of emotional labor strategies caused by the perception of CSR authenticity and CSR cynicism of employees.
Moreover, the current study is relatively new to investigate CSR motives, CSR authenticity and cynicism, and emotional labor strategies in the context of frontline employees. Therefore, there are chances of self-report bias during collection of data. Hence, future research can investigate the current model by using different types of research designs such as experiments [11].
Finally, the setting of the research was in South Korea and many of the proposed hypotheses of the study were supported. However, we cannot generalize the findings to other contexts based on only this study. Therefore, we propose further studies in different contexts to check the framework.

Author Contributions

Both of the authors have contributed equally. Conceptualization and methodology S.J. and I.U.J.; supervision and validation S.J.; formal analysis and writing—original draft, I.U.J.; writing—review and editing, S.J. and I.U.J.

Funding

This research received no external funding

Conflicts of Interest

The authors declare no conflict of interest.

Appendix A

CSR Selfish Motives
  • Our Company wants to gain the cause of the society through CSR.
  • We want to gain business advantages through CSR.
  • We want to build a good corporate image through CSR.
CSR Altruistic Motives
  • Our company conducts business and philanthropic activities in an integrated manner.
  • Our company helps several nonprofit organizations.
  • Our company carries out charitable activities throughout the company.
  • Our company makes more than a certain amount of donations.
CSR Cynicism
  • I doubt our company’s CSR.
  • I do not know if my company’s CSR is better for society.
  • I am skeptical about our company’s CSR.
  • I am questioning the CSR of our company.
  • I think our company’s CSR is hypocritical.
  • I think that the actual CSR of our company is different from that announced to the outside world.
  • I think that our company’s CSR is just pretending to be.
CSR Authenticity
  • I believe that our company is doing CSR for the public good.
  • Our company has a CSR that really cares about the members of society.
  • We believe that our CSR activities are genuine.
  • Our company is conducting CSR regardless of popularity or public interest.
Surface Acting
  • I postpone the emotions I have not experienced to show them to the customers.
  • I hide my true feelings and show my clients the feelings they need.
  • Hide the feelings, experienced during the sales/sales process and behave as if I feel positive feelings.
Deep Acting
  • I try to actually experience a kind emotion to customers.
  • We strive to create true feelings for our customers.
  • I try to feel my sincere feelings to my customers.

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Sustainability 11 01780 g001 550
Figure 1. Conceptual framework.
Figure 1. Conceptual framework.
Sustainability 11 01780 g001
Table
Table 1. Respondents Profile.
Table 1. Respondents Profile.
DemographicsFrequencyPercentage
GenderMale17065.9
Female8834.1
Below-High School5019.4
High School6525.2
EducationBachelor 12950.0
Masters145.4
Whole and Retail6726.0
Insurance6625.6
Others238.9
Manufacture187.0
Lodging & food 145.4
IndustryEducation135.0
Health124.7
Real Estate83.1
Technical, etc.83.1
Arts & Sports83.1
Electricity, etc.51.9
Repair, etc.51.9
Business51.9
Broadcasting41.6
Shipping Trade20.8
Respondent profiles including gender, education and industry of frontline employees. The sample size is 258.
Table
Table 2. Results of Confirmatory factor analysis.
Table 2. Results of Confirmatory factor analysis.
Latent VariableItemsLoadings (β)Cronbach’s αCRAVE
CSR Selfish MotivesSM10.850.880.880.70
SM20.85
SM30.82
CSR Altruistic MotivesAM10.810.900.900.69
AM20.86
AM30.82
AM40.83
CSR CynicismCC10.860.900.970.80
CC20.84
CC30.88
CC40.94
CC50.92
CC60.90
CC70.91
CSR Authenticity CA10.800.970.900.70
CA20.87
CA30.86
CA40.81
Surface ActingSA10.850.920.920.80
SA20.92
SA30.91
Deep ActingDA10.820.890.890.73
DA20.91
DA30.84
All standardized estimates (β) are significant (p < 0.01).
Table
Table 3. Correlation matrix with square root of and average variance extracted (AVE) at the diagonal.
Table 3. Correlation matrix with square root of and average variance extracted (AVE) at the diagonal.
MeanS.D.123456
1. CSR Selfish Motives 3.450.740.84
2. CSR Altruistic Motives3.360.670.35 **0.83
3. CSR Cynicism3.380.720.27 **−0.060.90
4. CSR Authenticity2.750.880.23 **0.77 **−0.20 *0.84
5. Surface Acting3.130.860.26 **0.15 *0.35 **−0.030.90
6. Deep Acting3.790.610.17 *0.21 **−0.17 *0.29 *−0.14 *0.85
** p < 0.01,* p < 0.05.
Table
Table 4. Results of Structural equation model.
Table 4. Results of Structural equation model.
Relationship of VariablesHypothesesβResults
CSR Selfish Motives→CSR CynicismH1a0.35 **Supported
CSR Selfish Motives→CSR AuthenticityH1b−0.06Non-supported
CSR Altruistic Motives→CSR AuthenticityH2a0.79 **Supported
CSR Altruistic Motives→CSR CynicismH2b−0.21 **Supported
CSR Cynicism→Surface ActingH3a0.36 **Supported
CSR Cynicism→Deep ActingH3b−0.12 *Supported
CSR Authenticity→Deep ActingH4a0.27 **Supported
CSR Authenticity→Surface ActingH4b0.06Non-supported
** p < 0.01, * p < 0.05.

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Ji, S.; Jan, I.U. The Impact of Perceived Corporate Social Responsibility on Frontline Employee’s Emotional Labor Strategies. Sustainability 2019, 11, 1780. https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.3390/su11061780

AMA Style

Ji S, Jan IU. The Impact of Perceived Corporate Social Responsibility on Frontline Employee’s Emotional Labor Strategies. Sustainability. 2019; 11(6):1780. https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.3390/su11061780

Chicago/Turabian Style

Ji, Seonggoo, and Ihsan Ullah Jan. 2019. "The Impact of Perceived Corporate Social Responsibility on Frontline Employee’s Emotional Labor Strategies" Sustainability 11, no. 6: 1780. https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.3390/su11061780

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