“Does a Good Firm Diminish the Bad Behavior of Its Employees?”: The Sequential Mediation Effect of Organizational Trust and Organizational Commitment, and the Moderation Effect of Work Overload

The purpose of this study was to investigate the influence of corporate social responsibility (CSR) on an employee’s negative behavior, in addition to its intermediating mechanism (i.e., mediators and moderator) in the relationship. This paper proposes that CSR may diminish an employee’s negative behavior, such as counterproductive work behavior. Relying on the context–attitude–behavior framework, this study investigated the mediators and moderator of the relationship between CSR and counterproductive work behavior. Specifically, this study hypothesized that not only does CSR diminish the level of counterproductive work behavior by sequentially boosting the level of employees’ organizational trust and commitment, but their work overload also negatively moderates the association between CSR and organizational trust. Utilizing three-wave time-lagged online survey data from 342 employees in South Korean companies, this study tested the hypotheses by building a moderated mediation model with structural equation modeling analysis. The results indicate that CSR decreases the level of employees’ counterproductive work behavior through enhancing their organizational trust and commitment. Moreover, work overload negatively moderates the association between CSR and organizational trust. The findings of this study make theoretical and practical contributions to the CSR literature.