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CSR practices and creativity during COVID-19 pandemic in the emerging market: investigating the mediating effect of affective commitment

Abdul Alem Mohammed (Department of Management, College of Sciences and Humanities, Shaqra University, Shaqra, Saudi Arabia) (Faculty of Administrative Sciences, Taiz University, Taiz, Yemen)
Alberto Ferraris (Department of Management, University of Torino, Torino, Italy) (Faculty of Economics and Business, University of Rijeka, Rijeka, Croatia) (Research Fellow of the Laboratory for International and Regional Economics, Graduate School of Economics and Management, Ural Federal University, Yekaterinburg, Russia)
Ciro Troise (Department of Management, University of Campania “Luigi Vanvitelli”, Capua, Italy)

Management Decision

ISSN: 0025-1747

Article publication date: 6 December 2021

Issue publication date: 27 September 2022

1191

Abstract

Purpose

This study aims to explore how corporate social responsibility (CSR) dimensions (i.e. economic; legal; ethical; philanthropic) foster employee creativity during the COVID-19 pandemic. Specifically, an attempt is made to investigate the mediating role of affective commitment to explain the above linkage.

Design/methodology/approach

The survey data were collected from 167 employees in the emerging market of Saudi Arabia. The data was analysed using PLS-SEM for frequency, reliability, confirmatory factor analyses and structural equation modelling.

Findings

The CSR dimensions, particularly the ethical and philanthropic dimensions, showed both direct and indirect effects on the creativity behaviour of employees during the COVID-19 pandemic. Moreover, affective commitment mediated the relationship between the legal, ethical and philanthropic CSR dimensions and creativity behaviour.

Originality/value

This study enriches previous CSR empirical research and adds to current literature focused on the determinants of CSR dimensions' effectiveness; particularly, the research is set in a challenging scenario characterized by the pandemic. So, this paper extends previous studies by investigating under which key conditions CSR dimensions are most effective, in particular in two main directions. First, it contributes to the CSR literature by determining how various CSR dimensions influence creativity behaviour during a pandemic. Pandemics are events that occur regularly, and the COVID-19 pandemic, in particular, offers the opportunity to explore its effects on employees' behaviours in the current context. Second, the study's mediation findings contribute to new empirical evidence which suggests that affective commitment has a positive effect on the CSR dimensions of employee creativity behaviour during a pandemic in an emerging market.

Keywords

Citation

Mohammed, A.A., Ferraris, A. and Troise, C. (2022), "CSR practices and creativity during COVID-19 pandemic in the emerging market: investigating the mediating effect of affective commitment", Management Decision, Vol. 60 No. 10, pp. 2669-2693. https://doi.org/10.1108/MD-08-2021-1021

Publisher

:

Emerald Publishing Limited

Copyright © 2021, Emerald Publishing Limited

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