The Impact of Corporate Social Responsibility on Employees' Organizational Commitment within the Telecommunication sector in Jordan.

The Impact of Corporate Social Responsibility on Employees' Organizational Commitment within the Telecommunication sector in Jordan.

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The Impact of Corporate Social Responsibility on Employees' Organizational Commitment within the Telecommunication sector in Jordan.

Introduction

This research aims to add to the advancing reviews by studying the connection between Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) and the workers/employee commitment in Zain Telecommunication firm in Jordan. More precisely, this study examines how the internal CSR (workers'/employees' efforts) and the external CSR (the external stakeholders' efforts) are independent variables, and the E.C. is the dependent variable. This chapter consists of four sections, each describing an overview of the research.

1.1 Background of the Research

In the previous 20 years, firms were put under pressure by the communities, the public, and the government on the issue of CSR. Misani (2010) explains that the CSR interest began because of universal public concerns like moral issues, the natural environment of the company itself, plus other societal ones. More so, pursuing societal conduct has connected together the interests of many parties in the firm, including employers, managers, supervisors, investors, consumers, and stockholders (Mensah et al., 2017).  As a result of this, organizations today are attempting to apply numerous CSR rules that make them an appropriate competitor in their business.

The significance of Corporate Social Responsibility in the practical world has been addressed in many circumstances. For instance, accepting social roles has been evidenced to benefit organizations by improving monetary performance as well as creating more capital. CSR also plays a critical role in national competitiveness. More virtually, the KPMG (2011) report claims that integrating Corporate Social Responsibility in a business plan has several difficulties, starting from the enhancement of the relation with the local government and suppliers, obeying economic and ethical considerations, enhancing brand image, as well as gaining more status.

As part of this increasing investigation on the significance of CSR in organizations, an extreme focus has been directed toward staff in organizations. Various types of research that have been carried out in this area offer evidence that focusing more on CSR attracts new workers or staff (Greening and Turban, 2000).  Focusing on CSR also makes the employees prouder to work in corporations that have good relations in industries (Peterson, 2004). There was similarly significant attention given to the direct effect of CSR on the worker's commitment in different nations like Malaysia.

Furthermore, commitment has been described in many ways by researchers since 1970.  Sheldon (1971, p.134) defined commitment as an orientation or an attitude toward the company that attaches or links the identity of an individual to the company. Other theoretical frameworks, nevertheless, appeared to discover classifications for the commitment rather than depending only on just one definition for instance (Allen and Meyer, 1990). Thus, the literature also points out that many studies being carried out focused on the way CSR can be viewed from the perception of an organization's reputation, its link with clients, and how that can be connected to monetary performance. As a result, there is still a need to carry out more investigations to evaluate the impacts of CSR on the workforce. More explicitly, research in unindustrialized nations is still incomplete, and this research attempts to improve on this aspect of the literature.

1. 1. Research Aims and Objective

The main objective of this research project is to assess the impact of CSR on the worker's commitment in Jordan as a developing nation using Zain Mobile firm as an illustration. The purpose of the research shall be accomplished by evaluating 2 hypotheses concerning the link between the variables in the research. The assessment begins with exploring the effect of external and outside (external) CSR on the commitment before trying to reach a general conclusion. The research carried out a survey on working staff in Zain firm's major office in Amman, located in Jordan.

This thesis then intends to provide an overview of the telecommunication segment in Jordan, where the competition level has become high recently with respect to employability as well as increasing the market share.  The commitment of the employee is expected to contribute to the success of the firms in the segment. Nevertheless, Zain is one of the major firms in the segment in Jordan hence, carrying out the study on it can make the outcome more simplicial to the other rivals.

1.3 Research Contributions

This thesis/research focuses on contributing to the literature in the Jordan background, where there is a necessity for additional research work to be carried out on the effect of CSR on firms. The main contribution of this study is three-fold.  In the beginning, this research contributes to filling the clear gap in the existing review concerning the impact of CSR on the commitment of employees in Jordan. Secondly, the result of this study provides other insight to the firms and entrepreneurs in Jordan on the significance of encouraging and supporting their workforces by applying CSR rules. Thirdly, the research of this study can similarly direct the administration as well as the owner of the firm in Jordan through surging the responsiveness to CSR strategies as well as their significance across the Jordan market segment.

1.4 Organization of the Thesis 

The organization of this thesis is informed of chapters and sections, where the thesis is arranged systematically. The approaches that helped to gather and assess the information shall be noted down. Finally, the entire information derived from the research will be summed up as a conclusion.

Chapter one has the introduction part that provides an overview and elaborates on the topic in question as well as the description of the research background. The other sections contained in this chapter include research objectives, aims, and research contributions.

Chapter two focusses on the review literature with past research that focused on the study topic. The investigator compares the views of different authors and how they tried to cover the topic in its entirety. Some of the gaps that exist in the past research will also be covered in this chapter.

Chapter three explains the approaches that will be used to gather and analyze the data. The chapter likewise contains the research design used to research the problem statement. The study method used is qualitative. Chapter four focuses on the analysis of collected information from the participants. Chapter five draws the conclusions on the topic while making recommendations and opinions for further studies. It similarly presents major limitations of the study. Finally, Chapter Six deals with a personal development plan to indicate how conducting a study influences the skills of an investigator or researcher. That plan likewise addresses how the investigator attained his personal aims and, where likely, in a broader context, links to his administration experience. 

Figure 1.1 below sketches the study process being illustrated above.

Chapter Two

Literature Review

"While the idea of "CSR" might have at one point been viewed as company philanthropy, it has rapidly become a critical part and parcel of any big corporation's long-term plan – not only in advertising and promotion but in employing, too: As customers worry more with where goods come from, workers now desire a lot from their managers and bosses than a paycheck. They prefer a sense of contentment and pride from their job, a purpose and significantly a corporation whose ethical standards match their own" Jeanne Meister, (2011).

This chapter outlines the applicable literature to this research. Section 2.1 addresses the appropriate definition of the CSR and the significance of the CSR to firms. Section 2.2 evaluates the past work on the effect of CSR on the commitment of workers. Section 2.3 outlines the CSR literature and to what degree it is linked to H.R. policy while taking into consideration the assessment work in practice.  Finally, Section 2.4 addresses the CSR effect/impact on the management appraisal system. 

2.1 Definition of CSR

Many definitions of CSR have evolved in the last 20 years. The most common meaning of CSR is presented by Davis (1973, p. 312) as: "the organization's contemplations of, plus response to, matters beyond the narrow legal, technical and economic requirements of the company to attain environmental and social benefits together with the conventional economic benefits which the company seeks." But, there is still agreement on how perfectly the CSR ought to be defined. For instance, Feldberg (1974, p. 39) part, he explains that: "CSR takes numerous methods and has an immeasurable number of scopes; a lot of the scopes are global, whereas others are more applicable to a specific society." Amongst the most significant scopes, Feldberg (1974) refers to the old-style roles of corporations as more specific society-related scope and other global as associated with the progressing globe of business like the complexity, permanence technology, and growth in size.

Furthermore, the Global Business Council for Sustainable Growth (2002) describes CSR as the firm's commitment to contribute to continuous economic growth and expansion by working with workers, the local communities, families, as well as the entire community to improve the quality of life." Overall, the CSR may be more concerned about the local community by introducing practices or even proposing to workers to participate in the local programs. It can as well be performed by supporting different categories of projects or programs, including communal and non-communal ones. On the other hand, according to Aguilera et al. (2007), CSR incorporation can be represented by encompassing infrastructure investments.

2.1.1 The Internal CSR

Many researchers came to categorize the CSR practices by corporations into 2 categories, namely, external and internal CSR, which makes it easy to assess its effect on stakeholders.

More precisely, Brammer and Millington (2005, p.31) state that internal CSR stands for all the actions inside the firm. The study of Longo et al. (2005, p.29) provides a more comprehensive classification of internal CSR activities and places them in "value categories."  The research makes this by developing satisfaction, safety, skills, as well as other related interests of the workforce. While, other researchers use them to denote the existing within firms that are connected to workers' physiological and psychological concerns. To improve on the available definitions, Pietersz (2011) explains that internal CSR is commonly substituted to what has been happening in corporations to certainly add to the comfort of the workers and their livelihoods.

Some examples of internal CSR are many include training workers as well as accommodating diversity within the company, making sure there is a balance between life and work, giving the needed safety and health to staff, and giving attention to the issues of human rights.

2.1.2 The External CSR

European Commission's (2001) report defines external CSR practices as the efforts directed to all the external shareholders like the local community, business supporters, and target customers.

References

Aguilera, R. V., Rupp, D. E., Williams, C. A., and Ganapathi, J., 2007, "Putting the S back in corporate social responsibility: A multilevel theory of social change in organizations," Academy of Management Review, 32, 836–863. http://dx.doi.org/10.5465/AMR.2007.25275678

Allen, N.J., and Meyer, J.P., 1990, "The measurement and antecedents of affective, continuance and normative commitment to the organization," Journal of Occupational and Organizational Psychology, vol. 63, no. 1, pp.1-18.

Brammer, S. and Millington, A., 2005, "Corporate reputation and philanthropy: An empirical analysis," Journal of Business Ethics, vol. 61, no. 1, pp.29-44.

Davis, K., 1973, "The case for and against business assumption of social responsibilities," Academy of Management Journal, vol. 16, no. 2, pp. 312-322.

European Commission, 2001, "Promoting a European Framework for Corporate Social Responsibility", Green Paper, European Commission, Brussels.

Feldberg, M., 1974, "Defining social responsibility," Long-range planning, vol. 7, no. 4, pp. 39-44.

Greening, D.W. and Turban, D.B., 2000, "Corporate social performance as a competitive advantage in attracting a quality workforce," Business and Society, vol. 39, no. 3, pp. 254-280.

KPMG International, Curacao.

KPMG, 2011, KPMG International Survey of Corporate Responsibility Reporting, 2011.

Longo, M., Mura, M. and Bonoli, A., 2005, "Corporate Social Responsibility and Corporate

Mensah, H.K., Agyapong, A., and Nuertey, D., 2017. "The effect of corporate social responsibility on organizational commitment of employees of rural and community banks in Ghana." Cogent Business and Management, vol.4 no.1, p.1280895.

Misani, N., 2010, "The Convergence of Corporate Social Responsibility Practices. Management"

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Peterson, D.K., 2004, "The relationship between perceptions of corporate citizenship and organizational commitment," Business and Society, vol. 43, no. 3, pp. 296-319.

Pietersz, G., 2011, "Corporate Social Responsibility Is More than Just Donating Money,"

Research Review, vol. 33, pp. 734-748. http://dx.doi.org/10.1108/01409171011055816.

Sheldon, M.E., 1971, "Investments and involvements as mechanisms producing commitment to the organization," Administrative Science Quarterly, pp.143-150.