A link between top managers’ perception and corporate social responsibility

Transformational Leadership as a Moderator

Abstract

Though it is called corporate social responsibility (CSR), it is the people in the organization particularly, top managers who develop and get implemented corporate social policies. Organization behavior is the reflection of their top managers. However, exploration of the role of top managers in spreading CSR in the organization is scant in the literature. The purpose of this paper is to explore the impact of top managers’ CSR perceptions on firm-level CSR in Ethiopia. Structured questionnaires were used to collect data from 294 executive managers of four sectors, namely textile, food, bank, and floriculture industries. Multiple hierarchical regression and process macro 3.3 were employed to analyze the data with the aid of SPSS. The analysis reveals that top managers’ CSR perception is a significant predictor of firm-level CSR behaviors. The result also shows that corporate ethical culture fully mediates the relationship between top managers’ CSR perception and organization CSR. Moreover, transformational leadership has a moderating effect between the direct top managers’ CSR perception and firm-level CSR relationship.