Corporate social responsibility (CSR) is viewed as an internal marketing strategy (Bhattacharya, Sen, & Korschun, 2007; Shabnam, & Sarker, 2012). Research indicate that CSR implementation has a positive impact on employees, and enhance working satisfaction, corporate identity and organizational commitment (Koh and El’fred, 2001;Valentine et al., 2006; Martinez & Rodríguez del Bosque, 2013; Lee, Song, Lee, Lee, & Bernhard, 2013). However, some studies suggest that CSR will not directly influence employee, related mediating factors and moderating factors need to be more discussed. The study apply regulatory focus theory as a framework for explaining moderator effect of promotion and prevention focus on employee perceived CSR and working satisfaction, organizational identity and trust. Promotion focus means that employees consider CSR promoting a better society and environment, and prevention focus represent CSR is for preventing falling behind industry, and public criticism.
A questionnaire survey was employed in hospitality industry, questionnaire is design based on related literature (VandeWalle, 1997; Higgins et. al., 2001; Craig et.al., 2009; Huimin, & Ryan, 2011; Martínez, Pérez, & Rodríguez del Bosque, 2013; Paek, Xiao, Lee & Song, 2013; Fu, Ye & Law, 2014). And five subscales are contained in the questionnaire, including perceived CSR、regulatory focus、 working satisfaction 、organizational commitment and organizational trust. To analyse the reliability and validity of the questionnaire, a pilot study was conducted in September 2017. 120 questionnaires were collected, 105 valid questionnaires were subjected to a preliminary analysis, the official investigation was conducted during January and February in 2017. 450 questionnaires were distributed, and 389 valid questionnaires were collected, a recovery rate of 86.4%.
A significant partial correlation was found between perceived CSR and working satisfaction(ΔR2=.31, p<.000)、organizational commitment (ΔR2=.22,p<.000) and organizational trust (ΔR2=.27, p<.000). Hierarchical regression analysis was further used to estimate moderation effect of regulatory focus, the study find that moderation effect on the relationship between CSR and and working satisfaction(ΔR2=.02, p<.01)、organizational commitment (ΔR2=.06, p<.01) and organizational trust (ΔR2=.06, p<.01). The research finding shows that working satisfaction, organizational commitment and organizational trust are more influenced by the organization's CSR implementation while employees have positive interpretation and recognition of CSR. Therefore, the organization should fully communicate about the purpose and value of CSR, so that employees can identify with and support the organization's CSR, and then CSR can achieve the function of internal marketing. If employees think that the organization's implementation of CSR is only an obligation or only satisfies the social perception, there may be less positive impact of CSR on employees. Regulatory focus theory is suggested to apply on future consumer study.