Abstract:

Corporate social responsibility (CSR) attributions refer to the process through which individuals make subjective judgments regarding a company’s motivations for implementing CSR practices. CSR attributions are crucial for CSR practices to have their intended positive effects. We review the literature on CSR attributions in order to summarize the individual, leadership, and organizational factors influencing CSR attributions. In addition, from the perspectives of social exchange and social identity theories, the influence mechanisms of CSR attributions on employee attitudes and behaviors are discussed. We provide suggestions for future research including: (1) Clarify the unique antecedents and outcomes of different corporate social responsibility attributions; (2) Draw on attribution theory to explore the mechanisms through which CSR attributions are formed; (3) Explore how multiple factors influence CSR attributions at the same time; (4) Investigate how attributions influence CSR fairness heuristics; (5) Conduct localized research on CSR attributions in the Chinese context.

Key words: corporate social responsibility, attribution theory, organizational trust, organizational identification