تاثیر کیفیت رابطه روی ادراک فردی از مسئولیت اجتماعی (SR)

ABSTRACT The effect of relationship quality on individual perceptions of social responsibility in the US

Social responsibility (SR) has been the subject of numerous studies (Bowen, 1953; Aguinis and Glavas, 2012). Most research has focused on large companies and organizations (Williamson et al., 2006) while research into smaller companies has lagged, especially in the U.S. (Dean et al., 1998). European literature has focused on small and medium enterprises (SMEs) in terms of management (Jenkins, 2006), resources (Aragón-Correa et al., 2008), and drivers and determinants (Darnall et al., 2009). A summary of these dissimilarities are as follows.

Fassin (2008) suggests that small firms do not have the resources or capabilities of performing SR activities at the same level as large firms. While Jenkins (2006) indicates that there is more dependence on the values and traits of the owners and senior managers in terms of SR resulting in different responses compared to large firms. A leading driver for small firms is their employees and families as opposed to external stakeholders (Murillo and Lozano, 2006; Darnall et al., 2009).

While there are many definitions for SR (Dahlsrud, 2008), the author uses a broad definition proposed by Bowen (1953, p. 6) that businesses have an obligation to society to “…pursue those policies, to make those decisions, or to follow those lines of action which are desirable in terms of the objectives and values of our society.” The major issue with a broad definition is in determining what an organization might consider the most appropriate policies or objectives that should be addressed. The concept of saliency, developed by Agle et al. (1999) is an attempt to provide a way for organizations to determine which issues should be addressed. They propose that the owners/managers evaluate each issue based on their perception of power, legitimacy, and urgency of specific stakeholders. Based on this, power is seen as the influence of the stakeholder on the organization, legitimacy is based on the perceived relationship quality and urgency is the perception of how the stakeholder sees the issue.

Thornton and Byrd (2013) developed a social empathy model of SR, finding four distinct dimensions of SR that SME owners and managers found important. The dimensions correspond to financial/economic, legal/regulatory, ethical, and discretionary. Internally, the focus is on relationships with employees, suppliers and customers. Externally, the focus is on the community and local/regional issues. This study focuses on the question of how individuals perceive SR actions in the presence of relationship quality. This research also examines whether conscientiousness and general self-efficacy affect SR equally or differentially.