In Tune for Impact: Top Management Team–Employee Congruence in Attributions of Corporate Social Responsibility and Employee Socially Responsible Behaviors

ABSTRACT

The micro–corporate social responsibility (CSR) literature has called for research that incorporates multiple observers from different organizational levels to provide a comprehensive understanding of how to shape employees' socially responsible behaviors. Drawing on person–organization fit and organizational legitimacy theories, we propose a model in which top management team (TMT)–employee (in)congruence in attributions of substantive CSR shapes employees' socially responsible behaviors through organizational identification. We tested our model through multiple complementary studies that employed diverse methodologies. Study 1 employed a 2‐year longitudinal design and analyzed data from 66 TMTs and 198 employees. Studies 2A and 2B validated the model through one experimental vignette study ( n  = 242) and one critical incident study ( n  = 187). Our results highlight that TMT–employee congruence at high levels of attributions of substantive CSR enhances organizational identification and subsequently facilitates employees' socially responsible behaviors; however, this high‐level congruence was not superior to the condition in which employees attributed higher substantive CSR than TMTs. Our research contributes to the micro‐CSR and broader organizational behavior literatures by providing a nuanced approach to investigating employees' CSR engagement.