Surveying Employee Attitudes on Corporate Social Responsibility at the Frontline Level of an Energy Transportation Company

As large companies embrace and integrate the principles of corporate social responsibility (CSR) into their business practices, company personnel are expected to show actions that are connected to communicated corporate values and related policies. To enhance the likelihood that employees at the frontline level will accept these principles and become engaged with these values, it is in the firm's best interests to quantify and understand employee attitudes toward the social responsibility construct itself. The present work considers whether the variables of work climate perception, education level, and age directly influence one's social responsibility perspective at work, extending the Marz model to understand what may impact frontline CSR attitudes. A case study is presented, based on a survey of frontline personnel employed by a North American energy transportation company. This investigation uses an updated survey tool and method for polling a sample population. Survey development is described, analysis methods are explained, and results are presented with statistical measures to verify hypotheses related to employee engagement in CSR. Some potential implications of the results for corporate strategy are discussed. Copyright (c) 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and ERP Environment.