Exploring the nexus between corporate social responsibility (CSR) fulfilment and firms’ innovation performance

This paper investigates the relationship between corporate social responsibility (hereafter referred to as CSR) fulfilment and the innovation behaviour of firms. Despite past studies investigating the link between CSR and various organizational outcomes, its nexus with firm innovation performance is hardly explored. This paper further examined the moderating effect of organizational strategy in the hypothesized relationship. Using a positivistic research approach, a sample of 600 service industry personnel were surveyed. The 491 retrieved usable responses were analysed using regression, exploratory and confirmatory factor analysis. It emerged that CSR fulfilment has a significant effect on firm innovation. Also, the positive relationship between CSR fulfilment and firm innovation was not significantly moderated by organizational strategy. The results imply that CSR fulfilment affects the innovative behaviour of firms to produce services that differentiate them from their competitors. Consequently, focus should be placed on designing workable CSR implementation plans backed by appropriate human resource capacity to make the firm successful.