Socially responsible organizations (SROs) are trending. A recent interview with David Carrey, a global manager at CECP, a coalition of CEOs engaged in positive social change, revealed his expectations that 2017 would see increased integration of business practices and social strategies, longer term commitment to this integration, increasing recognition of the value of employees, and increasing evaluation of potential executive leaders on issues of character and caring for the environment in which they operate (GlobalGiving, 2016).
Social responsibility takes many forms, from the well being of the company’s workforce to the well being of the entire community (Parast, 2012); or even the world’s well being, such as organizations that address climate change. More and more research evidence has accumulated demonstrating that socially responsible practices are also sound and sustainable business practices. For example, employee health and safety provides for a more productive workforce; engagement of executives and staff in their communities may create a positive reputation for the company (Parast, 2012); and the demand from investors for SROs in their portfolios continues to grow (GlobalGiving, 2016).
Psychological capital is an individual’s positive mental attitudes and habits that together support positive organizational behaviour (Eid, et al., 2012). The four distinct attributes identified by the Eid research group include hope, resilience, optimism, and self-efficacy. Hope indicates that the employee will persevere in the pursuit of goals, changing the paths toward the goal as necessary to succeed. Employees will be eager to gain new knowledge, learn new procedures, and seek out new opportunities. Hope fights complacency and stagnation. Resilience is the ability to overcome adversity, to bounce back quickly and possibly even become stronger. The employee never gives in, but will seek to overcome problems. Optimism means that employees have realistic hopes that they and the company can and will succeed in the future. This makes it more likely that employees will perceive opportunities to make changes for the better. Self-efficacy provides employees with the confidence that their efforts make a difference, making it more likely that employees will put forth the effort required to succeed in the face of challenges or obstacles. It may seem that these attributes overlap, but research has shown them to be distinct, although related (Eid, et al., 2012).
Compassion encompasses kindness, a sense of common humanity, and a desire to alleviate suffering; self-compassion applies these qualities to the self (Neff & Germer, 2013). Clearly, therefore, these positive and giving qualities are expected to help support the social responsibility mission of organizations, and in turn SROs are expected to support these positive qualities in their employees, both executives and staff. It is possible, however, that the demands of an SRO, including a perceived demand to always think of others within and without the organization, would spend psychological capital, causing relationships and motivation and positive engagement to deteriorate with time.
The interactions between compassion, self-compassion, psychological capital, and socially responsible organizations have not been studied extensively. Therefore, this research will be primarily qualitative in nature, combining scales that have been developed to measure compassion, self-compassion, and psychological capital with data measuring organizations and the extent to which they demonstrate social responsibility, and with interviews consisting of both closed-ended and open-ended questions to encourage subjects to open up regarding their experiences in SROs and how their reactions intersect with their positive attitudes and compassionate attributes.
This research therefore will explore whether or not SROs support compassion, self-compassion, and psychological capital in their employees at the executive and staff levels.
The hypotheses to be explored in this research study include:
H1: That SROs tend to attract and hire compassionate individuals.
H2: That compassionate individuals who commit to SROs are also self-compassionate.
H3: That a failure of self-compassion may lead employees of SROs to leave and seek work elsewhere, where the demands of social responsibility are not as great. And
H4: That individuals who measure high in psychological capital prefer employment with SROs.
- Eid, J., Mearns, K., Larsson, G., Laberg, J.C., & Johnsen, B.H. (2012). Leadership, psychological capital and safety research: Conceptual issues and future research questions. Safety Science, 50(1), 55-61.
- GlobalGiving. (2016). Doing good in 2017: Predictions for CEOs who care about CSR. Corporate Social Responsibility. Retrieved from https://www.globalgiving.org/learn/qa/corporate-social-responsibility-trends-2017/.
- Neff, K.D., & Germer, C.K. (2013). A pilot study and randomized controlled trial of the mindful self-compassion program. Journal of Clinical Psychology, 69(1), 28-44.
- Parast, M.M., & Adams, S.G. (2012). Corporate social responsibility, benchmarking, and organizational performance in the petroleum industry: A quality management perspective. International Journal of Production Economics, 139(2), 447-458.
