Corporate social responsibility and employee knowledge sharing: The roles of organisational trust and exchange quality

Abstract

Drawing on the social exchange theory, this study aimed to examine the relationship between perceived corporate social responsibility (CSR) and employee knowledge-sharing behaviour, including the roles organisational trust and exchange quality play in that relationship. Survey data were collected from 364 full-time employees from three information technology services companies in China (female = 258; mean age = 30.5 years, SD = 5.6 years) in a two-wave longitudinal design. Following moderated mediation analysis, our study showed that employees who perceive their organisations to be socially responsible are more likely to trust their organisations and share knowledge with colleagues. Furthermore, when employees perceived a high level of organisation exchange relationship, the positive effect of perceived CSR on organisational trust was stronger. Our findings indicate that perceived CSR matters when it comes to employee knowledge sharing.

Keywords:

• corporate social responsibility
• knowledge sharing
• organisation exchange relationship
• organisational trust

Funding disclosure

This work is supported by the Research Foundation for Youth Scholars of Beijing Technology and Business University.

Data availability statement

The data that support the findings of this study are available from the corresponding author upon reasonable request.