The antecedents and consequences of the Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) disclosure-action portrayal gap

This study aims to examine the antecedents and consequences of the Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) disclosure-action portrayal gap, which represents the disparity between the extent of CSR disclosures and actual organisational effort in respect to CSR, as perceived by lower level managers. Specifically, this study examines the association between stakeholder pressure, public image, and the use of interactive and diagnostic controls with the CSR disclosure-action portrayal gap, and examines the associations between the CSR disclosure-action portrayal gap and three employee work-related attitudes: job satisfaction, employee organisational commitment, and the propensity to remain. The results reveal that while stakeholder pressures and public image exhibited a positive association with the CSR disclosure-action portrayal gap, the use of interactive and diagnostic controls exhibited a negative association with the gap. Furthermore, specific dimensions of the CSR disclosure action portrayal gap exhibited a negative association with all three employee work-related attitudes. This finding was further supported by a separate analysis which revealed that job satisfaction, employee organisational commitment and the propensity to remain were all significantly less when organisations clearly engaged in impression management i.e. the extent of CSR disclosures exceeded actual CSR activities. Overall, the study provides managers with an insight into the factors that mitigate or exacerbate the CSR disclosure-action portrayal gap, and the detrimental effect of the gap on employees.