Understanding Internal, External and Relational Attributions in Reaction to Corporate Social Responsibility

Past studies on Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) have mainly focused on the macro level whereas; the micro level studies are comparatively less in number. Consequently, the conceptualization of CSR is also problematic and an agreement on a single model is still at par. To this backdrop, while building on existing model of Aguinis and Glavas (2013) which consists of peripheral and embedded CSR, this study aimed to theoretically extend the CSR literature and offer an alternative conceptualization of the same. Relying on the extant literature of Industrial – Organizational (I-O) Psychology and related fields such as HR and organizational behavior; this paper argues that the dyadic approach of CSR (i.e. embedded and peripheral) may not fully capture the whole essence of its widespread implications. Consequently, an alternative framework is being offered by extricating peripheral CSR into two distinct notions i.e. Peripheral-social (P-social) and Peripheral-instrumental (P-instrumental) CSR while keeping the embedded CSR as it is. Furthermore, an attempt is made to integrate and explain embedded, P-social and P-instrumental CSR by offering the underlying mediating mechanism of attribution styles with three dimensions i.e. internal, external and relational. Several propositions are offered based on the discussion followed by its theoretical, methodological and practical implications.