The Impact of Corporate Social Responsibility on Employer Branding: The Mediation Role of Job Satisfaction

Abstract

Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) has become a vital part of business and it incorporates in the operations towards internal and external stakeholders. Employer branding has been widely identified as an effective tool to create a competitive advantage. Nowadays business organizations are increasingly adopting CSR in their employer branding strategies to improve attractiveness and engage current and potential employees, and to ensure consistency in employee brand behaviors. This strategy is particularly true for the companies in hospitality industry as they have to rely on the talents of the people in order to provide a greater service to their customers comparative to their rivals. Hence, the study focused to achieve two objectives; first to assess the impact of CSR on employer branding; and second, to identify how job satisfaction mediates the relationship between CSR and employer branding. Questionnaires were distributed using convenience sampling method to gather primary data from 150 employees working in top five hotels in Sri Lanka based on TripAdvisor Travelers' choice awards. The data were analyzed using correlation coefficient, Baron and Kenny mediator analysis method as well as the Sobel test. The results revealed that there is a significant and strong positive association between CSR and employer branding in the study domain. Analysis of the mediator and the Sobel test identified that job satisfaction partially mediates the said relationship. Therefore, it is expected that this study would beneficial for the human resource managers in the hospitality industry to develop strategies towards the implementation of employer branding in future.