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Corporate Social Responsibility in the work place

Experimental evidence from a gift-exchange game

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  14 March 2025

Hannes Koppel  and
Tobias Regner
Hannes Koppel*
Affiliation:
Alfred Weber Institute of Economics, University of Heidelberg, Bergheimer Strasse 58, 69115 Heidelberg, Germany
Tobias Regner
Affiliation:
Max Planck Institute of Economics, Kahlaische Strasse 10, 07745 Jena, Germany
*
[email protected]
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Abstract

We analyze the effect of investments in corporate social responsibility (CSR) on workers’ motivation. In our experiment, a gift exchange game variant, CSR is captured by donating a certain share of a firm’s profit to charity. We are testing for CSR effects by varying the possible share of profits given to charity. Additionally, we investigate the effect of matching mission preferences, i.e., a worker preferring the same charity the firm donates to. Our results show that, on average, workers reciprocate investments in CSR with increased effort. Matching mission preferences also result in higher effort, independently of the extent of the CSR investment.

Keywords

Corporate Social ResponsibilityGift-exchange gameExperimentLabor marketIncentivesMoral hazard
Type
Original Paper
Information
Experimental Economics , Volume 17 , Issue 3 , September 2014 , pp. 347 - 370
Copyright
Copyright © 2013 Economic Science Association

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