CORPORATE SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY AND EMPLOYEE ENGAGEMENT: IDENTIFYING THE LINK IN INTERNATIONAL COMMUNITY SCHOOL OF ADDIS ABABA

Abstract

This study is conducted to find out the link between corporate social responsibility and employee engagement in the International Community School of Addis Ababa, based on the social identity theory. Corporate social responsibility was divided into internal and external for this research. CSR initiatives that are directed towards the employees were categorized under internal CSR, while those directed towards the wide external stakeholders were categorized under external CSR. The research made use of both qualitative and quantitative research approaches. Data was collected regarding the two variables using questionnaire and interview survey methods. Simple random sampling technique was used to select respondents from among employees of ICS, for the questionnaires and two management personnel were interviewed. A correlation analysis was conducted using SPSS, to find out the magnitude and direction of the relationship between the two variables and a high positive correlation was obtained. CSR directed towards employees (internal CSR) produced the highest positive correlation with employee engagement, in comparison to the other indicators of CSR. CSR geared towards the community scored the second highest correlation with employee engagement, while low/weak correlations were observed between CSR towards the environment and CSR towards customers and employee engagement. Given these results it is recommended that the organization increases its investment on corporate social responsibility initiatives as a proportional increment in employee engagement is expected.