The Role of Corporate Support for Employee Volunteering in Strengthening the Impact of Green Human Resource Management Practices on Corporate Social Responsibility in the Egyptian Firms

• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/emre.12310
• Author: Mostafa Mohamed Ahmed Al Kerdawy
• Published date: 01 December 2019
• Date: 01 December 2019

The Role of Corporate Support for Employee

Volunteering in Strengthening the Impact of

Green Human Resource Management

Practices on Corporate Social Responsibility in

the Egyptian Firms

MOSTAFA MOHAMED AHMED ALKERDAWY

College of Economics and Administrative Sciences, Department of Business Administration, Al Imam Muhammad Ibn Saud

Islamic University (IMSIU), Kingdom of Saudi Arabia; and Damietta University, Faculty of Commerce, Egypt

Green human resource management (GHRM) and corporate social responsibility (CSR) have recently gained

more attention in the business world. This study aims to investigate the role of corporate support for employee

volunteering(CSEV) in strengthening the impact of GHRMon adopting CSR practices of the best 30 firms registered

in EGX100 at the Egyptianstock exchange and engaged with CSRactivities. Therefore, a conceptualframework was

proposed to list theoretical concepts of GHRM, CSEV and CSR to form hypotheses. Data were collected from 326

respondents occupying the highest managerial positions in the studied firms. Using a structural equation model

(SEM), the resultsindicate that both GHRM and CSEVinfluence positively on adoptingCSR activities. Furthermore,

CSEV plays a positive moderating role in strengtheningthe impact of GHRM on adopting CSR in the studied firms.

These findings and th eir managerial implications w ere discussed in theory and practi ce.

Keywords: Green human resource management; corporate support for employee volunteering; corporate social

responsibility

Introduction

Human resource occupies the first place between other

resources in all types of organizations. Then human

resource management (HRM) should manage talented

workforces in accordance with the needs of the time to

sustain competitive edge as well as encouraging workers

to become engaged in environmental behaviours (Adil,

2015; Cantor et al., 2012). Nowadays, a new line of

research called Green human resource management

(GHRM) appears as a result of integration between two

concepts: environmental sustainability and green

organizations (Ones and Dilchert, 2012; Jabbour, 2013;

Jackson et al., 2014; Jabbour and Jabbour, 2016).

Many scholars reveal that GHRM is established

through the alignment of the HRM practices with the aims

of organizational environmental management (Jabbour

et al., 2012; Antonioli et al ., 2013; Norton et al., 2014;

Jabbour and Jabbour, 2016). They also add that HRM

practices consider fundamental inputs for adopting

corporate socialresponsibility (CSR) practicesthroughout

an organization. Despite, HRM practices give more

attention to environmental issues, a little attention has

been given to explain the individual process by which

HRM practices trigger employees’willingness to adopt

green behaviours at work (Paillé et al., 2014).

Several scholars assert that CSR works properly to

achieve competitive advantages to an organization

(Breitbarth et al., 2015, Kadlubek, 2015). CSR plays a

critical role in gaining firm’s success and supporting its

reputation among stakeholders (Deng et al., 2013; Paek

et al., 2013; Di Giuli and Kostovetsky, 2014; Gallardo-

Vázquez and Sanchez-Hernandez, 2014; Arndt et al.,

2015; Breitbarth et al., 2015; Giulianotti, 2015; Ismail

Correspondence: Mostafa Mohamed Ahmed Al Kerdawy, Professor of

Human Resource Management, Faculty of Commerce, Damietta

University, Department of Business Administration,New Damietta, P.O.

Box 34519, Arab Republic of Egypt (A.R.E), Tel: 0-020-109-9070990.

E-mail: mostafa_alkerdawy@yahoo.com

DOI: 10.1111/emre.12310

©2018 European Academy of Management

European Management Review, Vol. 16, 1079 –, (2019)

109

5

et al., 2015). The CSR practices can be enhanced through

encouraging vol unteering work among employ ees within

an organization (Ana and Arminda, 2013).

Volunteering work is a comprehensive concept, no

longer limited to charity, or just social development, but

it is closely linked to all the meanings of goodness,

humanity and feeling of others. It considered a key pillar

in strengthening the organization’s relationship with its

environment (Megan and Maryam, 2015). The

volunteering work had been developed from work

depends on physical effort to disseminate the spirit of

optimism among people (Shelly et al., 2013). Corporate

support for employee volunteering (CSEV) considers as

one of the most critical activities that enhances employee

motivation and engagement towards CSR (Gatignon-

Turnau and Mignonac, 2015).

While Dartey-Baah and Amponsah-Tawiah (2011)

emphasize that the basic fundamentals of CSR remain the

same, CSR issues vary in nature and importance from

country to another because of sensitive to prevailing

religious, historical and cultural contexts. They also

confirm that CSR is a localized and socially embedded

concept because of the modes of practicing CSR are

reflections of organizations’responses to their socioe-

conomic environment. According to Visser (2007), CSR

in African countries tends to be less formalized or

institutionalized in terms of the CSR benchmarks. In these

countries, there are rarely CSR codes, standards, manage-

ment systems and reports. Furthermore, CSR in developing

countries is most commonly associated with philanthropy

or charity, that is, through corporate social investment in

education, healthcare, sports, environmental development,

and other community services (Visser, 2007).

On the other side,in the European Union, organizations

strive to report their environmental and social impact

performancesvoluntarily to keep a good relationship with

stakeholders. For example, in the United Kingdom a

number of tourism corporations introduced three CSR

reports; two in 2014 and one in 2015. In the same vein,

tourism corporations in France launched four CSR

reports; two in 2014 and two in 2015. Italy’s situation is

similar to theUnited Kingdom. Finally, In Germany, there

were 4 reports in 2014 and just one in 2015. (Akmese

et al., 2016).

In Egypt, many firms devote their activities towards

CSR either voluntarily as part of their strategy and vision

or as a result of pressure from stockmarket. For example,

Egyptian Stock Exchange cooperated with both the

Egyptian Institute of Directors (EIOD) and Standard &

Poor’s foundation to build the S&P/EGX ESG index

(Ali, 2014). According to this index, the stock market in

Egypt announces annually the best 30 firms engaged in

CSR activities from EGX 100 as shown in Table 1.

Table 1 illustrates that there is no stability for the

ranking of many companies about CSR during 2007–

2010. This may due to the confusion among managers

about the core mean ing of CSR concept. In Muslim

countries, managers consider both charity and CSR

concepts as the same. In Muslim culture, charity is

volunteer work that should be done in secrecy so its

reward for God does not get diminished and they believe

that ‘God would bless their work’(Barsoum and Refaat,

2015: 46) whereas CSR should be included in

organizationstrategy. In Egypt, thus, CSR operateswithin

a very complex environment because religionis central to

the cultural aspect of this community. The second reason

Table 1 The evolution of Egyptian companies according to social

responsibility index from2007–2010

Companies 2007 2008 200 9 2010

Liceco misr 1 6 10 6

Egyptian company for mobile

services (Orange)

22161

Egypt telecom 3 5 4 4

Oriental Weavers 4 9 14 –

EFG-HermesHolding Company 5 28 9 11

Sidi Kerir forPetrochemicals 6 11 11 15

National Bank for Develo pment 7 21 24 -

Alexandriafor Mineral Oils 8 14 21 -

Orascom TelecomHolding 9 12 8 8

Credit Agricole Egypt 10 13 30 -

Misr ChemicalIndustries 11 15 28 20

Egyptian forTransport services 12 4 3 3

Sixth of Octoberfor Development

and Investment

13 17 22 24

Olympic Groupfor Financial

Investments

14 18 17 -

Medinet Nasrfor Housing and

Development

15 19 23 27

Raya Holdingfor Technology

and Communications

168510

Naeem Holdingfor investment 17 24 25 28

Orascom Construction Industries 18 1 2 2

CommercialInternational Bank (CIB) 19 3 1 5

Mena real estateand tourism 19 24 20 30

Misr al gadida forDevelopment

& Housing

19 16 13 13

EL Ezz AldekhelaSteel –Alexandria 22 29 12 -

Housing & Development Bank 23 23 15 16

Egyptian Kuwaiti Holding 23 20 19 17

B-Tech for Tradeand Distribution 23 24 27 19

United Arab Shippi ng and unloading 26 27 26 -

Nile Matches 27 21 29 -

Ezz Steel 28 30 6 9

GP Auto 29 7 18 12

Talaat MostafaGroup Holding 29 10 7 7

El Sewedy Cables - - - 14

EgyptiansAbroad for Housing - - - 18

Ahly for Development andInvestment - - - 21

Mills and Bakeries of SouthCairo & Giza - - - 22

Al-Ahram forprinting and packaging - - - 23

Islamic westernfor Reconstruction

and Development

---25

Palm Hills - - - 26

Egyptian Ironand Steel - - - 29

Source: http://www.eiod.org/default_AR.aspx

M.M.A. Al Kerdawy

©2018 European Academy of Management

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