The Divergent Influence of Social Responsibility on Employee Engagement through the Lens of Marital Status: Evidence from Higher Education Institutions.
| Autor | Mei Peng, Low |
1 Introduction
"Beyond profit and being socially responsible" is often the tagline related to Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) (Hortyn, 2019). CSR has been discussed worldwide in business organisations since the 1950s and it has been recognised as important. Nowadays, CSR is also receiving increasing attention due to the ever-changing business environment. However, its roles in the non-business context such as the education sector are still underexplored. The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO) stated that education is an approach to endow both children and adults to become active participants in the transformation of society. Amid the education process, qualities, mentalities, and practices empower individuals to learn in a world characterized by variety and pluralism. Education and academics have a novel part to play in imparting knowledge and shaping the future of the general public. Recently, Crowther and Seifi (2018) attempted to further explain CSR and its role in sustainability. They pointed out that CSR has a cascading effect stemming from its societal impact through the education sector. The particular definition of CSR in the education sector motivates this study. The research also explores the Life Cycle Model through marital status for a comprehensive understanding of the impact of ethics and social responsibility on academics' engagement at Malaysian higher education institutions.
This paper bridges the gap between ethics and social responsibility and higher education institutions. The gap could be closed by addressing the questions of "What is the role of social responsibility in higher education institutions?" and "How does it affect academics?" The research paper endeavours to understand the protagonists of ethics and social responsibility in the education sector through the parameters of Perceived Role of Ethics and Social Responsibility (PRESOR) and Internal CSR practices and their influence on academics' employee engagement. Employee engagement is construed as the ultimate outcome of ethics and social responsibility. The findings of this research complement existing knowledge of ethics and social responsibility in the non-business setting, particularly the education sector. The research paper is structured into the following sections: background of the study, literature review, research gap, theoretical framework, research framework and hypotheses, research design and methodology, data analysis and findings, conclusion and discussions, theoretical and managerial implications, limitations and directions for future research.
2 Background of the Study
With Malaysia's transition to a knowledge-based economy, policymakers have more specifically linked the development of the higher education sector to the requirements of economic growth. The Malaysian government is aspiring to deliver a well-prepared, skilled, trained, and proficient workforce that strives for economic growth and is resilient to rapid change. This effort is evidenced in the amendment to the Education Act in 1995, which was followed by the implementation of the Private Higher Education Act in 1996. Consequently, higher education institutions are springing up like mushrooms after rain. According to the Ministry of Higher Education (2017), Malaysia had 20 public universities and 43 private universities, 31 private university colleges and 9 foreign university branches as of 2015.
Meanwhile, the Industrial Revolution 4.0 (IR4.0) has also given some new drive to the higher education sector in the form of multidisciplinary integration embracing the elements of innovation and technology. Higher education institutions are required to re-think the structure of their academic programs with pedagogy that is more flexible and focussed on practical, competency-based learning with new systems of accreditation and certification.
The massive development and the aggressive competition in the education sector coerce higher education institutions into strategizing their institutions' directions to compete and survive in this intense state of rivalry. In this regard, academics are required to carry out bigger and more tasks that go beyond their conventional roles of imparting knowledge to the future generation. Academics' responsibilities are expanded to include heavy teaching loads, community-based research, requesting research opportunities, sourcing research grants, and providing professional services, all of which may constitute an overwhelming set of role expectations (Bochenek, Kingston-Mann & Sieber, 2002). Recently, Cadez, Dimovski and Zaman Groffs (2017) research findings highlighted the reduced teaching quality of universities as a result of increased pressure for research publications to meet worldwide university ranking objectives. Jing (2008) added that the stressful conditions experienced by academics lead to misery, resulting in vulnerability and behavioural problems such as depression, fatigue, inefficiency, absenteeism, and much more. This situation explains the reduced performance in their core teaching tasks. This could negatively affect national competitiveness due to the inability of academics to produce qualified graduates. In view of the discussion of ethics and social responsibility being widely accepted in business organisations, this research aims to examine its impact among the academics in higher education institutions in terms of them carrying out their multiple roles yet displaying a high level of employee engagement.
3 Literature Review
3.1 Ethics and social responsibility
For the past few decades, there has been growing concern paid to the ethics and social responsibility dimensions of businesses. Despite the attention given, the degree of focus on the ethics and social responsibility dimension varies according to the country environment. As a result, there is a wide divergence in the level of importance given to ethics and social responsibility. The divergence is mainly attributed to the stage of national economic development, cultural standards, legal/political structure, and business conduct expectations (Wotruba, 1997). Despite the possibilities of similarities in terms of definition between these two concepts, Carroll (1999) explained that the new definition that emerged in the 1980s is due to more available progressive empirical research. The disparity includes stakeholder theory, stakeholder management, corporate social responsibility, corporate social performance, corporate citizenship and business ethics as well as corporate social responsiveness, which emerged recently. Commonly, ethics is described as the vital principle that generates actions to prevent considerable damage to others, when an individual or group has the chance to do such damage so for their own benefit (Boddy, 2011). Social responsibility entails a moral principle framework, which advocates that an entity, be it an individual or organisation, has an obligation to work for the benefit of society at large. Every individual has the duty to behave in a manner that strikes a balance between the economy and society. This is considered as social responsibility. An individual's moral standard is based on the individual's perception as to whether they can severely hurt or benefit another individual (Churchill, 1982). The individual's perception relates to their perception of ethics and social responsibility (PRESOR) while at work carrying out their tasks. Singhapakdi, Vitell, Rallapalli and Kraft (1996) claimed that it is crucial for managers to have the right level of perceived ethics and social responsibility for business success and so that they behave in an ethical and socially responsible manner. Yin, Singhapakdi and Du (2016) claimed that research on PRESOR is scarce. It is thus worthwhile to explore the PRESOR research. Hence, PRESOR is examined in this research to investigate its influence on Internal CSR practices, which represents the stakeholder aspect of CSR, in the education sector.
3.2 Perceived Roles of Ethics and Social Responsibility (PRESOR)
Based on the structural belief system of a society, perceptions are social phenomena that constitute the mental models of an individual. Empirical studies have further explained that an individual must first perceive ethics and social responsibility as important for each endeavour before they will act in an ethical and socially responsible way (Vitell, Ramos, & Nishihara, 2010). From the standpoint of an organisation, the management's values and beliefs would serve as a top-down guide for recognising and evaluating social issues which are important to the stakeholders. The appreciation of the ethics and social responsibility obligation by management amplifies the effectiveness of the organisation. The pioneering research that developed the measurement scale for PRESOR was done by Singhapakdi (1999). In his measurement scale for PRESOR, general measures were included relating to the importance of ethics and social responsibility and them being the determinants of an organisation's overall effectiveness and efficiency. Past studies have further reinforced the idea that PRESOR scales consist of three important social dimensions: the stakeholder view, the compatibility view, and the stockholder view (Axinn, Blair, Heorhiadi & Tharch, 2004; Shafer, Fukukawa & Lee, 2007). Shafer et al. (2007) clarified that the stakeholder view reflects the importance of ethics and social responsibility in relation to any organisation's survival and success. Shafer et al. (2007) complemented the stakeholder view by indicating the broader and long-term perspective of corporate obligations, which corresponds to Singhapakdi et al.'s (1996) long-term gains. As for the compatibility view, Shafer, et al. (2007) described it as indicating the compatibility of ethics and social responsibility with business success. According to them, the stockholder view reveals a...
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