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Woinshet Mengistu, Pazstor Szabolch, Marsai Viktor, Tariku Jebena: Responsible Leadership
and Organizational Citizenship Behavior: The Mediation Role of Employees CSR Perception

Ethical leaders model behavior that aligns with stakeholder interests (e.g., sustainable
practices, fair treatment of employees), and employees, in turn, emulate these
practices (Bandura, 1977; Freeman, 1984).

Responsible Leadership and perception of CSR
Leadership is responsible not only for influencing the implementation of CSR but
also for shaping employees’ CSR perceptions (Maak et al., 2016; Voegtlin, 2011;
Wang et al., 2019). According to Hamdani et al.(2024), the goal of leadership is to
influence organizational values and inspire followers to act in the interests of society.
Responsible leadership integrates social responsibility with leadership style by
considering the interests of multiple stakeholders, including employees (Han et al.,
2019b). Some previous studies have indicated that leadership styles, such as servant
leadership (Lythreatis et al., 2021), ethical, participative, and transformational
leadership (Lau, 2010; Nazir et al., 2014), and transactional leadership (Du et al.,
2013; Lau, 2010) to have a significant influence on CSR perceptions. While other
authors have also demonstrated the important role played by responsible leadership in
the promotion of CSR practices (Maak et al., 2016; Manzoor et al., 2019; Voegtlin,
2011), there is a dearth of works that shows the effect of responsible leadership on
employees’ CSR perception.

In SLT CSR related behaviors are observed by employees when responsible leaders
are engaged in CSR-related activities, which ultimately build a positive perception of
CSR in the organization (Bandura, 1977; Brown & Treviño, 2006). In Stakeholders
Theory employees perceive CSR as authentic and legitimate when responsible leaders
engage them in dialogue and make decisions that consider their interests. This
participatory approach enhances the credibility of CSR efforts, leading to a positive
perception of the organization's commitment to social responsibility (Freeman, 1984;
Maak & Pless, 2006). According to the literature mentioned above we propose the
following:
H1: Responsible leadership has a positive effect on employees’ perception of CSR

Employee Perception of CSR and OCB
Literature has recently begun to concentrate more closely on the issue of understating
the connection between how CSR is perceived and OCB (Freire et al., 2022).
Employees, who believe their company is involved in CSR initiatives, are more likely
to work harder (Story & Neves, 2015). Employees’ views on CSR, in turn, influence
their actions, since relevant CSR creativities educate employees about organizational
justice, and therefore, enhance their levels of OCB (Farid et al., 2019).

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