Investigating How Corporate Social Responsibility Affects Employees' Thriving at Work: A Social Exchange Perspective

Corporate social responsibility (CSR) helps enterprises achieve sustainable development in the current competitive environment. Premised on social exchange theory, we argue that CSR also contributes to employees' sustainable development, which can be gauged by thriving at work. We conducted a three-wave questionnaire survey to examine our hypothesized model. We found that employees' perceived CSR helps employees to build a good social exchange with their company, which in turn contributes to enhanced thriving at work. Further, for employees with higher levels of trait gratitude, CSR is more likely to facilitate their social exchange and subsequent thriving at work. Our findings enrich the nomological network of CSR and thriving, and provide insights for organizations to build a thriving and sustainable workforce.