Akwasi Opoku-Dakwa
Rutgers University
Employee engagement in corporate volunteering: A relational perspective
Prior research on Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) focuses on its effect on organizational and employee outcomes. This paper aims to develop and test a theory of employee engagement in CSR. I explore how corporate volunteering program (CVP) characteristics and implementation affect employee engagement through cognitive, motivational, and affective mechanisms. Additionally I consider how individual differences in relational identity shape employee engagement. The final model suggests how situational factors (the program) interact with relatively stable individual motivations (relational identity) to shape employee engagement in CVPs. It is my hope that this model will increase our understanding of how employees think of CSR and how organizations can make CSR more meaningful to employees.
Biography
Akwasi Opoku-Dakwa is a doctoral candidate in Organization Management at the Rutgers Business School in Newark, New Jersey. His research focuses on employee motivation and engagement at work. Akwasi hails from Ghana, has an MBA from IMD in Switzerland and spent 5 years working as a brand manager with Procter & Gamble in South Africa. His current research looks at why employees volunteer at work and how the design of volunteering programs affects volunteering.