When does Employee Giving Spill Over into Subsequent Ethics? The Role of the Organization of the Employee Giving Program

• In Event: Employee Responses to Incentives

Abstract

Companies increasingly organize employee giving programs to motivate ethical behavior from employees. Such programs are usually designed to increase employees’ engagement levels into the donation. We experimentally examine whether the organization of such employee giving programs can activate a positive spillover from employee giving engagement to subsequent ethical behavior. We predict that employee giving programs that disclose relative performance information (RPI) on the employee’s contribution to charity can enhance the positive link between this contribution engagement and subsequent ethics. This beneficial effect of RPI will only occur when employee giving programs ask employees to contribute money but not when they ask to contribute time. Our results support these predictions. Only for the money condition, the positive effect of the contribution on subsequent ethics is stronger when RPI is present relative to when it is absent. Our results have implications for practice. Stimulating employees to contribute money to charity and providing them with RPI can promote more ethics in organizations.

Authors

• Eddy Cardinaels, Tilburg University and KU Leuven

• Qinnan Ruan, Tilburg University

• Huaxiang Yin, Nanyang Technological University