All Good Works are Not Created Equal: A Qualitative Case Study Exploring How Employees Make Sense of Corporate Philanthropy

• In Event: Corporations Behaving Well? Social Responsibility and Proactivism

Abstract

This qualitative case study examined the ways in which employees make sense of corporate philanthropy in the workplace. Through a thematic analysis, findings revealed that corporate motives and employees’ own charitable giving values were part and parcel of the meaning they ascribed to corporate giving. Consequently, employees’ social construction of corporate giving may be at odds with the current corporate shift toward strategic philanthropy, suggesting that all good works are not created equal.

Author

• Jennifer Mize Smith, Western Kentucky University