Internal corporate social responsibility and organizational creativity: An empirical study of Vietnamese small and medium-sized enterprises

Purpose: The present study investigates the relationship between internal corporate social responsibility (CSR), a type of CSR particularly for employees within organizations, and organizational creativity. The focus is on the mediating effects of affective commitment and knowledge sharing within the relationship. Design/methodology: Data were collected in Vietnam via questionnaire survey. Regarding survey administration, first, we chose the five biggest universities, which specialized in economics and business in Hanoi. Then, from those universities, we randomly selected graduate classes whose students are full-time employees in various companies around Hanoi. The questionnaire included 5 point Likert scale multi-items designed to measure factors. Among 750 distributed questionnaires, 252 were returned. After screening and deleting those questionnaires with missing information or those from large companies, 199 remained for further investigation, representing 26.53% of the valid response rate. The sample included 117 manufacturing and 82 non-manufacturing companies. For the statistical analysis of the data, we followed the three-step procedure of exploratory factor analysis (EFA), confirmatory factor analysis (CFA), and structural equation modeling. Findings: Results support our hypotheses that predict positive mediating effects, except for the direct relationship between training and development as one aspect of internal CSR and affective commitment, although training and development have an indirect relationship with organizational creativity through knowledge sharing. Originality/value: The study contributes to the literature on internal CSR, especially because it provides the valid empirical evidence for the relationship between internal CSR and organizational creativity, which needs more clarification regarding the process. We emphasize the importance of findings to the case of small and medium-sized enterprises in developing countries, because they often face difficulties implementing external CSR due to resource constraints.