Why Values Do Not Change the Story: Corporate Social Responsibility Perception, Person-Organization Fit, and Joining Intention Among Business Administration Students

Author Information

Grant Thomson Zimba, National Quemoy University, Taiwan
Cheng-Shih Lin, National Quemoy University, Taiwan
Rehema Zimba, National Quemoy University, Taiwan

Abstract

Organizations increasingly employ corporate social responsibility (CSR) as a strategic tool for attracting high-quality talent, yet the psychological mechanisms linking CSR perception to joining intention remain underexplored. This study investigates whether perceived person-organization fit mediates the effect of CSR perception on joining intention and whether this mediation is moderated by individual value orientation. Data from 179 business administration students were analyzed using SPSS process with 5,000 bootstrap resamples. Results indicate that CSR perception significantly enhances person-organization fit (b = .51, p < .001), which in turn increases joining intention. The direct effect of CSR on joining intention was also significant (b = .57, p < .001), and a significant indirect effect through fit was observed (b = .08, 95% CI [.001, .19] under the transcendence model). Critically, neither self-enhancement nor self-transcendence values moderated the CSR-to-fit pathway (interaction terms p = .82 and p = .85, respectively), despite both demonstrating significant main effects on perceived fit. These findings suggest that CSR operates as a broadly effective and comparatively value-neutral signal of organizational quality, rather than a values-matching cue. This distinction carries important implications for the design of recruitment communications and theoretical modeling of CSR's persuasive scope.

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