Page 118 - Azerbaijan State University of Economics

Woinshet Mengistu, Pazstor Szabolch, Marsai Viktor, Tariku Jebena: Responsible Leadership
and Organizational Citizenship Behavior: The Mediation Role of Employees CSR Perception

INTRODUCTION
The food and beverage industry (FBI) faces specific CSR challenges, such as
sustainability, environmental impact, labor practices, and product safety (Boumediene
& El Houda, 2018). Employees in this industry may be particularly attuned to these
issues (Brown & Treviño, 2006; Hartmann, 2011; Maloni & Brown, 2006). In this
industry, responsible leadership is critical to ensuring that CSR initiatives are
implemented effectively and are seen as genuine. Leaders who prioritize
sustainability, ethical sourcing, and fair labor practices can significantly influence
employees' CSR perceptions (Maak & Pless, 2006). Employees in the FBI, when
they realize that their organization is dedicated to responsible actions, they are
more inclined to participate in behaviors that enhance workplace ethics, improve
customer service, and contribute to the organization's success (A. Kim et al., 2017).
In addition, most of the current literatures have established a positive relationship
between responsible leadership and Organizational Citizenship Behaviors (OCBs)
(Abbas et al., 2022; Thakur & Sharma, 2019; Zhao & Zhou, 2019). However, these
studies focus primarily on the direct effects of responsible leadership on OCB without
examining the processes that mediate these effects. This exclusion restricts the real-
world uses of the research and leaves the issue of cause and effect unanswered. To fill
these voids, the current study looks in to the order of impacts of responsible leadership
on OCB and seeks to discover the underlying mediating processes.

OCB research in the FBI has made significant progress, but there are still some
important research gaps that remain unexplored. First, most of the OCB research in the
FBI has been generalized from other industries without in-depth exploration of industry-
specific factors (De Roeck & Farooq, 2018; Paillé & Boiral, 2013). The unique demands
of the food and beverage sector, such as high employee turnover, low wages and intense
customer interaction, suggest that there are different motivators for OCB, such as
employees’ CSR perception, focus on customer satisfaction and job satisfaction (W. G.
Kim et al., 2005). Research could investigate these specific drivers in more detail.
Second, while the relationship between actual CSR practice and OCB has been
investigated, there is little evidence on how CSR perceptions specifically within the FBI
promote OCB. Given the industry's increased focus on sustainability, ethical sourcing,
and labor practices, a valuable area of research would be to examine how these practices
influence employee voluntary behaviour (Hartmann, 2011; Maak & Pless, 2006;
Maloni & Brown, 2006). Third, there is a need for more research on how leadership
styles, particularly responsible leadership, influences OCB within the FBI.

118