Employees as sensemakers: a case study on perceptions about CSR, employee engagement and organisational identity

Abstract: Employees as sensemakers: a case study on perceptions about CSR, employee engagement and organisational identity. Global warming, , environmental damage and economic and financial crises have put businesses under scrutiny. Today, stakeholders demand that companies engage in social and environmentally responsible behaviours beyond what is required by law. For that reason companies heavily invest in corporate social responsibility programmes (CSR) to appear responsible in the eyes of their stakeholders. However, employees’ perceptions about their organisations’ CSR initiatives have remained underresearched in theory and neglected in practice. Building on the slowly increasing research interest into employee perceptions about external CSR communication, this study relies on sensemaking and organisational identity and identification theories. The study is based on the Brit ish Co semi-- operative Group and its employees of the food retail division. Seven structured indepth interviews have been conducted. The results of this paper indicate that despite the mounting acknowledgement of employees being of high strategic value in organisations’ CSR communication, their perceptions are still widely neglected. Furthermore, it becomes clear that the internal distribution of information about the external CSR strategies is insufficient. The findings suggest that this has implications on the organisation’s identity, employee’s organisational identification and overall employee engagement in CSR activities.