The Influence of Corporate Social Responsibility on Sustainable Competitive Advantage and Organizational Effectiveness in Listed Companies: The Moderating Effect of the WICS Leadership Skill Model
Author
Abstract
Although previous studies have examined the direct relationship between corporate social responsibility (CSR) and organizational effectiveness, there is a lack of research on internal mechanisms and contingency factors. Nowadays, a fast-changing industrial environment constantly tests an organization’s ability to develop sustainably and integrate leaders’ wisdom. This study argues that an organization’s sustainable competitive advantage and leaders’ wisdom-intelligence-creativity-synthesized (WICS) leadership skill model will be the key. The results from analyzing 40 Taiwanese listed companies found that sustainable competitive advantage completely mediated the positive relationship between CSR and organizational effectiveness, including subjective organizational performance and objective financial profitability. However, neither the moderating effect of leaders’ WICS-based leadership skills nor the result of analysis of the moderated mediation model was significant. Additional analysis found that WICS leadership skills influence subjective organizational performance and objective profitability through the complete mediation of sustainable competitive advantage. Overall, the research results indicated that CSR and the WICS leadership skills play critical roles in the re-development and re-construction of corporate competitiveness and, thus, benefit organizational effectiveness. In summary, this research conducts theoretical and practical discussions in this context and provides a corporate competitiveness model that can be used to diagnose, improve, and respond to an organization’s social responsibility.
Key Words
corporate social responsibility, sustainable competitive advantage, WICS leadership skill model, organizational performance, sustainable development