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On the relationship of hope and gratitude to

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Article in Journal of Business Ethics · February 2007

DOI: 10.1007/s10551-006-9118-1 · Source: RePEc

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Journal of Business Ethics (2007) 70:401–409 Ó Springer 2006
DOI 10.1007/s10551-006-9118-1

On the relationship of hope and gratitude Lynne M. Andersson

Robert A. Giacalone
to corporate social responsibility Carole L. Jurkiewicz

ABSTRACT. A longitudinal study of 308 white-collar understand the reasons for a recurrence of socially
U.S. employees revealed that feelings of hope and grati- irresponsible organizational behavior. Two diver-
tude increase concern for corporate social responsibility gent approaches, one which posits that the primary
(CSR). In particular, employees with stronger hope and corporate responsibility is financial performance
gratitude were found to have a greater sense of respon- (Friedman, 1970/1983; Marcoux, 2003), and an-
sibility toward employee and societal issues; interestingly,
other which regards financial performance as but one
employee hope and gratitude did not affect sense of
responsibility toward economic and safety/quality issues.
aspect of the corporation’s responsibility, have fo-
These findings offer an extension of research by Giac- cused on understanding the goals of socially
alone, Paul, and Jurkiewicz (2005, Journal of Business responsible organizational behavior. Within the lat-
Ethics, 58, 295-305). ter approach, sensitivity to other constituencies such
as employees, customers, the community, generally
KEY WORDS: corporate social responsibility, hope, referred to as ‘‘stakeholder management’’ (Freeman,
gratitude 1984; Clarkson Centre for Business Ethics, 1999) or
‘‘multi-fiduciary management’’ (Freeman, 1994) has
Introduction directed the dialogue toward a more expansive
collective forum.
With the ongoing scandals in business and govern- But when all is considered, the question of what
ment, organizational scholars continue to struggle to constitutes socially responsible behavior is seemingly
embedded within the individual level, where each
Lynne M. Andersson, Ph.D. is Associate Professor of Human
person’s perceptions of social responsibility will drive
Resource Management at the Fox School of Business and his/her sensitivity to the myriad concerns that arise
Management, Temple University, in Philadelphia, Penn- in organizational life (Hemingway and Maclagan,
sylvania. Her teaching and scholarship focus on the dark side 2004). What is considered a worthwhile individual
of business organizations; in particular, she’s been examining and collective outcome thus potentially emanates
some social maladies that are arguably associated with late both from one’s socialization (Inglehart, 1997) as
capitalism (cynicism and incivility) as well as the role of social well as one’s dispositions (see Snyder and Lopez,
activism in countering capitalist barriers to sustainability. 2004).
Robert A. Giacalone, Ph.D. is Professor of Human Resource Within the dispositional tradition, the study of
Management at the Fox School of Business and Manage- positive psychology and positive organizational
ment, Temple University, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. scholarship has focused on attributes and traits that
His research interests focus on the impact of workplace spiri-
constitute strengths and improve the quality and
tuality and changing values on business ethics. He is currently
Co-editor of the Ethics in Practice book series.
meaning of life (see Seligman, 1999a, b; Seligman
Carole L. Jurkiewicz, Ph.D. is the John W. Dupuy Endowed and Csikszentmihalyi, 2000). The expansiveness of
Professor and Women’s Hospital Distinguished Professor of this perspective is best understood in three volumes
Healthcare Management at Louisiana State University. She that focus on the various aspects of positive psy-
has published numerous research articles, books, and news chology from both a psychological (Lopez and
articles on the topics of organizational ethics, leadership, and Snyder, 2003; Snyder and Lopez, 2002) and an
behavior. organizational perspective (Cameron et al., 2003),
402 Lynne M. Andersson et al.

along with concept-specific volumes on areas such as determine whether the interactive impact of hope
hope (Snyder, 2000) and generativity (McAdams and gratitude generalized to these measures as well.
et al., 1998). The present study seeks to extend previous findings
Recent work has shown a relationship between by employing other measures of corporate social
positive psychological constructs of gratitude and responsibility (CSR). In order to test whether the
hope and concerns for social responsibility within effect is robust, two different measures of social
the context of consumer reactions to corporate social responsibility concern are used: Boal and Peery’s
performance. McCullough et al. (2001) conceptu- (1985) and Singhapakdi et al.’s, (1996) measures.
alize gratitude as a moral affect that serves to If gratitude is associated with greater prosocial
motivate individuals to engage in prosocial behavior behavior, grateful individuals should demonstrate
and acts as a moral barometer providing an affec- more concern with CSR than less grateful individuals.
tive ‘‘readout’’ (Emmons, 2003). Emmons and Additionally, because hope is associated with both
McCullough (2003) found that grateful persons not agency to accomplish a goal and pathways for
only demonstrate more positive mental states (e.g. achieving that goal (Snyder et al., 1991), hopeful
enthusiastic, determined, and attentive), but also are individuals should feel a greater ability to impact CSR
more generous, caring, and helpful to others. Even and increased confidence in the pathways to do so.
when independent assessors rated them, grateful However, consistent with previous results (Giacalone
individuals were found to be more prosocial et al., 2005), we predict that the impact of gratitude
(McCullough et al., 2002). on social responsibility will be moderated by indi-
Hope has been defined as a ‘‘positive motiva- vidual level of hope, since individuals who do not
tional state that is based on an interactively derived perceive that their prosocial actions can accomplish a
sense of successful (a) agency (goal-directed energy) goal (support of socially responsible companies or
and (b) pathways (planning to meet goals)’’ (Snyder punishment of socially responsible companies) would
et al., 1991, p. 287). The emotional state of hope is be less likely to engage in prosocial behaviors. Thus,
thus forward-looking and action-oriented. Higher the following hypotheses are offered:
levels of hope have been associated with higher
problem-solving expectations (Schwartz and Post, Hypothesis 1a: When hope is high, increasing levels of
2002) and greater social problem-solving abilities gratitude will result in increasing levels
(Chang, 1998). of corporate social responsibility con-
Giacalone et al. (2005) hypothesized that the pro- cerns.
social inclinations of grateful individuals require high
levels of hope to translate into social responsibility
concerns. Grateful individuals who do not perceive Hypothesis 1b: When hope is low, there will be no
that their prosocial actions can accomplish a goal (e.g., impact of gratitude on levels of corpo-
are low in hope) should be less likely to be concerned rate social responsibility concerns.
with prosocial behaviors. Indeed, using a measure of
consumer sensitivity, the Consumer Sensitivity to
Corporate Social Performance Scale (CSCSP), Gi- Methods
acalone and colleagues found that when hope is high,
increasing levels of gratitude result in increases on the Sample and procedure
CSCSP score. However, when hope was low, there
was no impact of gratitude on the CSCSP score. The data was collected at two points in time. At
But as Giacalone and colleagues (2005) noted, the Time 1 (T1), business school graduate students at a
effects of hope and gratitude on consumer sensitivity large, public university in the southeastern U.S. each
to social responsibility may or may not generalize to volunteered to provide the e-mails of adults living
social responsibility concerns more broadly, partic- in the U.S. who were working full-time and held
ularly from the standpoint of employee concerns for managerial or technical/professional positions
social responsibility. They recommended that other (white-collar employees). Students secured permis-
social responsibility measures should be assessed to sion from the potential participants prior to
 Hope and gratitude to corporate social responsibility 403

submitting their e-mail addresses to the researchers. Boal and Peery CSR outcome measure. Respondents
An e-mail cover letter with an attached survey was were administered the 16 items from Boal and
then sent to the 603 solicited participants. The cover Peery’s (1985) outcome measures of CSR, which
letter explained that the focus of the attached survey describes four socially responsible outcomes for each
was to learn more about workers and their values. In of four categories (organizational, employee, con-
addition, the cover letter guaranteed the potential sumer, societal). Using a Likert-type scale that ran-
participants confidentiality and advised them that a ged from 1 (not at all important to me) to 5
second survey would be sent to them in 3 weeks. (extremely important to me), respondents were
Three days following the original e-mail, a reminder asked to rate the extent to which each of the out-
e-mail was sent. comes was personally important to them.
At Time 2 (T2), 3 weeks following the adminis-
tration of the first survey, a second survey was sent to Perceived Role of Ethics and Social Responsibility
respondents who had completed the first one. A (PRESOR) scale. Respondents were administered
total of 308 second surveys were returned, for a the PRESOR scale (Singhapakdi et al., 1996) – a
response rate of 51%. Of the individuals who 13-item measure that assessed respondents’ percep-
completed both surveys, 40% were between the ages tions of ethics and social responsibility. Responses
of 26–35, 67% females and 45% had been working were obtained using 1 (very strongly disagree) to 9
for their organizations for 1–5 years. A comparison (very strongly agree).
of early and late responders revealed no differences.
Analyses and results
T1 Measures
T1 measures assessed respondents’ hope and grati- Descriptive statistics
tude, as well as demographic variables. Respondents
were administered the 12-item Adult Dispositional Table I summarizes the means, standard deviations,
Hope Scale (Snyder et al., 1996). Respondents rated and correlations among the variables.
each item on a 4-point Likert scale ranging from 1
(definitely false) to 4 (definitely true). Four items are Factor analysis and regression on the PRESOR scales
distracters and not used for scoring. Four items are
summed to create the Pathways subscale score; the The 13 items comprising the PRESOR scale were
remaining four items are summed to create the subjected to a principle components factor analysis
agency subscale. Hope is the sum of the four with varimax rotation. Using a 0.45 loading as a
Pathways and four Agency items. criterion value for inclusion (Cook and Campbell,
Respondents were administered the Gratitude 1979), the factor analysis revealed one distinct factor
Questionnaire (GQ-6) (McCullough et al., 2002), a having an eigenvalue of greater than 1.0 accounting
6-item self-report questionnaire designed to assess for 40% of the variance. The results of this analysis
individual differences in inclination to experience can be found in Table II. The single factor is
gratitude in daily life. Respondents rated each item characterized as focusing on the interconnection of
on a 7-point Likert scale ranging from 1 (strongly profitability to social responsibility and ethics to the
disagree) to 7 (strongly agree), and their ratings were functioning of business, and includes items such as
averaged. Previous studies have shown acceptable ‘‘Business ethics and social responsibility are critical
Cronbach’s alpha estimates (McCullough et al., to the survival of a business enterprise,’’ ‘‘Business has
2002). Representative items include ‘‘I have so a social responsibility beyond making profits,’’ and
much in life to be thankful for’’ and ‘‘If I had to list ‘‘The ethics and social responsibility of a firm is
everything that I felt grateful for, it would be a very essential to its long-term profitability.’’ A single
long list.’’ variable was constructed, based on the items which
loaded on this single factor.
T2 Measures The PRESOR score was analyzed by regressing
At T2, we assessed one measure of ethics and two it on gender (Step 1), on hope and gratitude (Step
measures of social responsibility. 2), and on the interaction term of hope and
404 Lynne M. Andersson et al.

TABLE I
Means, standard deviations, and correlations

Mean SD 1 2 3 4 5 6 7

1. Gender 1.33 0.47

2. Gratitude 38.50 3.67 ) 0.15** (0.67)
3. Hope 25.48 2.92 0.01 0.20*** (0.74)
4. PRESOR 68.19 12.24 ) 0.13** 0.41*** 0.16** (0.86)
5. Boal economic responsibility 19.94 3.17 0.06 0.27*** 0.09 0.05 (0.81)
6. Boal responsibility toward 24.93 3.61 ) 0.25*** 0.12*** 0.17*** 0.55*** 0.12* (0.80)
employees and society
7. Boal safety and quality 22.57 2.38 ) 0.12* 0.19*** 0.04 0.40*** 0.36*** 0.55*** (0.77)

*p < 0.05; **p < 0.01; ***p < 0.001; Coefficient Alphas are on the diagonal, in parentheses.

gratitude (Step 3). Table III shows that gender has levels of social responsibility concerns, low levels
a small but significant negative relationship to the of hope and increasing levels of gratitude also are
PRESOR score in the first step alone. In the associated with increasing levels of social
second step, gratitude alone was significantly responsibility. What is different is that high hope
related to the PRESOR score, accounting for 16% and increasing levels of gratitude bring about a
of the variance. In the third step, a significant more precipitous increase in social responsibility
interaction was found, albeit not entirely consistent concern.
with Giacalone and colleagues’ (2005) results. As We probed the effect further by doing two
Figure 1 shows, although high hope and increasing additional analyses. In these analyses, we performed
levels are gratitude are associated with increasing the identical analysis above, except that we used

TABLE II
Factor loadings for Perceived Role of Ethics and Social Responsibility (PRESOR) scale

Item Loading

Being ethical and socially responsible is the most important thing a firm can do 0.69
The most important concern for a firm is making a profit, even if it means bending or breaking the rules 0.44
(R)
The ethics and social responsibility of a firm is essential to its long-term profitability 0.76
The overall effectiveness of a business can be determined to a great extent by the degree to which it is 0.76
ethical and socially responsible
To remain competitive in a global environment, business firms will have to disregard ethics and social 0.43
responsibility (R)
Social responsibility and profitability can be compatible 0.61
Business ethics and social responsibility are critical to the survival of a business enterprise 0.80
A firm’s first priority should be to employee morale 0.61
Business has a social responsibility beyond making profits 0.79
If survival of a business enterprise is at stake, then you must forget about ethics and social responsibility (R) 0.48
Efficiency is much more important to a firm than whether or not the firm is seen as ethical or socially 0.52
responsible (R)
Good ethics is often good business 0.72
If the stockholders are unhappy, nothing else matters (R) 0.36

R indicates items that are reverse scored.

 Hope and gratitude to corporate social responsibility 405

TABLE III Factor analysis and regressions on the Boal and Peery
Multiple regression results for PRESOR CSR outcome scale

PRESOR The 16 items comprising the CSR outcome scale

were subjected to a factor analysis with varimax
Step 1 Step 2 Step3 rotation. Using a 0.45 loading as a criterion value
Gender ) 0.14** ) 0.09 ) 0.09
for inclusion (Cook and Campbell, 1979), the
Gratitude 0.40*** 0.40*** factor analysis revealed three distinct factors having
Hope 0.07 0.08 eigenvalues of greater than 1.0 accounting for 57%
Hope  Gratitude 0.13* of the variance. The results of this analysis can be
nteraction found in Table IV. Factor 1 is characterized as a
Df (1,304) (3,302) (4,301) factor focusing on responsibility toward employees and
F 6.29** 21.59*** 17.94*** society and includes items such as ‘‘promotes
DR2 0.02** 0.16*** 0.01** employee rights’’ and ‘‘promotes social justice.’’
*p < 0.05; **p < 0.01; ***p < 0.001.
Factor 2 is characterized as a factor focusing on
Tabled values are standardized regression weights. economic responsibility such as ‘‘promotes economic
interests of the business,’’ and ‘‘maintains high
levels of productivity.’’ Factor 3 is characterized as
0.8 a factor focusing on safety and quality and includes
0.6
items such as ‘‘safe working conditions’’ and
PRESOR Score

0.4
‘‘produces safe products.’’ Three variables were
0.2 High Hope
constructed, one for each of the three factors,
0 Low Hope
-0.2
based on the items that loaded for each factor.
-0.4
The score for each of the three factors was ana-
-0.6
lyzed as follows. First, the score was regressed on
Gratitude gender (Step 1), on hope and gratitude (Step 2), and
on the interaction term of hope and gratitude (Step
Figure 1. Interaction of Hope and Gratitude: PRESOR
3). Table V shows that for the responsibility toward
score.
employees and society score, gender was a significant
the agency and pathways components hope in predictor in all steps. In the second step, hope and
each analysis, instead of the total hope. What we gratitude were both positively related to responsi-
found was that the interaction was a function of bility toward employees and society, accounting for
the pathways component, not the agency com- 8% of the variance. Finally, in the third step, the
ponent, which was not significant (p > 0.07). The interaction was significant, accounting for an addi-
plotted pathways  gratitude interaction (see tional 1% of the variance. As Figure 3 shows, the
Figure 2) was identical to the hope  gratitude pattern of results mirror those found previously:
interaction. when hope is high, increasing levels of gratitude
result in greater responsibility toward employees and
0.6 society concerns. But when hope is low, there is no
impact of gratitude on responsibility toward
Employees and Society
Responsibility Toward

0.4
employees and society.
0.2 High Hope As we did for the PRESOR analysis, we probed
0 Low Hope the effect further by conducting the two additional
analyses. In these analyses, we did the identical
-0.2
analysis above, except that we used the agency and
-0.4 pathways components hope in each analysis, instead
Gratitude
of the total hope. What we found was that the
Figure 2. Interaction of Agency and Gratitude: respon- interaction was a function of the agency component,
sibility toward employees and society. not the pathways component, which was not
406 Lynne M. Andersson et al.

TABLE IV
Factor loadings for Boal and Peery CSR items

Item Responsibility toward Economic Safety and quality

employees and society Responsibility responsibility

Jobs that allow employees to use valued 0.56

skills and abilities
Does not degrade the environment 0.62
Job security for employees 0.67
Supports social and cultural activities 0.70
Promotes social justice 0.73
Promotes employee rights 0.80
Promotes economic interests of the business 0.84
Maintains high levels of productivity 0.83
Promotes long-range survival of business 0.80
Promotes interests of stockholders 0.70
Produce products desired by customers 0.47
Company prices products fairly 0.67
Maintains high quality of products and services 0.73
Produces safe products 0.81
Company obeys the law 0.59
Safe working conditions 0.47

significant (p > 0.10). The plotted agency  grati- The results indicate that, when dealing with a
tude interaction (see Figure 4) was identical to the measure of social responsibility focusing on
hope  gratitude interaction. employees and societal concerns, the pattern is
The results for economic responsibility, however, consistent with the results for consumer sensitivity to
were not consistent. Gender was not significant in corporate social performance. The likely reason is
any of the steps. More importantly, only gratitude that in both measures, the foci are ethical and/or
was positively related to economic responsibility, philanthropic responsibilities. But when economic
and no significant interaction was found. Overall, and legal responsibilities are assessed (as in economic
the Model R2 was not significant for any of the three responsibility and safety and quality responsibility),
steps. The results for safety and quality resulted in a no significant results were obtained. Thus, it appears
significant gender impact and a significant positive that hope and gratitude effects cannot be generalized
relationship with gratitude (accounting for 3% of the to economic and legal responsibilities.
variance), but there was no impact of hope or an The results for the PRESOR measure show a
interaction. sensitivity to what the measure is assessing: the
relationship of profitability and social responsibility.
Discussion As a result, unlike the Giacalone and colleagues’
(2005) study, where the relationship of hope and
Our results were not entirely consistent with pre- gratitude was driven by agency component of hope,
vious research. Although the pattern for responsi- the relationship between hope and gratitude was
bility to employees and society were consistent driven by the pathways component. This tells us
with those found by Giacalone and colleagues that impact of hope and gratitude on PRESOR
(2005) and the results for the PRESOR measure scores is a function of whether individuals are able
were similar, the results for economic responsibility to see that planning to meet these goals (pathways)
and safety and quality responsibility were not sig- is possible. Subjects need not have the goal-directed
nificant. energy (agency) to achieve profitability within the
 Hope and gratitude to corporate social responsibility 407

0.18***
0.6

(4,301)
3.73**
Step3

) 0.10

Employees and Society

Responsibility Toward
Safety and quality responsibility

0.00
0.02

0.00
0.4

0.2 High Agency

0 Low Agency
0.17***
Step 2

(3,302)
4.96**
0.03**
) 0.10
-0.2
0.00
-0.4
Gratitude

Figure 3. Interaction of Hope and Gratitude: responsi-

) 0.13**
Step 1

(1,304)

bility toward employees and society.

4.82*
0.02
Multiple regression results for economic responsibility, safety and quality responsibility

0.6
0.4
(4,301)

PRESOR Score
0.11**

) 0.05
Step3

0.2
0.06

0.05

1.76
0.00

High Pathways
Economic responsibility

0
Low Pathways
-0.2
-0.4
(3,302)
Step 2

-0.6
0.06
0.12
0.06

2.12
0.02

Gratitude
*p < 0.05; **p < 0.01; ***p < 0.001. Tabled values are standardized regression weights.

Figure 4. Interaction of Pathways and Gratitude:

PRESOR score.
(1,304)
Step 1
TABLE V

0.064
0.05

0.00

context of socially responsible acts – only an ability

to see that such a goal could be planned and
achieved.
Responsibility toward employees and society

) 0.23***

13.60***
0.24***
Step3

The data demonstrates that the importance of

(4,301)
0.14**

0.01**
0.13*

socially responsible actions can be impacted by an

interaction of hope and gratitude when dealing with
issues of ethics and philanthropy, but not when
economic and legal responsibilities are concerned.
) 0.22***

16.69***

Conversely, the acceptability of a socially responsible

Step 2

0.22***

0.08***
(3,302)
0.13*

direction (as measured by the PRESOR) is a func-

tion of both gratitude and pathways – respondents
who were more grateful and see that that planning
can meet such goals were more likely to be in
) 0.25***

agreement with social responsibility, regardless of

20.59***
Step 1

0.06***
(1,304)

their agency.

Future directions
Hope  Gratitude

Overall, the results must be considered in terms of

limitations in the study. As with the Giacalone and
colleagues (2005) study, we used self-report data, and,
interaction
Gratitude

as such, our findings are subject to potential biases and

Gender

Hope

problems with common method variance when

DR2
Df

measures come from the same source (e.g. Podsakoff

F
408 Lynne M. Andersson et al.

and Organ, 1986). Independent ratings of social Cameron, K. S., J. E. Dutton and R. E. Quinn: 2003,
responsibility or behavioral measures will be needed Positive Organizational Scholarship (Berrett-Koehler, San
to determine whether this relationship is robust. Francisco).
Second, while the results were significant, the R2 Chang, E. C.: 1998, ÔHope, Problem-solving Ability, and
in the analyses were relatively low. The low R2 Coping in a College Student Population: Some
Implications for Theory and PracticeÕ, Journal of Clinical
indicates that these positive psychological constructs
Psychology 54(7), 953–962.
play a small role and that considerable amount of Clarkson Centre for Business Ethics: 1999, Principles of
variance remains unaccounted. Particularly in the Stakeholder Management (Clarkson Centre for Business
case of social responsibility, when a few within Ethics, Toronto).
the hierarchy can have a significant impact on the Cook, T. D. and D. T. Campbell: 1979, Quasi-Experi-
organization’s socially responsible decision making, mentation: Design and Analysis Issues for Field Settings
even small effect sizes may have a meaningful prac- (Rand McNally, Chicago).
tical consequence (Endler, 1973). Emmons, R. A.: 2003, ÔActs of Gratitude in Organiza-
Third, actual behaviors were not measured in our tionsÕ, in K. S. Cameron, J. E. Dutton and R. E.
study, and thus it is not possible to say that positive Quinn (eds.), Positive Organizational Scholarship: Foun-
psychological dispositions are associated with socially dations of a New Discipline (Berrett-Koelher, San
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Emmons, R. A. and M. E. McCullough: 2003, ÔCounting
onstrate significant positive relationships between
Blessings Versus Burdens: An Experimental Investi-
positive psychological measures and behaviors that gation of Gratitude and Subjective Well-being in Daily
reflect the concepts (McAdams et al., 1998; LifeÕ, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 84,
McCullough et al., 2002), future research must 377–389.
make this link to socially responsible behaviors. Endler, N. S.: 1973, ÔThe Person versus the Situation – A
Future research should build on these limitations. Pseudo Issue? A Response to AlkerÕ, Journal of Person-
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Inglehart, R.: 1997, ÔPolarized Priorities of Flexible
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