A CSR perspective to foster employee creativity in the banking sector: The role of work engagement and psychological safety

The entire service sector has acknowledged the importance of employee creativity. However, the underlying mechanism due to which employees are engaged in creativity has been relatively unexplored. Moreover, where the banking service sector in advanced countries has realized the potential role of employee creativity for a bank's success, the same was not fully realized in the context of a developing country, especially in Pakistan. Against this backdrop, the current study is an effort to explore the underlying mechanism of employee creativity as an outcome of corporate social responsibility (CSR) with the mediating effects of work engagement (WE) and psychological safety (PS) in the banking sector of Pakistan. Data were collected (n = 483) from banking employees through a self-administered questionnaire, which used the paper and pencil method. The hypotheses of the current survey were validated by employing structural equation modeling (SEM) in AMOS software. The results confirmed that employee creativity, as an outcome of CSR, was significantly influenced by the CSR orientation of a bank. Furthermore, PS and WE produced a significant mediation effect (41%) between the relationship of CSR and employee creativity. The findings of the current study are helpful to the banking sector of Pakistan in understanding the CSR-employee creativity mechanism, which is of utmost importance from the standpoint of competition.