Between Strategy and Reality: Middle Managers’ Responses to CSR Decoupling

Abstract Studies on corporate social responsibility (CSR) decoupling—the gap between CSR strategy and its implementation—have predominantly focused on macro‐ and organizational‐level causes, with less attention paid to its impact on internal actors. To explore how organizational members respond to CSR decoupling, this study focused on middle managers (MMs) whose primary responsibility is to integrate CSR strategies into daily operations. We experimentally tested how different types of CSR decoupling influence MMs’ emotions, behaviour and cognition. Our findings showed that while MMs evaluate all types of CSR decoupling as equally negative, they are more likely to address it when it stems from their peers. However, when CSR decoupling stems from top managers, MMs are likely to resign from their organizations due to the ensuing emotional toll. CSR decoupling from external stakeholders (i.e. customers) encourages MMs to procrastinate on action. To add depth to our examination, we conducted 23 interviews, finding that expectations of influence and exposure distress explain MMs’ varying response patterns. Our conceptual model of middle‐managerial responses contributes to the literature by unpacking how and why MMs respond differently to this phenomenon and complements the relational approach to CSR implementation by integrating intraindividual drivers of behaviour into the analysis.