Does employee participation in corporate social responsibility activities improve the environmental performance of international engineering contractors?

Corporate social responsibility (CSR) activities have received widespread attention from academics and industry practitioners as a viable approach for addressing environmental issues, however, previous research still lacks an analysis of the impact of corporate-specific stakeholder participation in CSR behaviors on environmental performance (EP).This study aims to evaluate the impact of employee CSR participation (ECSRP) on EP among international engineering contractors by exploring the often-overlooked perspective of employee stakeholders, thereby contributing to the expansion of relevant academic literature. While integrating social exchange theory and the natural resource-based view, this study proposes a comprehensive theoretical model that links ECSRP and EP, incorporating employee rights (ER) and environmental strategy (ES) as two mediating variables. Quantitative data were collected from international engineering contractor managers through structured questionnaires, and 355 valid responses were subjected to SPSS analysis, followed by structural equation modeling with partial least squares. The results indicate that ECSRP significantly and positively affects EP, ES mediates the effect of ECSRP on EP, and the chain combination of ER and ES has a sequential mediating role in the effect of ECSRP on EP. The findings of this study emphasize the pivotal role of ECSRP in improving EP among international engineering contractors. Practitioners in the field should take heed of the current discoveries and endeavor to enhance corporate EP by reinforcing ECSRP, ensuring ER, and developing effective ES.