The Roles of Internal Communication in Driving Corporate Volunteering among Chinese Employees: An Integrated Approach of Social Influence and Volunteering Motivations

Corporate volunteering (CV), or employee volunteering, is conceptualized as an employee's voluntary participation in social activities initiated or supported by their organization, through contributing his/her time and skills to help the community. CV is a popular and essential form of corporate social responsibility (CSR) practice among organizations. While the literature has suggested that CV simultaneously benefits the charity/NGO, the corporation, and the employee, it is a challenge for corporations to engage employees in CV participation, especially in mainland China. This book chapter aims to explicate the roles of internal communication in driving employees' CV participation in mainland China by first proposing a framework that integrates social influence theory, motivation-based theory of volunteerism, and levels of internal communication. It then conducts a case study on Tencent (a 2020 Fortune 200 Chinese corporation) using mixed methods of interviewing and content analysis, to validate the framework. Implications of the findings are proposed.