Corporate social responsibility boosts employee performance through informal peer coaching and servant leadership in the hospitality industry

Abstract This study examines how Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) enhances employee performance through the mediating role of informal coaching from peers and the moderating role of servant leadership, grounded in Social Exchange Theory (SET) as the primary explanatory framework, with Implicit Person Theory (IPT) serving as a complementary theoretical lens to interpret the behavioral direction of CSR-induced reciprocity. Survey data from 262 employees in Vietnamese 4- and 5-star hotels were analyzed using PLS-SEM. Results show that CSR directly improves both employee performance and informal coaching from peers. This research uncovers informal coaching from peers as a key mediator bridging CSR policies with employee performance and identifies boundary conditions for servant leadership in emerging economies. However, servant leadership plays a dual role. It enhances the link between CSR and job performance, while it strengthens in-role performance, servant leadership weakens the CSR-informal coaching link due to bystander effects and role overload.. This paradox reflects a tension in which servant leaders help employees focus on their core tasks through psychological support, yet simultaneously induce role strain and bystander effects that reduce employees’ willingness to help their coworkers voluntarily.