Mapping the CSR–PEB mechanism: a mixed-method analysis using PLS-SEM and fuzzy-ISM

Abstract This study examines how employees’ perceptions of corporate social responsibility (CSR) shape their pro-environmental behaviour (PEB), emphasising the sequential mediating roles of organisational trust (OT) and organisational commitment (OC) derived from the trust–commitment theory. Adopting a sequential explanatory mixed-method design, the research first employed partial least squares structural equation modelling (PLS-SEM) on survey data collected from 430 employees across forty-five Egyptian hotels, followed by a focus group of seven departmental heads and executives analysed through interpretive structural modelling (ISM) and fuzzy-ISM. This dual analytical approach enabled both statistical validation and structural mapping of the interrelationships among CSR perception, trust, commitment, and PEB, offering a nuanced understanding of their hierarchical and directional dependencies. The quantitative results confirmed that CSR perception exerts a strong direct effect on PEB and an indirect effect through trust and commitment, validating the sequential mediation mechanism (CSR → Trust → Commitment → PEB). The ISM findings further revealed CSR perception as the driving construct in the system, shaping trust and commitment as linkage variables, and PEB as the ultimate dependent outcome. Collectively, these results demonstrate that CSR initiatives foster pro-environmental conduct not merely through policy but by cultivating psychological states of trust and emotional attachment.