*4.4. Direct and Indirect Effects of Religiosity on CSR Behaviour*

To test our third research question: 'Do Egyptian Managers' attitudes strengthen the influence of various aspects of their religiosity on CSR behaviour?' we followed Zhao et al. [48] to examine if CSR attitude is a mediator in the association between religiosity and CSR behavior. Zhao et al. [48] suggest the following regression equations: (1) regressing the mediators (CSR attitudes) on the independent variables (religiosity); (2) regressing the dependent variables (CSR behaviour) on the independent variable (religiosity) only; and (3) regressing the dependent variables (CSR behaviour) on both the independent variable (religiosity) and the mediators (CSR attitudes). Accordingly, we used the bootstrap estimation technique to offer reliable estimates of the significance of the mediation impact.

The bootstrap technique was used to test the importance of the mediation impact in our model, separating the direct and indirect impacts of religiosity on CSR behaviour. The total impact of religiosity on CSR behaviour can be stated as the sum of the direct and indirect effects. Regarding the cognitive aspect of religiosity, as seen in Table 6, we found significant mediation paths for the legal CSR attitude toward diversity as a CSR behaviour. For the intrinsic and extrinsic religious and behavioural aspects of religiosity, there was no significant mediation impact. Additionally, Table 6 shows that the mediation effects through the various CSR attitudes are partly cancelled out due to the tiny or opposing effects of both legal and ethical attitudes toward CSR. Consequently, the total indirect effect of the joint mediation by CSR attitudes is relatively small (i.e., the highest indirect effect is the cognitive aspect of religiosity toward the legal attitude of CSR regarding diversity, 0.07). Finally, for diversity, the total positive impact of the behaviour aspect of religiosity became significant when the direct and indirect effects were combined.


**Table 6.** Direct and Indirect influence of Religiosity on CSR Behaviour.


#### **Table 6.** *Cont.*

Note: Unstandardized Coefficients are shown, with standard errors in parentheses. For the indirect effect, the bootstrap estimates of the indirect effect are reported, using 1000 bootstrap samples. <sup>a</sup> The bias-corrected confidence interval (at 95%) does not include 0, which means that mediation is established.

#### **5. Discussion**

As specified, this research aims to fill the gaps in the present literature regarding the relationships between religiosity and CSR [34,49]. We used a multidimensional definition of religion to investigate these relationships and performed empirical research using Egyptian managers.

#### *5.1. Impact of Various Aspects of Managers' Religiosity on CSR Attitudes*

To assess Weaver and Agle's point of view, we used measures for the cognitive, intrinsic, and extrinsic affective, and behavioural components of religiosity [16]. The analysis of these variables indicated a week or no significant relationship between the measures of religiosity. Our findings indicate that the multidimensional measurement of religiosity introduced by Weaver and Agle [16] was found in Egyptian Muslim managers and was not exaggerated. These results also disagree with the claims in previous literature that religiosity can be measured as a one-dimensional construct [16,17]. Religiosity, therefore, needs to be defined and measured as a multidimensional concept that comprises behavioural, cognitive, and motivational aspects of religiosity [33].

Regarding our first research question on the relationship between religiosity and Egyptian Muslim Managers' attitude to CSR, we found no association between the three measures—cognitive, intrinsic, and extrinsic of religiosity—and their attitude to CSR. We also found that the Egyptian Muslim managers' behaviour aspect of religiosity was the only religious variable that affected their attitude toward CSR. These results were different to the findings of Mazereeuw-van der Duijn et al. [9] and Parboteeah, Hoegl and Cullen [50], who stated that there is a relationship between Christen executives' intrinsic religiosity and their financial and ethical responsibilities as attitudes to CSR and between their extrinsic religiosity and their philanthropic responsibility. In contrast to the findings of Mazereeuwvan der Duijn et al. [9], our analysis showed no association between the four measures of religiosity and the attitude toward CSR as financial and philanthropic responsibilities. Indeed, our findings confirmed previous research claiming that there is no difference between religious and nonreligious managers [11,12,16].

#### *5.2. Impact of Managers' CSR Attitudes on CSR Behaviour*

With respect to the second research question on the relationship between the different attitudes to CSR and CSR behaviour, we found no relationship between the Egyptian Muslim Mangers' attitude to CSR as legal and ethical responsibilities and any form of CSR behaviour. Likewise, Mazereeuw-van der Duijn Schouten et al. [9] found that not all CSR attitudes affected all CSR behaviour. Although McNichols and Zimmerer [30], Kennedy and Lawton [23], and Vitell et al. [17] confirmed the relationships between religious beliefs and negative attitudes toward certain unacceptable behaviour, Rice [11] found that Islamic teachings were related to the pro-environmental behaviour of Egyptian citizens. Such debate confirms that religiosity is a strong forecaster of individuals' attitudes, but not necessarily of their CSR behaviour [22,32]. To conclude, every Muslim has some responsibilities and obligations toward his people, natural environment, and other creations [25].
