Business Support for Refugee Integration in Europe: Conceptualizing the Link with Organizational Identification

Abstract

The ongoing refugee crisis presents a plethora of challenges and requires systematic contributions from public and private entities - e.g., governments, non-governmental organizations, community organizations and businesses. Relative to the other three, (explicit) business efforts toward refugee (economic) integration are yet sporadic, limited to a few large organizations. While acknowledging that integration encompasses multiple spheres and is complicated by national and local variations across EU member states, this conceptual article treats business support of refugee (economic) integration as a manifestation of corporate social responsibility (CSR) and contends that such efforts may enhance employee-organizational identification. Drawing on scholarship from CSR and organization - employee identification, we develop a conceptual model including propositions about mediating and moderating mechanisms of the relationship among refugee integration, CSR communication and employee-organizational identification. Our study offers a conceptual bridge between what is known about the importance, barriers and enablers of refugee labor market integration with the lesser-known organizational, specifically employee, perspectives on the issue. Leveraging on this conceptual framework, further research may focus on testing the relationship empirically through collecting field data from business firms which have made an explicit claim on refugee support.