Leaders, CSR and the role of religion in decision-making processes in Middle Eastern organisations

Despite numerous publications on the role of religion on individual and organisational ethical behaviour, academic literature seems to lack a comprehensive understanding of how religion affects the decision- making of leaders and ethical behaviour of organisations. This gap seems to be even more significant with regard to developing countries and was addressed in the present study by conducting twenty-two interviews with leaders from the public and private sectors of three Middle Eastern countries. The study used Grounded Theory approach for data analysis which identified how Islamic moral postulates and ethics impact on leaders’ ethical behaviour, decision-making and consequently translate to organisational CSR behaviour. With this study, we contribute to the CSR literature by providing empirical evidence on how the repetitive interactions of social actors with religious affiliations create behavioural expectations which, when repeated and consequently internalized, become a constituent part of leaders’ identity and shape how they interact with the surrounding environment.