The Procession Goes Inside: Employees' Dissonance Reduction Strategies in Response to Corporate Hypocrisy

Organizations face increasing pressure to integrate corporate social responsibility (CSR) into business strategies, yet many struggle to align CSR commitments with actual practices, leading to corporate hypocrisy—a perceived inconsistency between CSR rhetoric and behavior. While prior research explores the consequences of hypocrisy on employees, little is known about the cognitive strategies they use to navigate these inconsistencies. Drawing on Cognitive Dissonance Theory (CDT), this study examines how employees reconcile hypocrisy-induced tensions in a multinational consulting firm, “HYDING,” where CSR commitments are structurally compartmentalized. Our findings unveil three dissonance reduction strategies: blinding (i.e., selective exposure to inconsistencies), outsourcing (i.e., denial of responsibility), and imagining (i.e., adding consonant cognitions). By uncovering the micro-level strategies that triggered corporate hypocrisy, this study contributes to micro-CSR literature, offering insights into mitigating hypocrisy's negative effects at the employee level.