PurposePrior marketing and hospitality studies have largely ignored the role of corporate social responsibility (CSR) in shaping frontline employees’ customer orientation. This study aims to investigate the impacts of employee perceived CSRs on customer orientation in hotel industry.Design/methodology/approachThrough an onsite data collection from 642 frontline employees of 14 hotels in China, the moderated mediation model that links frontline employees’ perceptions of internal and external CSR to person-organization fit, work engagement and customer orientation were validated with the bootstrapping procedures.FindingsThe results reveal that a higher degree of perceived internal and external CSR leads to greater customer orientation through work engagement, and these indirect effects will be stronger with comparatively higher person-organization fit levels.Practical implicationsBy clarifying the connection between perceived CSR initiatives and customer-oriented behaviors, this study offers inspiration for hospitality managers to devise, allocate and leverage CSR investments, strategies and practices.Originality/valueTo the best of the authors’ knowledge, this study is the first to verify a moderated mediation model that investigates the impacts of perceived CSRs (i.e. internal vs external) on customer orientation, which not only uncovers some neglected antecedents of customer orientation but also provides a more nuanced insight into perceived CSR-customer orientation linkages.