Charitable Behaviour Research Articles

Who behaves charitably? Evidence from a global study

ABSTRACT This paper adds to the literature on charitable behaviour by analysing the correlates of three types of such behaviour (donating money, volunteering time, and helping a stranger) in a global sample of 134 countries and 388,602 individuals. We compare the differences in the factors associated with multiple measures of charitable behaviour, using a wide range of individual- and country-level variables. We find important differences across global regions and levels of economic development in these factors. Our findings are relevant for NGOs and charities, in particular in designing funding campaigns.

The Impact of Corporate Social Responsibilities on Firm Value and Profitability in Pakistan

The research area of corporate social responsibility (CSRR) has seen rapid growth in the past decade. However, the real impact of CSRR on firm value has been inconclusive, often due to its qualitative data. Therefore, this study aims to investigate the relationship between corporate social responsibility (CSRR) and firm value. For this purpose, the data of listed firms in the Pakistan Stock Exchange 100 index were collected from 2010 to 2021. Regression Analysis was conducted on panel data to accomplish the main objective of the research. The study finds that Corporate social responsibility in the case of Pakistan is adopted by 67%, consisting of all the listed firms. The results of regression reflect an important positive association between the behaviour of CSRR and firm value. This result is also associated with other researchers, who suggest that investors pay a premium in the capital market in a socially responsible manner to achieve long-term profitability. The study also found that CSRR had a value-enhancing power to adopt charitable behaviour via legitimacy, Stakeholders, and signalling theory.

Factors Influencing Charitable Giving in Malaysia: An Islamic Perspective

Purpose ― This study aims to discover how Islam, as a religion, influences its believers to contribute in the form of gifts, donations or charity, generally referred to as tabarruʿ. Design/Methodology/Approach ― Structural equation modelling analysis was used to investigate the online questionnaire responses from 402 Muslims who have contributed to charity. Findings ― The study finds that only targhīb (reward) and tarhīb (threat) have a significant positive relationship with tabarruʿ, while iḥsān (excellence) and ukhūwah (brotherhood)―despite showing positive influence―are not significant. It also highlights that the influences of targhīb and tarhīb are more robust when the respondent has a higher level of education. Originality/Value ― To the best of the authors’ knowledge, only a few studies on the influence of religion on charitable behaviour have been carried out. So far, no study has looked at the determining variables from the standpoint of Islam. Research Limitations/Implications ― Due to constraints of time and research funding, the sample population was not drawn from all states in Malaysia. The sample was restricted to Malaysians in Sabah, Malaysia. Practical Implications ― This study highlights that non-profit organisations in Malaysia, especially those from an Islamic background, should be able to organise their fundraising strategies with an emphasis on the factors of targhīb and tarhīb.

Branching Charity Platform in the Endemic Era: Public acceptance of e-Charity programs

The need for charity drives in Malaysia has become even more crucial with the halt and closure of countless businesses during the COVID-19 pandemic. Due to social restrictions implied, the method of collecting charity funds is now severely limited, resulting in the deployment of social media platforms. Suiting the current needs, this research aimed to understand the public's acceptance of e-charity programs. This quantitative research studied the response of 129 samples spread from urban and rural areas in Malaysia. Data were collected through a questionnaire in Google Form and distributed through social media platforms. Results show the public is willing to do charity online, and it is a way to encourage charitable behaviour.

Charitable behaviour and political affiliation: Evidence for the UK

We explore the effect of political party alignment on the likelihood of undertaking charitable behaviour, as captured by making monetary donations and volunteering, as well as on the amount of money donated and the number of hours volunteered. Using data from the most recent large scale UK household longitudinal survey, this is one of the first studies to explore the relationship between political affiliation and charitable behaviour using panel data. Being affiliated to the Labour Party relative to being affiliated to the Conservative Party (the most right wing political party in our analysis) is negatively associated with both the probability of donating money to charity and the proportion of income donated to charity. In contrast, these effects are found to be positive in the case of the Liberal Democrats and the Green Party. With respect to volunteering, we find that, whilst affiliations with the Labour Party and the Liberal Democrats relative to being affiliated to the Conservative Party are negatively associated with the probability of being a volunteer, affiliations with the Labour Party and the Liberal Democrats are positively associated with the number of hours volunteered conditional on being a volunteer.

Who Helps Refugees in South Africa? An Examination of Cultural and Social Factors.

Pro-refugee philanthropy is beneficial for refugee integration and an important contributor to intergroup relations in a South African context. No study, however, has provided an in-depth quantitative analysis of what factors drive this type of behaviour. This article investigates what cultural, social and religious factors may predict participation in charitable behaviour towards refugees in South Africa. Three types of behaviours were examined: (i) material donations; (ii) volunteer activities; and (iii) information sharing. Using data from a 2019 Ipsos Migration Survey, the study found that intergroup threat was a robust predictor of charitable behaviour of all kinds. Friendship contact with a pro-refugee volunteer was also positively associated with philanthropic behaviour. Institutional trust and religious orientation were correlated with volunteer activities and information sharing but not donations. Study findings can be utilised to design interventions that increase public participation in actions that help refugees in an African context.

Searching for Prosociality in Qualitative Data: Comparing Manual, Closed–Vocabulary, and Open–Vocabulary Methods

Although most people present themselves as possessing prosocial traits, people differ in the extent to which they actually act prosocially in everyday life. Qualitative data that were not ostensibly collected to measure prosociality might contain information about prosocial dispositions that is not distorted by self–presentation concerns. This paper seeks to characterise charitable donors from qualitative data. We compared a manual approach of extracting predictors from participants’ self–described personal strivings to two automated approaches: A summation of words predefined as prosocial and a support vector machine classifier. Although variables extracted by the support vector machine predicted donation behaviour well in the training sample ( N = 984), virtually, no variables from any method significantly predicted donations in a holdout sample ( N = 496). Raters’ attempts to predict donations to charity based on reading participants’ personal strivings were also unsuccessful. However, raters’ predictions were associated with past charitable involvement. In sum, predictors derived from personal strivings did not robustly explain variation in charitable behaviour, but personal strivings may nevertheless contain some information about trait prosociality. The sparseness of personal strivings data, rather than the irrelevance of open–ended text or individual differences in goal pursuit, likely explains their limited value in predicting prosocial behaviour. © 2020 European Association of Personality Psychology

The role of corporate social responsibility campaign on the charitable behaviour of the society: case study of Coca–Cola company and Edhi Foundation in pakistani context

The role of corporate social responsibility campaign on the charitable behaviour of the society: case study of Coca–Cola company and Edhi Foundation in pakistani context

Empathy leads to increased online charitable behaviour when time is the currency

AbstractThis study shows how the empathy–altruism hypothesis can affect helping behaviour where time spent is the currency, through the novel use of a real world charity. Using an online charity task (www.freerice.com), we show that inducing empathy and also anger cause participants to spend more time donating rice to the United Nations World Food Programme. These findings therefore support the empathy–altruism hypothesis and add to previous research that have mainly used artificial and/or hypothetical scenarios by further showing that its effects can be applied to real world scenarios where helping behaviours are beneficial.

On the behavioural relevance of optional and mandatory impure public goods

Impure public goods combine a private good with a public good. Often, impure public goods have a charitable or ethical dimension, giving ethically motivated consumers a convenient option to contribute to public goods through the marketplace (in addition to direct donations). Impure public goods could potentially promote ethical giving or alternatively hinder charitable behaviour. We implement an economics experiment with a between-subject design to test the behavioural relevance of impure public goods with only a token (i.e. small) contribution to a public good. Contributions to the public good are negatively affected by the presence of impure public goods with token contributions. We explore one mechanism to offset this negative impact by making the token impure public good mandatory. We observe higher average contributions and several positive impacts on charitable behaviour, which supports the claim that this mechanism can potentially offset the negative impact of impure public goods.

The influence of population characteristics on household response to a charity book collection based on pledges and social pressure

The success of a charitable campaign will depend on many factors, including solicitation technique, population characteristics, and type of charity. We implemented a randomised controlled trial to assess the effect of pledging and social pressure on the charitable donation behaviour of households. We implemented a charitable book collection in two different geographical areas, with one being more affluent, more ethnically diverse, and with higher levels of education. We received a marked variation in response: overall, across both treatment groups and control group, the number of households who donated books was higher in one area than the other. However, we did not find any evidence of a heterogeneous response to the pledge and social pressure interventions, compared to the control group.

Charitable Behaviour and the Big Five Personality Traits: Evidence from UK Panel Data

Charitable Behaviour and the Big Five Personality Traits: Evidence from UK Panel Data

Muslim Charity in a Non-Muslim Society—the Case of Switzerland

Abstract This article presents empirical data on trends in charitable giving among Muslims in Switzerland. It provides insight into mechanisms of mutual aid within a relatively young migrant community, looks at how Islamic charity is practiced in a non-Muslim society, and clarifies the importance of Islamic aid agencies. I argue that the charitable behaviour of Muslims in Switzerland is characterized by their migration situation, and by giving preferences and habits of the home country. Traditional Islamic charity, though subject to changes, is widely practiced and actively promoted by Islamic charities and local Muslim associations. It enforces the sense of religious belonging and group identity.

Investigating online recognition for blood donor retention: an experiential donor value approach

Recognising that charitable behaviour can be motivated by public recognition and emotional satisfaction, not‐for‐profit organisations have developed strategies that leverage self‐interest over altruism by facilitating individuals to donate conspicuously. Initially developed as novel marketing programmes to increase donation income, such conspicuous tokens of recognition are being recognised as important value propositions to nurture donor relationships. Despite this, there is little empirical evidence that identifies when donations can be increased through conspicuous recognition. Furthermore, social media's growing popularity for self‐expression, as well as the increasing use of technology in donor relationship management strategies, makes an examination of virtual conspicuous tokens of recognition in relation to what value donors seek particularly insightful. Therefore, this research examined the impact of experiential donor value and virtual conspicuous tokens of recognition on blood donor intentions. Using online survey data from 186 Australian blood donors, results show that in fact emotional value is a stronger predictor of intentions to donate blood than altruistic value, whereas social value is the strongest predictor of intentions if provided with recognition. Clear linkages between dimensions of donor value (altruistic, emotional and social) and conspicuous donation behaviour (CDB) were identified. The findings provide valuable insights into the use of conspicuous donation tokens of recognition on social media and contribute to our understanding into the under‐researched areas of donor value and CDB.Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

New experimental evidence on charitable gift restrictions and donor behaviour

Gift restrictions are a common tool used by donors to ensure charitable intent. Owing to increased monitoring costs and the loss of flexibility, gift restrictions are costly to the recipient nonprofit organizations. Using an economic experiment, we studied the impact of offering donors the option to restrict their charitable gift. Our primary finding demonstrates that allowing the option to restrict a charitable gift increases the average gift size, whether or not the donor chooses to exercise that option. This result implies that restricted gifts both are an important tool for increasing donations and may be less costly to the nonprofit organizations than originally believed. We further demonstrate that high levels of religious attendance are associated with an increased use of gift restrictions and an increased responsiveness to those restrictions.

Afterlife incentives in charitable giving

There is an expanding literature that examines the influence of religion on economic behaviour. Researchers typically do not distinguish among religions, masking important variation across doctrines. Our article adopts a typology of religions based on the construct of salvific merit. Major religious doctrines are ordered based on their linkage between charitable behaviour in this life and condition in the afterlife. Using the Center on Philanthropy Panel Study (COPPS), we exploit variation in household marginal tax rates (a subsidy to charitable giving) to test the influence of major religious doctrines on charitable giving. We find that charitable giving by adherents to high-salvific-merit religions are less sensitive to changes in charitable subsidies. Adherents to low-salvific-merit religions behave more like nonreligious households. Our results suggest that religious households optimize according to specific doctrines rather than a broad notion of religion.

Psychological consequences of money and money attitudes in dictator game

Psychological consequences of money and money attitudes in dictator game According to the research conducted by Vohs, Mead, and Goode (2006, 2008), reminders of money cause people to behave self-sufficiently, and especially to reveal a reduced tendency to charitable behaviour. In this study, we wanted to establish if this tendency would be present in the dictator game, and if so, whether money activation would just change behaviour, or whether it would also change people's evaluation of their own decisions. We assumed that people who revealed symbolic and instrumental money attitudes would react differently to money activation. As expected, money priming caused smaller money transfers compared to the control condition, and this effect was significant among those with symbolic attitudes toward money. Moreover, participants who transferred at least half of the sum after money activation declared stronger negative emotions and lower satisfaction with the decision than those who made similar transfers in the control condition.

Charitable Intent: A Moral or Social Construct? A Revised Theory of Planned Behavior Model

Given an increasing global need to elicit and stimulate charitable giving and in light of the limited social-psychological research on this subject, this study contributes to a better empirical understanding of the factors that underlie charitable giving (intentions). In contrast to previous research, it was hypothesized that moral norms rather than social norms are likely to play a significant role in the formation of charitable intentions. An extended Theory of Planned Behavior (TPB) model was constructed in order to test the influence of six social-psychological variables on an individual’s intention to donate to charity. Respondents (N = 143) completed an online questionnaire about charitable behaviour that assessed the constructs of the revised model. The present study found support for the stated hypothesis: while social norms (both descriptive and prescriptive) did not explain any of the variance in intention, moral norms accounted for a significant amount of the overall variance and were in fact identified as the strongest (relative) predictor of charitable giving intentions. In addition to moral norms, ‘attitude’, ‘perceived behavioral control’ and ‘past behaviour’ were also identified as significant predictors. The findings in this study support a revised TPB model that accounts for nearly 70% of the explained variance in charitable intent. Implications for both theory and practice are discussed.

Motives and barriers to bequest giving

ABSTRACTMuch is known about motivations for giving to charities generally. However, much less has been identified about bequestors as a unique type of charitable donor. This paper explores the motives and barriers for charitable bequest giving. Hypotheses are drawn from the general philanthropic literature and tested using survey data from Australia, a nation distinguished by very high lifetime (inter vivos) giving but low estate (post mortem) giving. The results show that belief in the efficacy of charitable organizations is requisite for leaving a bequest, as the deceased donor has no control over the enactment of the gift. This effect is mediated by the perceived difficulty of making a charitable bequest, which forms an important barrier for leaving such a legacy. Having family whose financial needs are perceived as not taken care of and the perception of financial inability to make a difference also form barriers for bequest giving. The results confirm that bequests constitute a distinctive charitable behaviour, with unique motives and barriers compared to other types of inter vivos giving. While charitable behaviour in general is driven by altruistic attitudes and political and religious values, as well as social reputation, these factors do not affect charitable bequest making as expected. Surprisingly, we find a negative relationship between financial resources and the inclination to leave a charitable bequest. The article ends with suggestions for ways charities might connect more meaningfully with their bequestors or with donors who might consider bequeathing to them. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Choosing to give more: experimental evidence on restricted gifts and charitable behaviour

It is common for charitable organizations to allow donors to place material restrictions on their gifts. Nonprofit firms and fundraisers generally believe that allowing gift restrictions will increase donation revenue. Restricted gifts are costly to the nonprofit firms because of increased management expenses and an inability to reallocate gifts to higher valued uses. We report the results of an experiment which tests the influence of charitable gift restrictions on donor behaviour. We find that allowing restricted gifts significantly increases the amount given in a laboratory setting. However, we find no evidence that grant restrictions increase the probability of giving.