Not All Empathy Is Equal: How Dispositional Empathy Affects Charitable Giving

Motivations for prosocial behavior have been explored in diverse ways. Empirical research suggests that empathy is an important motive for prosocial behavior. Building upon previous studies, in this article the authors hypothesize that charitable giving is distinctively affected by different components of dispositional empathy, including empathic concern, perspective taking, and personal distress. Using the 2008–2009 wave of American National Election Studies data set, this study examines the impact of these three components of dispositional empathy on probability and amount of giving to various charitable causes. The results support the authors’ hypotheses that the three components of dispositional empathy are associated with charitable giving in different ways. In particular, empathic concern consistently stimulates the likelihood and amount of giving. The effects of perspective taking and personal distress are mixed. The results offer several direct implications for fundraisers and nonprofit organizations in crafting effective fundraising appeals.     

Empathy and the salesperson: A multidimensional perspective

Prior studies of empathy have yielded conflicting findings regarding the effectiveness of empathy in improving salesperson performance. This article integrates a multidimensional conceptualization of empathy from the psychology literature with existing theory from marketing literature to suggest that perspective taking, empathic concern, emotional contagion, and controlling behaviors will differentially effect salesperson performance. Responses from a survey of business-to-business salespeople indicate that empathy has both positive and negative effects. Implications of the findings are explored. © 1995 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.     

Does empathy matter in corporate social responsibility? Evidence from emerging markets

This paper explores how cross-country differences in empathy can explain variations in corporate social responsibility (CSR). We show that empathy is positively associated with overall CSR, as well as with its social and environmental components. Our results are robust to using the two components of empathy, empathic concern and perspective taking. Our findings are further corroborated by evidence from a quasi-natural experiment based on the 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake. We find that during the year of the disaster and the following year, firms located in countries with high levels of empathy donated more money than firms located in countries with less empathy.     

What is Ethical Competence? The Role of Empathy,Personal Values,and the Five-Factor Model of Personality in Ethical Decision-Making

The objective of the present research was two-fold: (1) to provide a new definition of ethical competence, and (2) to clarify the influence of empathy, personal values, and the five-factor model of personality on ethical competence. The present research provides a comprehensive overview about recent approaches and empirically explores the interconnections of these constructs. 366 German undergraduate students were examined in a cross-sectional study that investigated the relationship of empathy, personal values, and the five-factor model of personality with moral judgment competence and counterproductive work behavior as indicators of moral judgment and behavior. We found self-transcendence values to be related to both, high levels of empathy and ethical competence, in contrast to self-enhancement values. Multiple mediation analysis revealed unique effects of empathy on ethical competence through values as mediators. Affective (but not cognitive) empathy transmitted its effect on ethical competence through benevolence, conformity, tradition, power, and hedonism. Most importantly, perspective taking lost its predictive power when investigated alongside affective empathy dimensions. These results converge to an important role of affective empathy, in particular empathic concern, with regard to personal values and ethical competence. Furthermore, the five-factor model of personality explained variance in measures of ethical competence. Our research suggests that organizational decision makers should consider the role of empathy, personal values, and the five-factor model in their human resource management in order to select employees with high ethical competence.     

Empathic Relationships in Professional Services and the Moderating Role of Relationship Age

Empathy has been identified as a key success factor for employees who interact with customers. Despite its overall relevance, only a few studies have acknowledged its multidimensional nature. Knowledge remains scarce about the relative impact of cognitive and affective empathy on relational outcomes. In addition, few pieces of research have explicitly acknowledged empathy as theorized within stage‐models focusing on the communication of empathy. The authors conceptualize empathy as a multidimensional construct perceived by the client. Empathy has to be communicated to be effective, while customers’ perceptions of empathy may also be more complex as they distinguish between cognitive and affective empathy. This article investigates the effects of perspective taking, emotional concern, and emotional contagion on trust and commitment. Drawing upon relationship stage concepts, the authors further argue that the influence is moderated by relationship age. Finally, this study investigates if employees benefit from being perceived as empathic partners in terms of “hard facts” (objective sales performance). Based on a data set from 215 business clients of a large consulting firm, this study adopts a structural equation modeling (SEM) approach by using multigroup analysis. To test the empathy–performance link, the authors aggregate customer responses nested in 84 employees and link perceived empathy with performance data. The results show that within B2B relationships, perspective taking exerts the strongest influence on trust, whereas emotional concern is the strongest driver for commitment. The results also confirm the moderating role of relationship age and that perspective taking leads to an increase in actual sales performance. This study underpins the relevance of empathy within services marketing, while providing a more detailed approach to account for empathy as a relation building tool. Practical and academic implications are also addressed.     

The effects of empathy on salesperson effectiveness

Empathy is often described as a trait possessed by successful salespeople. Empirical studies that have uncovered a positive relationship between empathy and sales have failed, however, to use empathy measurement techniques deemed appropriate in counseling- psychotherapy, the field where most research pertaining to the empathic construct has been conducted. The research reported in this article examines the relationship between a salesperson's empathy and sales performance by using one of the most clinically acceptable empathy measurement instruments: The Barrett-Lennard Relationship Inventory. The empathy levels of salespersons were determined by new-car customers. Sales representatives' empathy ratings were then compared with their sales performance. The results of the research contradict the a priori assumption that empathy is positively related to sales performance.     

Ethics in Strategic Thinking: Business Processes and the Global Market Collapse

The authors discussed the reasons for the recent economic collapse as caused by the lack of large businesses and global corporations losing touch with the people they serve. Losing touch has caused a distancing of understanding of the customers as people by these businesses and corporations. An antidote to this is that decisions that have to be made in global businesses as well as domestic organizations reflect some level of empathy. The objective is to highlight the fact that these businesses are corporate citizens and in themselves must be aware of the culture in which they conduct themselves. The authors discuss how empathic decision-making can become part of the corporate fabric without losing any sense of appropriate business judgment. A process is defined to enable the empathic process. Finally, a straw man is set up to fund/enable the process while creating a positive and profitable business environment.     

Personalized charity advertising. Can personalized prosocial messages promote empathy,attitude change,and helping intentions toward stigmatized social groups?

This study examines the role of personalized charity advertising in promoting empathy, attitude change, and helping intentions toward stigmatized social groups. Based on theories of message involvement, empathy, and reactance, we predicted that higher levels of involvement elicited by a personalized charity advertisement would reinforce empathy and prosocial outcomes. An online experiment was conducted using a personalized and a nonpersonalized version of a charity advertisement for a campaign soliciting donations of winter coats for homeless people. As expected, structural equation modeling revealed a positive indirect effect of personalization on prosocial outcomes (attitudes and behavioural intentions toward homeless people, and willingness to donate to the campaign) that was mediated by involvement and empathy. However, in addition to promoting involvement and empathy, personalization also led to heightened reactance, which detracted from the positive effects. Theoretical as well as practical implications of the findings for personalized charity advertising are discussed.     

Effects of underdog (vs. top dog) positioning advertising

The study investigates individual differences in attitudes towards brands being positioned as underdogs in advertising from an emotional perspective. We argue that the personality trait of empathic concern moderates the underdog effect on brand attitude and that the moderating effect is mediated by empathic response to the advertisement. We conducted three experiments with ads using top-dog and underdog appeals. Those who have stronger empathic concern showed more favourable attitudes towards the brand advertised through underdog positioning, and the effect of empathic concern was mediated by the empathic response to the underdog positioning advertisement. For managers, targeting consumers who have high levels of empathic concern could result in more favourable attitudes towards underdog businesses when using underdog appeals.     

Parental Influence and Teens’ Attitude toward Online Privacy Protection

This study examines the impact of parental influence on teens’ attitude toward privacy protection. Survey data show that teens high in concept‐oriented family communication tend to engage in discussion mediation, which, in turn, affects their level of privacy concern. In contrast, teens high in socio‐oriented communication tend to have more family rules and surf the Internet with parents. Rulemaking mediation is not directly related to teens’ level of privacy concern, while cosurfing mediation is related to their level of concern. This study also finds that parental mediation and teens’ concern level explain their attitude toward privacy protection measures. Implications for policymakers and educators are discussed.     

Wage Cuts and Managers’ Empathy: How a Positive Emotion Can Contribute to Positive Organizational Ethics in Difficult Times

Using the lens of positive organizational ethics, we theorized that empathy affects decisions in ethical dilemmas that concern the well-being of not only the organization but also other stakeholders. We hypothesized and found that empathetic managers were less likely to comply with requests by an authority figure to cut the wages of their employees than were non-empathetic managers. However, when an authority figure requested to hold wages constant, empathy did not affect wage cut decisions. These findings imply that empathy can serve as a safeguard for ethical decision making in organizations during trying times without generally undermining organizational effectiveness. We conclude by discussing the implications of our research.     

弘扬民族品牌文化底蕴的移情手法

民族品牌没有正式的定义,但是却有深厚的文化底蕴。弘扬这些文化底蕴,是宣传民族品牌的捷径。移情作用在传达人的情感时有重要意义,因此,品牌宣传中,使用移情手法,传播速度最快,影响最深刻。古典诗词的韵味对民族品牌的文化底蕴有特殊的影响,在广告标识语中运用文化移情方法,可以产生绵长的韵味,加深民族品牌的文化底蕴。     

The Advertising/Marketing Union

Abstract

Previous research has suggested that people form an unfavorable or favorable attitude toward a particular ad, which in turn affects their attitude toward what is being advertised and other measures of advertising effectiveness, including brand choice. This study found that idea substantiated: a favorable attitude toward an ad for a smoking cessation kit was associated with four measures of advertising effectiveness.

A hypothesized link between perceived humor and favorable attitude toward the ad was found, but direct relationships between perceived humor in an ad and three of the four advertising effective-measures were not observed. A conclusion drawn from the study is that perceived humor may aid advertising effectiveness, but the relationship is for the most part moderated by the degree to which people like the ad in which the humor is perceived.     

Do we understand each other? Toward a simulated empathy theory for entrepreneurship

Entrepreneurs often face the daunting task of predicting consumer demand before it exists—what consumers will want if and when the entrepreneur might make it available to them. Such alertness and judgment require an entrepreneur's vicarious imagination—the supposition of what a value experience would be like for another—such as empathy. Prevailing theories of empathy, however, are ill-suited for entrepreneurship theory as they are defined as and focused on an emotion-matching process. We propose that empathy be understood instead as a vicarious mental simulation of another's experience that, when accurate, produces similar emotions but also similar experiential knowledge. According to our ‘simulated empathy theory,’ empathy is a rational imagination process, intentional and knowledge-based. We connect this empathy process to contemporary entrepreneurship theory, namely opportunity recognition and evaluation processes. We also revise the concept of empathic accuracy accordingly, and derive therefrom some practical implications regarding how entrepreneurs can increase their empathic accuracy and, thereby, their chances of success.     

Personality Antecedents of Customer Citizenship Behaviors in Online Shopping Situations

This study examines the psychological process used in predicting customer citizenship behaviors. Hypotheses are proposed to test the effects of personality traits on customer satisfaction, and customer citizenship behaviors in an online shopping context. Two broader elemental traits—agreeableness and extraversion—are posited to lead to specific state‐based traits; namely, perspective taking and empathic concern. In turn, empathic reactions are expected to affect customer satisfaction as well as customer citizenship behaviors. Study results demonstrate that individuals high on empathic concern feel greater satisfaction with the service provider, and display a greater propensity to help other online shoppers.     

The nature of an apology: An experimental study on how to apologize after a service failure

Extant service recovery research treats apology as a dichotomy, in that it is either present or absent, but how it is conveyed is neglected. Based upon social psychological research, this study argues that an apology comprises three different components: empathy, intensity, and timing, which make each apology unique. It is shown that how well an apology is delivered across failure types (outcome vs. process) drives service recovery satisfaction, not its mere presence. Empathy, intensity, and timing separately impact satisfaction. The more empathic and intense the apology is given, the more satisfied respondents are. A late apology decreases satisfaction ratings. Effect sizes indicate that empathy has the strongest impact on service recovery satisfaction followed by intensity and timing. The effect of empathy is stronger for process failures than for outcome failures. Interestingly, the apology’s overall effect size is comparable to that of compensation in case of a process failure.     

Determinants and consequences of service experience toward small retailer platform business model: Stimulus–organism–response perspective

This study attempts to understand the determinants and consequences of service experience toward retailers’ digital transformation by comparing empirical results from entrepreneurs and consumers. For entrepreneurs, the critical antecedents of service experience include entertainment, tangibility, reliability, and empathy. For customers, the critical antecedents include entertainment, interactivity, tangibility, and empathy. Meanwhile, regarding the consequences of service experience, service experience directly affects both continuous use intention and satisfaction. However, satisfaction mediates the relationship between service experience and continuous use intention for entrepreneurs. In addition, no direct effect is found. Overall, service experience has a meditating effect between stimulus and response variables. Meanwhile, entrepreneurs and customers have different perceptions of the proposed topic.     

Consumer responses to corporate social irresponsibility: The role of moral emotions,evaluations, and social cognitions

We investigate the mediating roles of moral emotions and attitudes between perceptions of corporate irresponsible actions, on the one hand, and consumer responses, on the other hand, and further examine their contingencies based on consumer social cognitions. Our findings show that, for corporate transgressions, multiple social cognitions (moral identity, relational and collective self‐concepts, and affective empathy) moderate the elicitation of negative moral emotions (contempt and anger) and overall evaluations (attitudes), which, in turn, lead to negative responses toward the company (negative word of mouth, complaint behaviors, and boycotting). Our study adds to extant research on corporate social irresponsibility by examining three generic reactions people have toward corporate social irresponsibility and demonstrating important boundary conditions. In addition, hypotheses are tested on a sample of adult consumers. Implications for communication by firms are considered.     

Empathy-driven entrepreneurial action: Well-being outcomes for entrepreneurs and target beneficiaries

Empathy is a primary driver of social entrepreneurship and entrepreneurial action. However, empathizing individuals can arrive at different conclusions about what targets need. This variance in entrepreneurs' empathy for targets is important because it will help explain the type of interventions they initiate to help targets and the production of a range of benefits and costs for the targets and the entrepreneur. This study builds on and extends the theory of empathic interpersonal emotion regulation to construct an empathy-driven entrepreneurial-action model of well-being. We explore how an entrepreneur's empathy orientation for entrepreneurial action—the patterned way entrepreneurs focus their attention on a target's problems and then seek to enact this position through entrepreneurial action to help the target—shapes the organizing of an entrepreneurial intervention and the likely outcomes. We theorize entrepreneurial orientation of entrepreneurial action manifests as a hedonic paternalistic, counterhedonic, paternalistic, hedonic cooperative, or counter-hedonic cooperative. This empathy-driven entrepreneurial-action model of well-being contributes to the social entrepreneurship literature and inter-personal theories of empathy.     

医院经济管理遇到的问题及改革措施分析

在市场经济条件下,医院竞争亦格外激烈,医院经济发展遇到了新问题,既面临挑战,也迎来机遇,如何推进医院经济朝着健康、快速、良性循环的方向发展,日益成为百姓关心的问题.本文就医院经济管理遇到的问题进行了研究和分析,并提出了具体的改革措施,以此满足人民群众不断增长的医疗保健需要.