Company giving to schools: Business or charity?

Almost weekly, national newspapers report the launch of governmental initiatives and funding programmes to improve educational standards and the environment in which these are to be actioned. Local newspapers also recognise the news-worthiness of the school community. The MP's visit, the Gladiator opening a school fete, the environmental programme are all avidly reported. With the millions of pounds being poured into education and the insatiable appetite of the media to report what is happening at schools, it is hardly surprising that business has recognised the commercial potential of dealing with the school community, be this as a direct supplier or as an organisation that may receive publicity through association. This article will examine the business-school relationship and the motives that underlie this relationship. Much of the below article is developed from material taken from the author's recent book, ‘A Handbook of School Fundraising’¹.     

What do you value? Examining gendered responses to appeal letters

This study builds on previous inductive analysis of fundraising professionals' choices in writing acquisition letters. Fundraisers often write in a way that aligns with one of two personal values, either foregrounding aspects of self-transcendent Universalism values (an appreciation for community and the welfare of all people) or of conservation Security values (those of personal safety and stability for close others). Previous research also indicates that while women and men have different donation styles, targeted motivating language has yet to be explored. Using a national sample, this research tests public response to letters written for a fictional children's charity using content aligned with each option separately, and combined, compared to a control version. Using an experimental dictator game, Universalism values are found to be negatively related to giving across the board as compared to the valueless treatment. We find no statistically significant improvement in donor responses to acquisition appeals that choose to highlight either Universalism or Security values between men and women, although men were marginally less responsive to Universal, self-transcendent values language. The discussion attempts to make sense of these results and the possible complications of running a donor acquisition campaign in the time of COVID-19.     

Does the intention to purchase cause-related products compared to charity donations indicate higher morality?

The growing competition among charity organizations provides individuals with a wide selection of ways how to support specific social causes. Donations to charity and purchase of cause-related products are two forms of pro-social behaviors that receive the most attention from researchers and practitioners. Though their aim (to help others) and many characteristics of campaigns are similar, usually these behaviors and factors affecting them are studied separately, using different theoretical backgrounds. This paper aims to investigate these two behaviors together on the basis of identity theory and analyze how moral identity and moral emotions impact them. Based on a survey of 571 respondents, SEM analysis disclosed the positive impact of the moral identity dimension internalization on the intention to purchase cause-related products (a private prosocial act), whereas the impact of the symbolization dimension on the intention to donate (a public prosocial act) was not revealed. The results also show that purchase intentions of a cause-related product are influenced by empathy, while donation intentions are influenced by guilt. The results indicate that although both behaviors can be explained using the same theoretical background (identity theory), the factors triggering them vary. Additionally, this study proposes several implications for non-profit organizations and cause-related marketing campaigns on how to make charity advertisements more appealing and increase consumers' direct and indirect donations.     

Should retail stores locate close to a rival?

Journal of Economic Interaction and Coordination - I simulate firms competing in an urban landscape that is segregated by income level. Some firms are located close to wealthy neighborhoods and far...     

Should employment policy making be entrusted to regions?

This paper argues that decentralizing macroeconomic policy may be undesirable from the national welfare standpoint. When the objective of each local government is to maximize the welfare of its own residents, while taking the policy choices of the national and other regional governments as given, then the type of equilibrium which results is shown to be Pareto dominated by the centralized solution. This argument is illustrated with a policy of employment subsidy.     

Should We Require Every New Venture to Be a Hybrid Organization?

Critics of entrepreneurial capitalism have argued that entrepreneurship creates dysfunction in individuals, families, communities, and society because entrepreneurs neglect social and environmental dimensions of value in favour of financial value creation. By way of contrast, hybrid organizations, such as Benefit Corporations, are created explicitly to address social and environmental objectives in addition to their financial objective. Therefore, in this paper we explore the consequences of a world of blended value in which every new venture is required to be a hybrid organization. In doing so, we reveal the boundary conditions of current social criticism levied against entrepreneurship and suggest that blended value may best be relegated to the role of ideal or guideline as opposed to normative or legal obligation.     

Should governments fund science?

Empirical evidence shows the flaws in the 'linear model' of economic growth - in which government funds pure science which leads to applied science and enhanced economic growth. Adam Smith's model - in which academic science flows out of applied science - is nearer the mark. Governent funding of science cannot be justified on economic grounds and indeed tends to crowd out private funding.     

Should rules be simple?

The principal argument of the paper is that in an incomplete information setting, where the private sector lacks information of government objectives and has to learn about the policy rule by direct observation and estimation, simple sub-optimal rules may outperform the more complicated rule which is optimal under complete information. This result is demonstrated by simulations using an overlapping contract rational expectations model. The paper thus provides some formal reasoning to support arguments for simplicity associated with credibility and the need for the private sector to be able to monitor policy.     

Should Firms Employ Personalized Pricing?

This paper theoretically considers a duopoly model in which all firms do not always employ personalized pricing. Our model incorporates the fact that firms engage in marginal cost‐reducing activities after they decide whether to employ personalized pricing. When the ex ante cost difference between the firms is large, the less‐efficient firm does not employ personalized pricing even when the fixed cost to do so is zero. This is because employing personalized pricing induces the rival firm to engage more in reducing its costs, which is more likely to harm the less‐efficient firm.     

What Kind of Dialogue Should Paradigm-Dialogues Be?

Paradigm-dialogues are important for several reasons. One reason is to clarify what kind of paradigmatical aspects do have an effect on choosing a qualitative or quantitative research method. To be successful a paradigm-dialogue should have informational quality, self-reflective quality, argumentative quality and communicative quality. The argumentative quality, however, should not be of a persuasive or competitive nature because of the partial a-rationality of paradigms. Paradigm-dialogues should be aimed at self-clarification, mutual understanding and sharing learning processes. That is why communicative quality is important to protect and to promote argumentative quality of a non-persuasive kind. Communicative quality should be understood in terms of striving for a dialogical relationship which is characterized by interactivity, communicative symmetry, openness, multiple hermeneutics, mutual trust and respect. Communicative symmetry is feasible and desirable. An ironic attitude may be helpful.     

Can consumer complaints reduce product reliability? Should we worry?

We analyze a monopolist's pricing and product reliability decision in a model where consumers are entitled to product replacement if the product fails, but have heterogeneous costs of exercising this right. Our main result shows that, under some conditions, a decrease in consumers expected to claim cost leads to a decrease in product reliability but an increase in profit and welfare. This result is robust to a number of extensions. Our results are in line with anecdotal evidence suggesting that changes in consumers’ claiming cost can be induced by both third parties (governments, consumers’ organizations, private enterprises, etc.) and firms. More precisely, since, under some conditions, profit and welfare align, public initiatives oriented to lower consumers’ claiming cost will be ultimately joined by firms that benefit from further increases in complaints.     

Should I allow my confirmatory factors to correlate during factor score extraction? Implications for the applied researcher

Quality & Quantity - With complex models becoming increasingly popular in the social sciences, many researchers have begun using latent variable modeling in multiple-steps, saving, estimating,...     

Would the payment of market rates for non‐executive directors strengthen charity governance?

This paper considers the academic literature suggesting that the governance and management of charities is far from perfect, a problem that is frequently attributed to the difficulty charities have in recruiting suitable people to act as trustees. The paper raises the question of whether charity governance has a value — and a price worth paying for. The paper describes research carried out to test the attitude of a section of potentially suitable managers to charity trusteeship and to remuneration for such responsibilities. It concludes that there are substantial numbers of able trustees willing to serve on a voluntary basis; the perceived shortage is more likely to arise from charities' own recruitment failings than from a shortage of supply. But it also concludes that the supply of suitable trustees could be doubled if reasonable remuneration were offered, and there is some evidence that existing trustees might give higher priority to their duties if they were paid. Results are based on a sample of just over 100 responses, but a further survey is in progress. Initial results broadly confirm the results reported here. Further research to explore the desirability and practicality of paying charity trustees is indicated. Copyright © 2001 Henry Stewart Publications     

Poor marketing or the decline of altruism? Young people and volunteering in the United Kingdom

This paper addresses the issue of the apparent decline in youth volunteering, looking at the factors that may be turning young people off or preventing them from getting involved. It draws on a new (unpublished) survey of young people's attitudes towards volunteering commissioned by the Institute for Volunteering Research, which suggests that volunteering may have an image problem, and suggests ways by which volunteer-involving organisations can make themselves more attractive to a younger age group. Copyright © 1999 Henry Stewart Publications