Improving telephone fundraising by use of self‐prophecy

The self‐prophecy phenomenon served as the basis for a simple, inexpensive technique aimed at increasing donations in a telephone fundraising drive. Self‐prophecy is predicated on two psychological effects. First, asking people to make predictions about normatively influenced behaviours results in biased responses—people respond as they think they should. Secondly, when later asked to perform those same behaviours, people tend to be consistent with their predictions. In an experiment, asking people to make a prediction increased the success rate from 30.4 per cent to 49 per cent, relative to a control group. Although it may be limited to occasional use, the self‐prophecy technique appears a simple and economical tool for increasing donations. Copyright © 2000 Henry Stewart Publications.     

Determinants of fundraising efficiency of nonprofit organizations: evidence from US public charitable organizations

Using a translog stochastic production frontier and maximum likelihood estimation method, we estimate fundraising efficiency and examine the determinants of fundraising efficiency in public charitable organizations in the United States. Our study shows that organizational size has a positive impact on fundraising efficiency and government grants have a negative impact on fundraising efficiency. We also show that charities that allocate more resources on fundraising related labor, as compared with fundraising‐related materials and equipments, are more efficient in fundraising. These findings provide important managerial implications for public charities. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Individual characteristics and the arousal of mixed emotions: consequences for the effectiveness of charity fundraising advertisements

• Charities that deal with emotionally upsetting issues (severe physical disfigurement, cruelty to animals, etc.) frequently include in their fundraising materials images and messages with the potential to cause substantial psychological distress to some members of the public. Often, the materials presented arouse mixed positive and negative emotions within viewers. This study examined the influences of a number of potential antecedents of the stimulation of mixed emotions among individuals confronted with highly emotional charity fundraising advertisements. The research sought to identify the type of person most likely to experience mixed emotions when observing an emotional charity advertisement, the specific kinds of emotion felt most deeply by individuals with various characteristics, and the consequences of mixed emotions for a person's attitude towards the advertisement and for the individual's behavioural intention vis‐à‐vis future donations. Three made‐up charity advertisements were presented to a sample of 771 respondents. A model was constructed to predict the participants' emotional reactions to the advertisements and was estimated, the results suggesting that mixed emotions represented an important determinant of both attitude towards the advertisement and the sample members' behavioural intention.

Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

The relationship between national culture and the use of professional services: Evidence from two cross-country studies

Each year, clients spend large sums on professional services, such as accounting services, legal services and consulting services. While research has found significant cross-country differences in organizations’ spending on professional services, we do not know why they occur. Inspired by the organizational buying behavior literature, this paper investigates the influence of national culture on the use of professional services, particularly management consulting services. As the use of professional services involves considerable uncertainties—particularly for the buyer—it can be assumed to be influenced by cultural differences regarding the level of Uncertainty Avoidance, Individualism and Masculinity. By drawing on two independent cross-country studies, we show that organizations in high uncertainty avoidance and individualistic cultures use professional services less than organizations in low uncertainty avoidance and collectivist cultures. We found no relationship between Hofstede's dimension of Masculinity and the use of professional services. The findings contribute to the theorizing on how the cultural context influences organizational buying behavior and the purchasing of professional services.     

The changing role of procurement: Developing professional effectiveness

The major objectives of this paper are to explore, from the perspective of 18 senior procurement professionals interviewed, the current status of their role and identify the skills they need to develop, in order to effectively manage the changes they are experiencing. The interviews revealed a schism in perception of the procurement role between professionals (strategic) and their organisations (transactional). Although skills have a direct impact on the ability of procurement professionals to fulfil their role proficiently, the degree of organisational support and internal acknowledgement of the role's importance, were found to be a major barrier to the development and progress of procurement professionals. A Procurement Skills Effectiveness Framework is presented to enable managers to assess the likely sophistication level of procurement and its impact, given a set of procurement skills and the degree and type of internal support for the role.     

The impact of face-to-face street fundraising on organizational reputation

Although many stakeholders perceive face-to-face street fundraising as unpleasant, nonprofit managers encourage it as a way to attract donors. To understand the long-term effects of this fundraising method, we used a mixed-methods experimental design to investigate how face-to-face street fundraising affects organizational reputation and stakeholder support intentions in comparison with letter fundraising. The findings reveal that face-to-face street fundraising has a significant negative influence on the stakeholders' perceptions of an organization. Further, qualitative data show that the negative perception originates primarily from perceived pressure, distrust, and obtrusion, which are triggered by face-to-face street fundraising. Our study thus reveals long-term reputational consequences that nonprofit organizations should consider before deciding on fundraising methods.     

Electronic decision support for procurement management: evidence on whether computers can make better procurement decisions

We analyse how well purchasing managers are able to judge the likelihood of problems for a given purchasing transaction. The literature on clinical versus statistical prediction suggests that humans in general, including purchasing managers, are often outperformed by relatively simple statistical formulas for such kinds of tasks. Based on a vignette experiment of real purchasing transactions, we compare the performance of purchasing managers with freshmen students and with a statistical formula based on a cross-validated sample. The results show that the formula outperforms the humans, and that experienced purchasing managers do not outperform freshmen students. We conclude that it would make sense to use decision support systems in the daily practice of purchase management so that humans can devote their time to what they are good at, while being guided by statistical software that takes care of multi-dimensional decisions in noisy environments.     

Relational care in communication as the basis of nonprofit fundraising: Theorizing professional ethics based in stewardship and ethics of care

At its core, fundraising is relationship building. Therefore, ethical fundraising requires cultivating genuine, care-based relationships between various stakeholders by considering relational goals and communicative practices. We advance an ethics of care-oriented approach toward fundraising based in nurturing authentic relationships with multiple organizational stakeholders, including donors, employees, beneficiaries, and volunteers. Drawing upon ethics of care and stewardship scholarship based in public relations, the purpose of this article is to propose relational care in communication through dialogue as an ethical springboard of nonprofit fundraising.     

Offshore outsourcing of professional services: A transaction cost economics perspective

This research utilizes the framework of transaction cost economics (TCE) to develop an understanding of how firms manage the costs and risks of offshore outsourcing of professional services. This research examines the perspectives of eight organizations through interviews with 10 high-ranking supply management executives. The paper first explores the rationale for offshore outsourcing among the organizations studied. Using the tenants of TCE, this paper postulates that fixed costs of establishing the relationship dominate the variable costs of day-to-day transactions, and that organizations will not offshore outsource areas where there is high perceived degree of unmanageable risk. The paper expands on themes provided by TCE and offers some lessons learned, and guidelines for managing and controlling offshore outsourced services relationships.     

The myth of purchasing professionals’ expertise. More evidence on whether computers can make better procurement decisions

In a previous experiment, we have shown that risk assessments of purchasing experts are certainly not better than that of subjects untrained in purchasing, and worse than the decisions made by formal models (J. Purchas. Supply Manage. 9 (2003) 191–198). Since both these results are rather counterintuitive, we conducted a series of experiments geared at replication and extension of these findings. These new experiments show that our previous results are robust, and reveal an additional finding that is both worrying and puzzling. It actually seems to be the case that for the purchasing decision tasks in our experiments, experts perform worse with growing experience. It therefore seems that, at least for the kinds of purchasing decisions under study, it does not make much sense to use expert judgments at all. However, we show that there is a way in which expert judgments can be used in combination with formal models to improve the predictive accuracy of purchasing predictions. In our case, superior predictions are made when we combine the prediction of a formal model with the prediction of the ‘average expert’, thereby combining the robust linear trends as encapsulated in the formal model with the more intuitive configural rules used by experts. We provide several explanations for this phenomenon.     

Pictures of me: user views on their representation in homelessness fundraising appeals

There is a long‐standing ethical debate regarding the ‘right’ representation of recipients in charity marketing materials that are intended to accurately define and represent social problems whilst also prompting the maximum response in voluntary income. The study presented in this article makes a contribution to that debate by highlighting the views of charity beneficiaries regarding their representation in fundraising campaigns. Drawing on data from five focus groups conducted in cities across England, we explore the views of young homeless people regarding the images of homelessness that appeared in major charity campaigns aimed at raising money to fund homelessness services. Participants displayed a high level of reflexivity, demonstrating that they understood the issues involved with homelessness and the perceptions of people like themselves that exist in the public sphere and in the consciousness of potential donors. Although the participants held the view that maximising revenues through the use of simple, eye‐catching images is the prime goal of fundraising, they also expressed a desire for more nuanced campaigns that tell the dynamic stories of how people become homeless and the use of imagery that elicits empathy rather than merely arouses sympathy. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Evaluating the effectiveness of Washington state repeated job search services on the employment rate of prime-age female welfare recipients

This paper uses an unbalanced panel dataset to evaluate how repeated job search services (JSS) and personal characteristics affect the employment rate of the prime-age female welfare recipients in the State of Washington. We propose a transition probability model to take into account issues of sample attrition, sample refreshment and duration dependence. We also generalize Honoré and Kyriazidou’s [Honoré, B.E., Kyriazidou, E., 2000. Panel data discrete choice models with lagged dependent variables. Econometrica 68 (4), 839–874] conditional maximum likelihood estimator to allow for the presence of individual-specific effects. A limited information test is suggested to test for selection issues in non-experimental data. The specification tests indicate that the (conditional on the set of the confounding variables considered) assumptions of no selection due to unobservables and/or no unobserved individual-specific effects are not violated. Our findings indicate that the first job search service does have positive and significant impacts on the employment rate. However, providing repeated JSS to the same client has no significant impact. Further, we find that there are significant experience-enhancing effects. These findings suggest that providing one job search services training to individuals may have a lasting impact on raising their employment rates.     

The impact of M&A experience on strategic HRM practices and organisational effectiveness: evidence from Greek firms

Experience with mergers and acquisitions makes companies develop practices that enable them to handle the process more effectively. This study examines the practices that successful companies, with acquisition experience, adopt when managing their personnel. We examine strategic Human Resource (HR) practices that differentiate top-performing from non-top performing companies, using the 1999 Cranet data. Increased HR involvement in strategic decisions, formalisation of HR practices, building organisational capability through training and development activities, line management devolvement and internal labour market opportunities are the main strategic HR practices adopted by successful companies.     

Selection of individuals to serve on major gift fundraising teams: a study of membership choice criteria

Major gift fundraising (MGF) is a crucial activity for large UK charities and is one that is normally undertaken by teams. This paper examines the criteria that the managements of large charities apply when selecting individuals to serve on MGF teams. It also explores possible connections between team composition and MGF success. A questionnaire exploring this matter was distributed to a sampling frame comprising 500 of the UK's largest fundraising charities, resulting in 151 replies. It emerged that MGF teams which contained people who had been chosen on the basis of their commitment to the MGF function, their communication and relationship nurturing abilities, and their wide‐ranging connections throughout an organisation were reported to perform better than teams that were not deliberately assembled in this way. The more background research was completed into an MGF prospect's circumstances and preferences and the more diverse an MGF team's composition, the higher the probability of success. However, team size did not exert significant effects on performance nor did (i) the personal status of any of a team's members or (contrary to expectations) (ii) the inclusion of individuals who knew a prospect personally. Teams with members who possessed extensive experience of MGF did not perform substantially better than others. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

The impact of brand orientation on managerial practice: a quantitative study of the UK's top 500 fundraising managers

This paper explores the impact of brand orientation on the managerial practices of fundraising managers in the top 500 UK charities and, in particular, on their ability to attract voluntary income. A series of hypotheses was tested including whether level of brand orientation is associated with different patterns of influence within charities, with the range and type of brand communicators used and with the extent to which organisational objectives are fulfilled. A key finding of the research was that high brand‐oriented fundraising managers attract significantly more voluntary income than low brand‐oriented fundraisers, but that level of brand orientation was not related to statutory income. Such findings are consistent with current theory and practice of branding in which a brand is perceived as a product or organisation plus, where the plus indicates a unique set of values which allows differentiation and hence, donor choice, within competitive environments. Copyright © 2002 Henry Stewart Publications     

职业经理人的发展探索

市场经济的发展和我国进入WTO ,使企业面临改善经营管理的紧迫压力 ,职业经理是解决这一问题的有效途径之一。我国职业经理及其运作仍存在不少问题 ,应采取有效措施 ,逐步完善和规范职业经理人才市场 ,使其发挥应有的作用     

Using third‐party services to reduce the development cost and improve the effectiveness of charity websites

The growth of the internet has provided a new medium for charities to reach out to potential supporters. The development of a website requires time, money and expertise that may not be available to many charities. A novel approach is presented to allow these charities to maximise the effectiveness of their websites by using freely available features that have been developed by third parties. It is suggested that use of these services will allow charities to deliver extensive and advanced functionality quickly at reduced cost and with limited in‐house skills. A wide range of services is identified and these appear to allow charities to: increase the content of their sites and foster a sense of community to encourage repeat visits; raise funds by processing online donations or hosting charity auctions; extend their trading activities to the internet; manage and monitor the use of their websites; and improve a range of other activities such as recruitment and advocacy. Some of the services have an associated cost but seem to offer a cheaper and quicker route to implementation for most charities. Although the use of these pre‐built services may provide cost savings, several risks associated with the suggested approach are also considered. By relying on third parties to provide these services, charities have to surrender some degree of control and risk damaging their reputation if the selected services are inappropriate or unreliable. The need to attract visitors to the site initially is also not addressed by this approach. It is concluded that the use of third‐party services does offer an opportunity for charities to enhance the websites but that these services need to be chosen very carefully. There is a need for further research to evaluate the suggested approach and to identify the effectiveness of the various services. Copyright © 2003 Henry Stewart Publications     

The relative effectiveness of gain-framed and loss-framed messages in charity advertising: Meta-analytic evidence and implications

Meta-analysis is a primary avenue for the development of cumulative knowledge and an essential step in the process theory testing. It provides a more specific quantitative understanding of a subject while correcting for sampling and measurement errors. This project is a modest first attempt to extend existing meta-analytic work on the effect of gain- versus loss-framed messages to charity advertising research. A meta-analysis of 27 studies (k = 40, N = 9,298) finds that gain-framed and loss-framed appeals do not differ significantly on persuasiveness in charity advertising. The random-effects model reveals a mean r of .002 (95% CI −0.061–0.064, p = .96) after correcting for sampling and measurement errors. A re-analysis (k = 38) excluding two outliers yielded a mean r of .03 (95% CI −0.022–.073, p = .29). Among published studies (k = 32), there was tentative indication pointing to the slight advantage of gain-framed appeals. The framing effect does not differ by which type of donation the message calls for (monetary vs. organ), nor is it affected by moderators such as study setting and population. The little difference finding echoes previous conceptual and empirical work and calls for more work identifying moderating factors and boundary conditions on framing research. Practical implications and future directions are discussed.