Research Seminar by Prof. Christoph Fuchs

Speaker : Prof Christoph Fuchs, Professor of Marketing at the TUM School of Management and Visiting Professor at the Rotterdam School of Management, Erasmus University

Title : Cross-cultural evidence on its appeal to donors across twenty five countries

Language : English

Date : September 26, 14h30

Venue : Room Vaes, Doyens building (Entrance via Place Rabelais), Louvain-la-Neuve

Abstract

Charity organizations differ in their practice of offering the possibility to “earmark” one’s donation or not, that is, allowing donors to make a binding call which specific project their money should be invested in. This research offers first empirical evidence on the appeal of earmarking to donors. The empirical basis is a unique data set comprised of 7,383 potential donors across twenty five countries who participated in a randomized survey-experiment with economic incentives. The findings first reveal a significant main effect: people’s willingness to donate is significantly higher in case earmarking is allowed for. Second, the effect substantially differs across countries. In particular, the appeal of earmarking is found to systematically vary in tandem with established cultural value dimensions (i.e., earmarking is less helpful in countries which score lower on Autonomy-Embeddedness, or higher on Hierarchy-Egalitarianism). Finally, the evidence suggests that the earmarking effect is driven by activating more donors instead of increasing the donation amount per given donor. These findings bear important theoretical insights on charitable giving as well as implications practical implications for charities.