The impact of firm-nonprofit partnerships on consumers' pro-social behavior

• Autor(a) principal: Calderón, Inês Marruz Moura
• Data de Publicação: 2019
• Tipo de documento: Dissertação
• Idioma: eng
• Título da fonte: Repositório Científico de Acesso Aberto de Portugal (Repositórios Cientìficos)
• Texto Completo: http://hdl.handle.net/10071/19433
• topic: Corporate social responsibility; Nonprofit organizations; Firm-nonprofit partnerships; Pro-social behavior; Responsabilidade social das empresas; Organização sem fins lucrativos; Parcerias entre empresas e organizações sem fins lucrativos; Comportamento pró-social; Cooperação entre empresas; Comportamento do consumidor -- Consumer behavior

Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) has developed into one of the main priorities of businesses all over the world, "in an attempt to reap its benefits and meet the expectations of society" (Skarmeas & Leonidou, 2013: 1837). The present thesis focused on a particular type of CSR practices - the firm-nonprofit partnership - and aimed to understand if such partnerships have an impact on consumers’ attitudes, intentions and pro-social behaviors toward both the focus cause, and other related and unrelated causes. This is a relatively under-examined issue, given that the focus has traditionally been on consumers' attitudes towards the "company" in such partnerships; however, a more complete understanding of the impact of firm-nonprofit partnerships requires that both sides be examined. Additionally, we were interested to measure consumers' awareness of such partnerships, and in trying to tap into actual behaviors in addition to stated intentions. A quantitative approach was used, through both an online questionnaire and an experimental study (included within the same instrument). The results reflected high levels of importance attributed to CSR and firm-nonprofit partnerships, but low awareness of such relationships in practice. Notwithstanding, exposure to such a partnership was found to significantly affect willingness to contribute to the cause as well as to other causes. These did not, however, translate into behaviors, consistent with the idea of an intention-behavior gap. Overall, the study paints a picture of great complexity in what pertains to consumers’ relationships with CSR and firm-nonprofit partnerships, and suggests important avenues for further research.