Situational determinants of consumer donation behavior of small change in retail stores

• Grant number: 15/16217-4
• Support Opportunities: Regular Research Grants
• Start date: March 01, 2016
• End date: February 28, 2018
• Field of knowledge: Applied Social Sciences - Administration - Business Administration
• Principal Investigator: Tania Modesto Veludo de Oliveira
• Grantee: Tania Modesto Veludo de Oliveira
• Host Institution: Escola de Administração de Empresas de São Paulo (EAESP). Fundação Getúlio Vargas (FGV). São Paulo , SP, Brazil
• Associated researchers: Edgard Elie Roger Barki ; Felipe Zambaldi

Abstract

This project aims to test the role of situational variables in donation behavior. The focus of this project is a novel campaign in Brazil that encourages the culture of donation among retail consumers, inviting them to round up the value of their purchases and donate the difference to selected causes and social organizations. The donation campaign will be carried out in 18 retail stores in the city of São Paulo, which will be drawn from a total of 258 stores (same brand) of a large Brazilian retail chain. This project employs a mixed-method sequential explanatory design with four methodological steps. The first methodological step comprises non-structured interviews with the social organization's team that will lead the campaign and with the retailer that will host it. The second step involves the sending of a questionnaire to frequent customers of these 18 stores to measure attitudinal constructs and their predisposition to donate (i.e. attitude towards helping others, attitude towards NGOs, warm glow motive, cause involvement). The donation campaign will be implemented in the retail stores after the ending of the second methodological step. The third step will begin just after the campaign's launching and it consists of a natural field experiment in the 18 retail stores, which will cover a month of continuous data collection and the measure of the actual behavior of hundreds of consumers. The stores will be divided into treatment groups, according to two manipulated variables: the type of beneficiary that will receive the donation and the engagement of the store team with the donation campaign. A mystery shopper technique will be used in support of the natural field experiment. The following situational variables will be tested for their explanatory power of the donation behavior: total purchase price, amount to donate, means of payment used to buy, type of beneficiary and engagement of the retail store. Demographic variables (i.e. gender, age, education) will also be collected for the experiment's participants. Data from the second and third steps will be combined to test a theoretical model assessing the effect of situational variables in the prediction of donation behavior compared to the effect of attitudinal and demographic variables. The fourth step involves three focus groups with consumers of the retail stores which took part in the experiment in order to understand more deeply the reasons for their donation behavior. Quantitative analyses will be conducted via Binary Logistic Regression and qualitative analyses via Content Analysis. The quest for understanding of the effects that such campaigns produce in donor behavior is characterized as a complex field, calling for fertile and innovative research, with substantial theoretical and managerial implications for the Marketing and Society area and mainly, for the Transformative Consumer Research. (AU)