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The purpose of this study is to examine corporate philanthropy from the perspective of small business owner‐managers to find out whether there is room for altruism in business life.

This study is based on 25 thematic interviews with small business owner‐managers. The data analysis is based on a method of qualitative content analysis.

Based on the analysis, it is shown that reactivity, an emphasis on personal interests, the willingness to utilize philanthropy as part of marketing and lack of planning are typical of philanthropy in the small business context. Small businesses often emphasize strategic business reasons as the main motive for their philanthropic engagements. Nevertheless, in some cases the philanthropic decisions are based on mere willingness to contribute to the welfare of others. Thus, the paper suggests that there is room for altruism in the small business context. The existence of altruism in the context of small business philanthropy is closely related to owner‐managers' values and business ambitions. Indeed, the organizational context does not usually hinder the existence of altruism to any great extent among small businesses, as it might do in the large business context. Similarly, based on the results of this study, the authors suggest that close relationships between a small business and its stakeholders increase the probability of altruism in business.

It is acknowledged that corporate philanthropy is but one possible context in which to study altruism.

The study provides useful information on whether there is room for altruism in business life from the perspective of small business owner‐managers.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the relationship between social capital and collective action at the county level in the US while incorporating the moderating effects of community racial diversity and urbanity and to find the changing effects of social capital on philanthropic collective action for community education.

This paper employs a quantitative research design. The dependent variable measures philanthropic collective action for community education while the independent variable for social capital is measured as a community level index. Moderating variables include a community racial diversity index and urbanity. This analysis tests and interprets interaction effects using moderated multiple regression (MMR), with the baselines of MMR being grounded to multivariate ordinary least squares (OLS) regression. Analyses are carried out in the context of the USA during 2006 and 2010, with US counties employed as the unit of analysis.

The effects of social capital on philanthropic contributions decline in counties with low- and mid-levels of racial diversity. On the contrary, the effects of social capital increase in highly racially diverse counties. The three-way interaction model result suggests that racial diversity positively moderates social capital on philanthropic collective action for community education where the effect of social capital is strong and positive in highly racially diverse urban communities.

This research complicates the notion that social capital and racial diversity are negatively associated when exploring collective action and community education, and suggests effects of social capital varies with moderating effects on philanthropic collective action for community education.

This study explores corporate strategic orientations as important drivers of firms’ philanthropic engagement. Specifically, the purpose of this paper is to empirically examine the relationship between two broad corporate strategic orientations – domain offense (DO) and domain abandonment (DA) strategies – and the level of philanthropic engagement.

The authors propose that firms pursuing aggressive DO strategies are more likely to invest in corporate philanthropy as part of their market expansion efforts. On the contrary, firms pursuing DA strategies are less likely to invest in corporate philanthropy because of decreased slack resources, rather conservative external stakeholder expectations as well as a firm’s conscious decision to disengage with external stakeholders. Hierarchical multiple regression analysis was conducted using data from 122 publicly traded US corporations from 2008 to 2013.

The findings provided empirical support for a significant positive relationship between DO strategies (acquisition and strategic alliance intensity) and firms’ philanthropic engagement. However, the relationship between DA strategies (divestiture and plant/facility closing) and firms’ philanthropic engagement was not found to be significant. Overall, the findings indicated that philanthropic engagements along with carefully crafted DO strategies help firms expand their market presence.

Organizational leaders that systematically target philanthropic causes that effectively converge with important corporate strategies do benefit in the long run by achieving better brand equity and overall enhanced corporate reputation.

By empirically investigating the relationship between corporate strategic orientations and philanthropic engagement, this study contributes to the on-going scholarly discussion on the link between corporate strategies and philanthropic engagements.

This study aims to investigate whether engagement in philanthropic marketing after the 311 Japan earthquake crises had a positive effect on brand resonance and consumer satisfaction of CSR performance for Taiwanese companies. Additionally, the particular phenomenon of media self-regulation was integrated to explore the consolidated impact of philanthropic marketing, media self-regulation and brand resonance on consumer satisfaction of CSR performance.

The study used survey method to collect required data. The subjects of the study were 516 adults who were aware of the 311 Japan earthquake crises. Of the 476 survey questionnaires collected, 450 were identified as usable.

The results show that the constructs were highly positively correlated, meaning that post-disaster corporate philanthropic marketing can enhance brand resonance and consumer satisfaction of CSR performance. Media self-regulation was found to have a significant influence on philanthropic marketing and brand resonance. However, it did not exert any significant effect on consumer satisfaction of CSR performance.

Because of the chosen research method and surveyed subjects, the research results may lack generalizability. Therefore, researchers are encouraged to test the proposed research model further with additional subjects and variables.

A good impression of the brand usually makes consumers generate brand resonance. This study reveals that a higher level of brand resonance may lead to higher consumer satisfaction of CSR performance. This implies that local and international companies should engage in philanthropic marketing programs, as it will not only support charitable organizations but also enhance the firm’s corporate image.

This study points out that the positive coverage of the disaster could give the audience a positive impression, rather than showing provocative, violent or sexual content to push viewership. At the time when disasters become increasingly common, people’s expectations of the media will also elevate. Dramatization, exaggeration and information overload make the audience distrust the media and constantly seek the truth behind the story. Content generated by online bloggers and citizen reporters (ordinary people) is an alternative source for true, fast and in-depth reports.

This study differs from earlier studies researching disastrous events in that they were taking the perspective of natural sciences, while we adopted the management viewpoint to evaluate the 311 crises and took media self-regulation into account. It is the first to reveal that media’s self-regulated coverage of the disaster seems to have a positive effect on corporate philanthropic marketing and brand resonance.

The aim of this paper is to examine how companies officially recognized in Russia as corporate philanthropy leaders actually introduce, implement, and evaluate philanthropic activities. Focusing on the connections between these activities and corporate strategy, the paper seeks to investigate the main trends in corporate philanthropy development over the period 2007‐2010, assuming that corporate philanthropy is an integral part of corporate social performance.

A theoretical framework is based on the recognition of “strategic” philanthropy as a part as well as the main trend in current philanthropic activities of leading companies. The analysis as such is settled on survey data collected from participants in the national “Corporate Philanthropy Leaders” award competition conducted by the Russian business newspaper Vedomosti, PwC, and the non‐profit grant‐making organization “Donors Forum” from 2008 to 2011.

The results testify to strengthening connections between corporate philanthropy and corporate strategy, enhancing the strategic nature of philanthropy as such. Here the responding companies significantly diversified the directions of their philanthropic activities, whereas the distribution of corporate philanthropy by form showed a high stability that was practically unaffected by the economic crisis of 2008‐2009. A common practice is the professionalization of managing corporate philanthropy, with a growing role for CSR departments.

The study focuses on the activities of leading Russian companies participating in the national “Corporate Philanthropy Leaders” award competition, thereby restricting the analysis of non‐participants. Moreover, the evolution of competition surveys and their methodology as well as relatively low repetition of participants also restrict the degree of generalization. Future research could be based on the findings of this study to create hypotheses to be tested on a broader sample of Russian companies.

The majority of studies of corporate philanthropy in Russia are still covering the necessity of corporate philanthropy for resolving societal problems and describing particular “best practice” cases rather than analyzing the relation of corporate philanthropy to the whole system of CSP and its strategic applications. This study aims to address this gap by focusing on corporate philanthropy leaders as a first step to broad nationwide research.

From an institutional perspective, this study empirically examines whether institutional pressures, such as industry pressures and public attention, significantly influence corporate philanthropic disaster responses (CPDRs). Furthermore, this paper aims to examine the moderating role of a company’s prior history of philanthropic donation.

This paper uses secondhand data from 217 Chinese listed companies that responded philanthropically to the 2008 Sichuan Earthquake.

This paper finds that both industry pressure and public attention are positively associated with companies’ donations; their prior history of philanthropic donations significantly moderates these relationships such that these relationships become stronger and for companies that have prior histories of small philanthropic donations.

First, this paper contributes to the philanthropy literature by identifying two kinds of institutional pressures (i.e. industry pressure and public attention) that exert great influences on CPDR contributions. Second, by studying the moderating role of firms’ prior philanthropic history, this study contributes to the understanding of companies’ different reactions to institutional pressures. In addition to the theoretical contribution, this paper encourages companies to proactively establish a sustainable philanthropic giving plan rather than being passively driven by external stakeholders.

This paper aims to propose a conceptual model of philanthropic behavior of volunteers in the health care sector.

This study is based on an extensive review of past research on philanthropic behavior. To conduct the literature review, keywords such as philanthropy, philanthropic behavior, giving, donating, competencies, volunteering and social network in health care were identified.

From the literature reviewed, three groups of antecedents of philanthropic behavior among health care volunteers (HCVs) were identified, viz., individual factors, social factors and organizational factors. This paper proposes social network as a mediating variable in linking the three groups of antecedents with philanthropic behavior. The paper offers a number of propositions which explain the proposed model of philanthropic behavior of HCVs.

Further research is suggested to test and validate the framework to provide empirical evidence. Upon model validation, the paper could offer practical interventions for human resource development (HRD) managers to assist philanthropic-based organization toward developing and managing philanthropic behavior of HCVs. The paper highlights the importance of social network to promote individuals to engage in philanthropic actions.

The paper yields a new approach in theorizing philanthropic behavior among HCVs by integrating the theory of planned behavior, social identity approach and organizational support theory. The proposed social network as a mediator could provide new insights to the HRD practitioners on developing philanthropic behavior among HCVs subject to model validation. The research contributes to literature in philanthropy, HRD and community development.

This paper aims to investigate the inverse U-shape relationship between DM and accessing loans from the banks and explore the moderating effect of donation mode diversity.

Based on a survey dataset of 1,036 private firms in China, we use a Heckman two-stage estimation model to test hypothesizes.

The results show an invert U-shape relationship between donation magnitude and access to bank loan. The authors also find that donation mode diversity will positively moderate donation magnitude–bank loan relationship: the positive effect of donation magnitude will be stronger for the private firms using multiple channels of philanthropic donation.

This paper extends the literatures by examining how philanthropic donation behaviors in form of donation magnitude (how much to give) and donation mode diversity (how to give) influence private firms’ loan borrowed from the bank, an important but largely ignored stakeholder. Therefore, it suggests that both the amount and the channels of philanthropic donation could have significant roles in the efficiency of achieving strategic outcomes of corporate philanthropy.

This paper aims to use the social impact hypothesis and the shift of focus hypothesis to examine what drives controversial industries to make philanthropic donations: sustainable development, which can in turn lead to higher firm performance or a better corporate image.

This study employed a sample of Chinese firms from 2008–2015 and conducted regression analysis to explore the motivations behind corporate philanthropy.

Philanthropic giving is positively and significantly related to all indicators of firm performance; the interaction term of controversial industries and philanthropic giving is also positively and significantly related to firm performance. The empirical evidence supports the social impact hypothesis.

The empirical evidence shows that firms engage in philanthropic giving, mainly in pursuit of their own interests. Hence, managers should consider the inherent characteristics of the company and then combine social interests with their economic interests to design a philanthropic strategy of their own, which can in turn contribute to sustainable development.

This paper empirically confirms that the social impact hypothesis holds for the philanthropic activities of Chinese firms. This is a rare finding in related studies.

The purpose of this study is to identify different perspectives on philanthropic corporate social responsibility (CSR) activities by using the mixed-method approach and Q methodology. In addition, this study examines why people consider the revealed perspectives to be important factors.

In this study, the authors used a structured sampling of 30 CSR-related statements (a Q sample) and had participants rank-order the statements from “most important” (+4) to “most unimportant” (−4).

The results, from the factor analysis and correlation using the Q method software program PQMETHOD, revealed two distinctive perspectives. The first group emphasized the importance of supporting environmental-related activities. The second group ranked supporting arts-related activities as the most important factor of philanthropic CSR activities.

The goal of Q methodology is not the generalizability of the results but to identify the different views that exist regarding a topic, even minority ones. The findings are discussed in terms of practical implications for how this framework can be used to understand the subjective papers of different types of stakeholders.

This study identifies the different perspectives that exist regarding philanthropic CSR activities by using Q methodology, which is a good alternative to other research methods that provides a unique way of uncovering subjectivity from the participants’ point of view.