A contingent perspective on the advantages of stores' strategic philanthropy for influencing consumer behaviour

The importance and implications of organisational‐level charitable giving, or strategic philanthropy, are often overlooked in international consumer literature. Drawing on the utilitarian human capital perspective from economics, the social norm theory from sociology, motivation theory from psychology and the strategy–environment coalignment paradigm in organisational science, this research develops a contingent framework for strategic philanthropy. The empirical results indicate that if drug stores put more emphasis on strategic philanthropy as perceived by customers in the community, customers will have stronger social ties with the store and be more loyal to the store. In addition, it was found that the impact of strategic philanthropy on patronage loyalty is moderated by customer characteristics (gender and ethnicity) and context factors (service quality and cause severity). Copyright © 2005 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

RELIGION FOR THE SECULAR

This article introduces two national religious‐oriented (dati‐le’umi) organizations that have emerged within Israeli society since the 1990s. Neither has openly called for the dismantling of the state rabbinate. Nevertheless, they challenge central aspects of its hegemony over religious life. Both are independent initiatives whose main mandate is to provide the average non‐observant Israeli with an alternative address for religious guidance and services. Beyond engendering a re‐conceptualization of the nature of the rabbinate in Israel, the article suggests that these new frameworks offer a window into broader realignments that began to emerge at the turn of the twenty‐first century both in regard to the relationship of the secular population to religion and within Israeli national religious Orthodoxy.     

Knowledge Transfer in Organizations: Learning from the Experience of Others

In the introduction to this special issue of Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes on the psychological foundations of knowledge transfer in organizations, we argue that knowledge transfer is becoming increasingly important in organizations. Organizations that are able to transfer knowledge effectively from one unit to another are more productive and more likely to survive than those that are less adept at knowledge transfer. Although organizations are able to realize remarkable increases in performance through knowledge transfer, successful knowledge transfer is difficult to achieve. The articles in this special issue identify factors affecting knowledge transfer in organizations. These articles provide empirical evidence about effective mechanisms for transferring knowledge as well as about barriers to and facilitators of knowledge transfer. By focusing on the psychological processes that underlie knowledge transfer within a unit and between units within a firm, this special issue complements work in cognitive psychology on knowledge transfer at the individual level of analysis as well as work in strategy and organizational theory on knowledge transfer at the firm or industry levels of analysis. This special issue opens up the “black box” of knowledge transfer in organizations by providing new theory and empirical evidence on the psychological processes that are the foundations for knowledge transfer in organizations.     

Decision participation in public and private organizations

In recent years, there has been a convergence of democratic theory and management theory regarding the importance of participation in strategic decision making. In both the public and private sectors, the goal of increasing participation has been sought as a means to: (1) enhance the wisdom and effectiveness of decision-makers in crafting policy, and (2) secure the support of key actors in an organizations environment. Reform efforts, such as reinventing government and re-engineering the corporation, often have a goal of increasing participation by changing the structure of the organization. Despite the apparent enthusiasm for participation, it is not as easy to achieve as it might seem. Studies of the strategic decision-making process suggest that structural adaptations are not a particularly effective route to increase participation. In this study I examine participation in the strategic decisions of public and private organizations. A survey of 368 senior managers in public and private organizations is used to examine a model that relates participation to the decision type, the structure of the organization and the environment in which the decision is made. In doing so, I also examine the influence of internal (employees) and external (elected officials) participation in the decision processes of public and private organizations. The degree to which a decision falls under public and legal scrutiny, and the amount of “red tape” found in the organization prove to be critical factors influencing the amount of participation.     

Towards an anthropology of doubt: the case of religious reproduction in Orthodox Judaism

As Israel’s Orthodox Jews struggle to live up to high fertility norms rooted in religious and Zionist ideals, an obscured model of stratified critique has emerged. Based on an ethnography of Israel’s reproductive landscape, I demonstrate how critique of high fertility standards is based on particular social and cultural capital only available to the religious elite. While well-established, knowledgeable and assertive religious members find private ways to bypass the almost unachievable levels of fertility, a veil of secrecy leaves less privileged groups, particularly ba`aley teshuva (returnees) to carry most of the fertility load. Whereas scholars of religious transformation have demonstrated how religious elites act as actors and leaders of resistance, my findings illustrate an opposite pattern. Instead of disseminating this critique publicly, religious elites engage in private strategies of secrecy and creative performances of failure that enable these individuals to diverge from norms without publicly contesting them. I argue that not only is stratified critique based on social and cultural capital, it also reproduces social inequalities. By focusing on doubt, struggles, and failures engendered in “everyday Judaism,” these findings require us to refocus our inquiry on power structures within different sub-groups of Israel’s Orthodox Jews. Further, this unique case study highlights how stratified reproduction takes new shape as social and religious convictions gain and lose their force at a particular moment in history.     

If You're an Egalitarian, How Come You're so Rich

Many people, including many egalitarian political philosophers, professa belief in equality while enjoying high incomes of which they devotevery little to egalitarian purposes. The article critically examinesways of resolving the putative inconsistency in the stance of thesepeople, in particular, that favouring an egalitarian society has noimplications for behaviour in an unequal one; that what's bad aboutinequality is a social division that philanthropy cannot reduce; thatprivate action cannot ensure that others have good lives; that privateaction can only achieve a ``drop in the ocean'; that private effortis not called for, since justice is a matter for the state to enforce;that private effort cannot remove the fundamental injustice, whichis inequality of power; and that private effort involves an unreasonablylarge psychological burden.     

Charitable giving among the foreign-born in Canada

This article focuses on the patterns of charitable giving among the foreign-born in Canada. Using Joseph's (1995) “spectrum of philanthropy” model, we generated four general empirical predictions that were explored with Canadian data. The sample used for the analysis were 18,301 Canadian and foreign-born respondents drawn from the National Survey of Giving, Volunteering and Participating. All four predictions were supported by the survey data. Substantial variations in the propensities to give were found among immigrant groups in terms of their birthplaces, socio-demographic, and residential characteristics. Some segments of the immigrant population displayed higher propensities to give than those who were Canadian-born. As the length of residence increased, the average contributions of the foreign-born increased but with some changes in their underlying motivations and organizational preferences. Religion-related motivations declined some-what over time. Although religious organizations were always preferred throughout the immigrant integration process, it was found that more secular organizations (i.e., health-and social services-related) received more support at the latter stages of this process.     

Institutionalized Norms,Practical Organizational Activity,and Loose Coupling: Inclusive Congregations’ Responses to Homosexuality

Congregations vary widely in their responses to homosexuality. Among those inclusive congregations that integrate gays and lesbians into congregational life, why do some adopt a formal organizational statement of welcoming while others do not? Drawing on the new institutionalism and inhabited institutions literatures, this study is the first quantitative examination of the concept of “loose coupling” within religious organizations regarding homosexuality. Analyses using nationally representative congregational data (National Congregations Study) indicate that particular types of inclusive congregations are more likely to loosely couple their practical activity from their formal organizational stance. These findings suggest that inclusive religious organizations respond to myths and norms from various organizational fields and that agentic actors inhabiting the organization influence it by responding, interpreting, and making sense of those institutional norms. The analyses also indicate that loose coupling is one avenue through which particular types of religious organizations respond to the transformation of societal norms with innovation.     

The Catholic Church and the crisis: the case of Portugal

This article investigates the role of the Roman Catholic Church in Portugal in the aftermath of the economic and financial crisis. Through a focus on the case of Lisbon, we explore how the crisis resulted in increased collaboration between religious organizations and the public administration. The crisis in fact changed the opportunity structure of the Portuguese Catholic world, which has reacted basically in three different ways. Firstly, the Episcopal Conference has pointed out the relevance of subsidiarity in the welfare field—and, more broadly, as a principle of societal organization—in the attempt to re-negotiate its role and relevance within Portuguese society, drawing on the activity and the reputation of the Catholic organizations. Secondly, Caritas and the National Commission of Justice and Peace have been quite vocal in denouncing the shortcomings of the Government and the effects of the austerity measures, calling for equality and justice and putting pressure on the Episcopal Conference as well as the central government. Thirdly, local organizations—including religious organizations, such as Caritas—have been gaining a new important role in the coordination and provision of welfare services, as the crisis accelerated the trends towards subsidiarity and governance.     

American Medicine as Religious Practice: Care of the Sick as a Sacred Obligation and the Unholy Descent into Secularization

Modern medicine serves a religious function for modern Americans as a conduit through which science can be applied directly to the human body. The first half of this paper will focus on the theoretical foundations for viewing medicine as a religious practice arguing that just as a hierarchical structured authoritarian church historically mediated access to God, contemporary Western medicine provides a conduit by which the universalizable truths of science can be applied to the human being thereby functioning as a new established religion. I will then illustrate the many parallels between medicine and religion through an analysis of rituals and symbols surrounding and embedded within the modern practice of medicine. This analysis will pay special attention to the primacy placed on secret interior knowledge of the human body. I will end by responding to the hope for a “secularization of American medicine,” exploring some of the negative consequences of secularization, and arguing that, rather than seeking to secularize, American medicine should strive to use its religious features to offer hope and healing to the sick, in keeping with its historically religious legacy.     

The right thing to do or the smart thing to do? How communicating moral or business motives for diversity affects the employment image of Dutch public and private sector organizations

Many organizations have diversity statements in place in which they publicly declare their appreciation of and commitment to workforce diversity. These statements can either contain moral motives (e.g., “diversity reduces social inequalities”), business motives (e.g., “diversity enhances innovation”), or a combination of moral and business motives. In a desk study involving 182 Dutch organizations, we found that (a) private sector organizations more often than public sector organizations communicate business motives, (b) that public and private sector organizations are equally likely to communicate moral motives, and (c) that public sector organizations more frequently than private sector organizations communicate a combination of moral and business motives. Next, we used an experimental design to examine the causal influence of communicating different diversity motives on organizations' employment image (i.e., perceptions of organizational morality, competence, and attractiveness) among prospective employees (n = 393). Here, we used a scenario in which a healthcare organization was portrayed as either a public or a private sector organization and communicated either only moral motives, only business motives or a combination of moral and business motives for diversity. We found that for a public sector organization communicating moral instead of business motives for valuing diversity induced a more favorable employment image. For a private sector organization, there were no differences in employment image depending on the motive communicated. Together, these two studies shed new light on the role of diversity motives in establishing a positive employment image.     

The relationship between intelligence and multiple domains of religious belief: Evidence from a large adult US sample

High levels of religiosity have been linked to lower levels of intelligence in a number of recent studies. These results have generated both controversy and theoretical interest. Here in a large sample of US adults we address several issues that restricted the generalizability of these previous results. We measured six dimensions of religiosity (rather than just one or two), along with a multi-scale instrument to assess general intelligence. We also controlled for the influence of the personality trait openness on facets of religious belief and practice. The results indicated that lower intelligence is most strongly associated with higher levels of fundamentalism, but also modestly predicts central components of religiosity such as a sense of religious identification and private religious practice. Secondly, we found that a higher level of openness - often assumed to lead to lower religiosity - is weakly associated with reduced fundamentalism but with increased religious mindfulness, private religious practice, religious support, and spirituality. These new results provide a framework for understanding the links between reasoning and faith.     

Gendered Organizations and Inequality Regimes: Gender,Homosexuality, and Inequality Within Religious Congregations

Building upon Acker's ( 1990 . Hierarchies, jobs, bodies: A theory of gendered organizations. Gender and Society 4(2):139–58; 2006. Inequality regimes: Gender, class, and race in organizations. Gender and Society 20(4):441–64) theory of gendered organizations and inequality regimes, this study investigates the extent to which inequality in gender and sexuality are linked within religious congregations. Using a nationally representative sample of congregations in the United States, the results demonstrate that a congregation's stance toward allowing women to serve as head clergyperson is significantly associated with its acceptance of gays and lesbians as members or leaders within the congregation. This research extends existing literature in three ways. First, it offers support for the utility of the concept of inequality regimes for investigating dimensions of inequality in addition to gender. Second, it provides evidence of the intersection of gender and sexuality within religious congregations, thereby contributing to the growing dialogue on congregational responses to homosexuality. Finally, these findings propose a number of avenues for future research regarding gender, sexuality, and organizations.     

RELIGION IS EASY,BUT SCIENCE IS HARD … UNDERSTANDING McCAULEY'S THESIS

Robert N. McCauley's new book Why Religion Is Natural and Science Is Not (2011) presents a new paradigm for investigating the relationship between science and religion by exploring the cognitive foundations of religious belief and scientific knowledge. McCauley's contention is that many of the differences and disagreements regarding religion and science are the product of distinct features of human cognition that process these two domains of knowledge very differently. McCauley's thesis provides valuable insights into this relationship while not necessarily leading to a dismissive view of theology or religious belief. His paradigm allows the research lens to focus on cognitive differences in processing scientific versus religious information and the important role of automatic, unconscious, and intuitive cognitive processes in understanding both the natural and supernatural worlds.     

From Battlefield to Atomic Bomb to the Pure Land of Paradise: Employing the Bodhisattva of Compassion to Calm Japan's Spirits of the Dead

56 years after the end of World War II, the spiritual condition of Japan's military and civilian casualties remains very much a present-day concern. This is relevant not only for bereaved families, but also for city governments, religious institutions, and the state. In 1995, a new 'hall of mourning for the spirits of the unknown dead (killed) in the atomic bombing' was constructed with public and private funds at the edge of the Peace Park in Nagasaki. Enshrined within is the Buddhist bodhisattva of compassion, Kannon, along with the Amida Buddha of the Pure Land, and an attendant bodhisattva , Seishi. Despite the momentum of religious history, regular ritual practices conducted in front of these deities, and prayers for the deceased led by Buddhist priests, this is not a religious site according to city and prefectural officials. To understand the logic at work in Nagasaki requires an appreciation of legal precedents from the 1960s and 1970s involving war memorial stones as well as yearly rituals held for the military dead at Yasukuni shrine in Tokyo. At issue is a state-sanctioned process of appropriating religious figures, traditions, and ritual sites so they become 'national folkways'. Despite constitutional restrictions, public funds have been used regularly to sanction both rituals and ritual sites that perpetuate and glorify the memory of the war dead. Neither civil religion nor established religious practice, the situation in Japan provides a new paradigm regarding the dynamics of state-sponsored ritual activity.     

Religion and Charitable Financial Giving to Religious and Secular Causes: Does Political Ideology Matter?

Previous research on charitable giving has identified a significant relationship between political conservatism and greater financial giving to charitable causes. Yet that research has not adequately explored the important role of religion in that relationship, nor differences in financial giving targets (i.e., religious congregations, noncongregational religious organizations, and nonreligious organizations). Support for competing theories concerning political ideology, religious practice, and charitable financial giving is assessed using data from the Panel Study on American Ethnicity and Religion (PS‐ARE). For both religious and nonreligious giving, the effect of political ideology is completely mediated by participation in religious and civic practices. These findings support recent arguments on “practice theory” in cultural sociology and suggest that it is less the effect of ideology than of active participation in religious, political, and community organizations that explains Americans’ financial giving to religious and nonreligious organizations.     

Sri Lanka's Informal Religious Economy: Evangelical Competitiveness and Buddhist Hegemony in Perspective

Existing religious economy models maintain that as religious regulation increases, levels of interreligious competition decrease. But new understandings of the market dynamics of religious oligopolies necessitate new understandings of religious competitiveness. A relational model of competitiveness using the case of evangelical Christianity in Buddhist‐majority Sri Lanka is proposed. In Sri Lanka the informal religious economy is defined by competitiveness among evangelical Christian groups and, although not recognized by the state, is closely regulated. The focus in this article is on the scalar determinations of evangelical competitiveness, patterns of secrecy and subterfuge, the formation of strategic extra‐group networks that enable competitiveness, and outcomes of a relational model. Three insights are offered that can be used as a starting point for further work on religious oligopolies, informal economies, and relational understandings of religious competition.     

Sources of Social Support: Examining Congregational Involvement,Private Devotional Activities,and Congregational Context

Previous studies examining the relationship between religion and providing social support have claimed that religious involvement and social networks explain the higher levels of social support among religious Americans. By limiting its focus to attenders of religious congregations, this study seeks to understand if private devotional activities and congregational context also matter for predicting the provision of social support in a highly religious sample. Utilizing a sample of attenders and their congregations from the 2008/2009 U.S. Congregational Life Survey, a national survey representative of American congregations, this study uses multilevel models to examine the relationships that congregational involvement, private devotional activities, and congregational context have with providing social support. Results suggest that, among attenders of religious congregations, congregational involvement and private devotional activities matter for predicting the provision of social support, but two aspects of congregational context—size and theology—do not.