기부자평판과 기부시점이 기업오너의 기부행동에 대한 소비자평가에 미치는 영향

Abstract

As an act of corporate social responsibility, business owners increasingly make pledges of donations for various social causes. A donation pledge is typically made in terms of the amount of donation and the time of payment. The present research investigates the way in which the donor’s personal reputation and the pledged time of payment influence consumers’ evaluation of the donation event and the processes underlying these influences. According to the theory and research on construal level theory (Trope and Liberman 2003),people are inclined to consider the intrinsic value of an action and to render moral value judgments when they expect the action to occur in the distant future, whereas they focus on more concrete details and immediate consequences of the action when they expect it to occur in the near future. Based on this, we propose that consumers focus on the donation behavior itself in evaluating the donation event when the actual payment is pledged to be made immediately (near future)but take into consideration the donor’ personal reputation as well when the payment is scheduled to be made after a considerable amount of time in future (distant future). Two experiments reported in the present research evaluated and confirmed the implications of this proposition. In experiment 1 participants were asked to read a newspaper article about a donation pledge made by a business owner and then to make overall evaluations of the donation event. The pledged time of payment was experimentally varied. Specifically, participants were told that the donor pledged to make the actual payment either next year (distant future condition) or next day (near future condition). In addition, the donor’s personal reputation was experimentally manipulated. That is, the donor was described in the scenario either as a business person with a respectful personal life (good reputation condition) or as a business person with a disreputable manner in personal life (bad reputation condition). An analysis of participants’ evaluation of the donation event as a function of the time of payment (near future vs. distant future) and the donor’s reputation (good vs. bad) produced the hypothesized interaction of these variables. Further analyses indicated that the donation event was evaluated favorably regardless of the time of payment conditions when the donor had a good reputation,whereas it was evaluated significantly less favorably in the distant future condition than in the near future condition when the donor had a bad reputation. To state it differently, the evaluation of the donation event generally increased as the donor’s personal reputation increased, but this tendency was evident only in the distant future condition. These results suggest that participants in the distant future condition considered the global, morality-related criteria (i.e., donor’s personal reputation) in evaluating the donation event, whereas those in the near future condition focused on more specific, action-related criteria (i.e., the donation behavior itself). Experiment 2 replicated the results observed in experiment 1 and in addition, identified boundary conditions and mediating processes for the effects. The experimental stimuli and procedure were similar to those of experiment 1. In this case, however, the donor’s personal reputation was always positive. In addition, some participants were asked to rehearse a 9-digit number while evaluating the donation event (high cognitive load condition), whereas other participants did not rehearse a number while evaluating the donation event (low cognitive load condition). Therefore, the experiment involved a 2 (time of payment: near vs. distant future) x 2 (cognitive load: high vs. low) factorial design. An analysis of evaluations of the donation event produced a significant interaction of time of payment and cognitive load. Further analyses indicated that participants under low cognitive load evaluated the donation event less favorably in the distant future condition than in the near future condition, thus replicating the results obtained in experiment 1. In contrast,participants under high cognitive load condition evaluated the donation event consistently favorably regardless of the time of payment conditions. These results suggest that global,morality-related criteria are considered primarily and spontaneously when a future donation is evaluated, but more specific, action-related criteria are considered primarily and deliberately when an immediate donation is evaluated. One practical implication of findings in our research is that whereas the donation made by a business owner with a bad reputation may produce a backfire effect under certain conditions, it can produce a positive effect if the temporal distance between the pledge and the actual payment is carefully managed and the factors affecting consumers’ cognitive load are effectively controlled.