This study examines the sequentiality of corporate social responsibility (CSR) communication in the context of fintech investments by large banks. Adopting a communicative constitution of organizations (CCO) approach and extending Toulmin's model of argumentation, we analyze how organizations maintain or disrupt responsible aspects in their communicative practices. Using fuzzy-set Qualitative Comparative Analysis (fsQCA) on 56 investment transactions between 25 banks and 45 fintech firms from 2014 to 2018, we identify configurations of communicative claims associated with the presence or absence of responsible intentions. Our findings reveal a complex, non-linear relationship between CSR communication and subsequent behavior, challenging conventional assumptions about the talk-action link. We uncover a "credibility paradox" where externally validated CSR claims do not necessarily translate into responsible actions. This study contributes to CCO theory, CSR communication literature, and institutional theory by demonstrating the intricate interplay between different types of communicative claims and their impact on organizational behavior.

When corporations fail to protect the human rights of their employees and others involved in their supply chains, for example, in sweatshops (Berkey, 2019), they commit corporate human rights abuses (CHRAs). The role of businesses and states in limiting CHRAs is well documented (i.e., Brenkert. 2016; Olsen & Bernal-Bermudez, 2024). However, the role of consumers and their perceptions of CHRAs has been explored much less, and primarily confined to Western cultures (i.e., Amengual, Mota, & Ruster, 2023; Xu, Bolton & Winterich, 2021).

While individual consumers cannot be held responsible for creating systems-level change (Chater & Loewenstein, 2023; Lamberton et al., 2024), consumers do have power within their capacities to shift the minimum expectations of the companies they patronize (DeBerry-Spence et al., 2023). One specific emotional reaction that could drive consumer behavioral responses to CHRAs is moral outrage. Moral outrage is a prosocial emotion that creates a desire to restore justice for the victim by acting in favor of the victim (Thomas & McGarty, 2009). Moral outrage encapsulates anger for violating a social contract and moral norms (Lindenmeier et al., 2012; Rothschild & Keefer, 2017), and is distinct from both personal and empathetic anger as there is no direct consequence of the action on the observer (Abbasi & Amran, 2023; Antonetti & Maklan, 2014; Xu et al., 2021). Moral outrage has also been found to trigger various behaviors such as consumer boycotting (Lindenmeier et al., 2012), retaliatory actions (Kim & Austin, 2020), negative word of mouth (Grappi et al., 2013), and negative employee responses such as theft and workplace sabotage (Abbasi & Amran, 2023).

We aim to understand the roles of psychological proximity to a CHRA victim, and the Common is Moral heuristic in sparking moral outrage. Psychological proximity is “an actor’s perceived psychological closeness to others” (Ghorbani et al., 2012). While research on psychological proximity specifically to victims of CHRAs is rather limited, scholars have found that feeling psychologically close to another increases feelings of empathy (Mencl & May, 2009) and willingness to donate to a victim (Kogut et al., 2023). In their investigation on reparative behavior, Ghorbani et al. (2013) found that participants offered the most compensation to a victim when the victim was an ingroup member, who was perceived as psychologically closer, as compared to a stranger who was an outgroup member, who was perceived as more psychologically distant. In line with group membership and psychological closeness, Endevelt et al. (2021) found that participants indicated preferential treatment in the form of higher access to basic human rights to ingroup members across two studies between Jewish Israelis and Arab Israelis, and White Americans and African Americans. Taking another angle, Rothschild and Keefer (2017) studied the influence of group membership of a perpetrator of corporate labor exploitation. They found that when perpetrators of an exploitative act were members of their own ingroup, and thus psychologically closer to themselves, people were more morally outraged due to increased levels of personal guilt. Thus, we argue that understanding the role of the psychological proximity to victims of varying group membership is critical.

In addition to psychological closeness, the Common is Moral heuristic proposes that people perceive acts that are more common as more moral (Lindenmeier et al. 2023). Hence, we aim to establish whether unethical business practices that have been established as common in a country are perceived as less immoral than when they are uncommon, resulting in less moral outrage. This builds on a recent conjoint experiment conducted by Amengual et al. (2023) analyzing US-based consumer perceptions of a multi-national enterprise’s involvement in CHRA. Critically, they found that this US-based sample tolerated a CHRA that occurred in a foreign country where it was allowed due to sociocultural/legal norms but did not tolerate that same CHRA when it happened within their country. This supports the view that, unfortunately, consumers may perceive human rights as relativistic based on cultural norms, and not universally inalienable (Brenkert 2016; Carlson & Listhaug 2007).

We propose that psychological closeness and the Common is Moral heuristic affect moral outrage by influencing harm perceptions. Prior research into consumers’ perceptions of harm has focused on product-harm crises, wherein the ones being harmed by a business practice are the consumers themselves (Cleeran, Dekimpe, & van Heerde, 2017; Jones & Middelton, 2007; Kim, 2014; Klein & Dawar, 2004; Vassilikopoulou et al., 2011). There has been some research into consumer perceptions of the harm of unethical business practices toward employees (Ingram, Skinner, & Taylor, 2005; Kim & Austin, 2020) and the environment (Lakhan, 2016; Rademaker, Royne, & Wahlund, 2015). From this, it was consistently found that consumers punished the company more when an action was deemed more harmful. We aim to further the current understanding of the role of harm perceptions by extending this stream of research towards perceived harm of CHRAs by consumers. Thus, we also investigate the mediating role of harm perceptions between psychological closeness to a victim and the Common is Moral heuristic on moral outrage.

In addition to these individual-level differences, we also aim to explore how different cultural backgrounds influence the harm perceptions and moral outrage consumers feel towards CHRAs. Research into how cultural differences influence consumers has focused on individualism versus collectivism, however, these results remain inconsistent and inconclusive (Jami et al. 2023). In this project, we focus on power distance belief (PDB), defined as “the extent to which less powerful members of institutions and organizations within a country expect and accept that power is distributed unequally (Hofstede & Bond, 1984). In prior research, PDB has been measured at both the individual and country level, and research has indicated that higher PDB leads to increased acceptance of social inequalities (Xu et al., 2021). We referred to Hofstede Insights and identified three countries with significant differences relevant to this research context – Malaysia (scoring 100 out of 100 on PDB), Singapore (scoring 74 out of 100 on PDB) and the USA (scoring 40 out of 100 on PDB). In addition to offering a diverse cultural perspective through PDB, exploring consumer perspectives across these three countries allows us to move beyond a typical binary perspective of culture. Singapore has a higher GDP per capita than the USA (World Bank, 2024), offering further nuance beyond culture alone.

Thus, the goal of this project is to understand how feeling psychologically close to a victim of a CHRA (Ghorbani et al., 2012; Jeong & Kim, 2023) and how common a CHRA is within a country (Amengual et al., 2023; Lindenmeier et al. 2014) may influence how harmful individual consumers perceive CHRAs to be (Ingram et al., 2005; Kim & Austin, 2020; Xu et al., 2021), and how these harm perceptions then influence moral outrage. Additionally, we aim to explore how PDB moderates the relationship between psychological closeness and commonness and harm perceptions. Finally, we aim to provide some insight into how decreased moral outrage towards CHRAs can be mitigated with a multi-stakeholder perspective spanning business action, policy-level legislation, and consumer-led action.

Our methodology is as follows – We have conducted expert interviews to frame the overall research context and further inform our research question. Then, we conducted a series of pre-tests with an American Prolific sample. In the coming weeks, we will run three waves of (online) studies with consumers from Malaysia, Singapore and the USA to provide insight into the questions outlined above.

In the rest of this paper, we will outline the results of our expert interviews and series of pre-tests, and finally, outline the structure of our cross-cultural studies.

Expert Interviews

As a first step, we conducted five interviews with experts in Business and Human Rights. Our goal was to understand whether culture is a relevant factor from the perspective of expert practitioners and gain additional insights into corporate human rights and consumer behavior. Our overarching research question was “How do experts perceive culture to influence consumer reactions to CHRAs, and what cross-cultural differences or rising salient issues in the corporate human rights arena should we be sensitive to in our research?”.

Sample. Our sample is comprised of five experts in business and human rights. Their expert status was determined as panel speakers during the United Nations Business and Human Rights 2023 forum.

Procedure. The experts were approached after the forum via LinkedIn and informed about the goal of the interviews. Upon agreeing to the interview, they were sent a consent form via e-mail, which was signed and returned before the interviews occurred. All the interviews took place between February and March 2024 via Zoom. The interviews were conducted in a semi-structured style following an established interview guide, but with some deviations as needed according to the pace of each interview. The interviews were recorded and transcribed via Otter.ai. Analysis was then conducted using CAQDAS Atlas.ti.

Summary of Findings. From these interviews, we found five themes, four of which were sorted into aggregate themes, i) Cultural Influences, encompassing Conflict Between Cultures and Cultural Norms & Sensitivities, and ii) Rising Human Rights Issues, encompassing Migrant vs Local Workers and Forced Labor & Modern Slavery. One additional theme outside these aggregate themes is Consumer Factors.

The Cultural Influences aggregate theme offered further insight into how culture impacts consumer responses to CHRAs. A particularly relevant finding comes from the Conflict Between Cultures theme. Our experts indicated that there is a perception from the Asian sample that a lot of human rights policies are enforcements of Western-based values, or even attempts to suppress the progress of non-Western business. Additionally, policy differences between countries further exacerbate how CHRAs are perceived, as employment laws differ significantly per region. The Cultural Norms & Sensitivities theme has provided valuable insights on creating vignettes for our experimental studies that consider specific cultural aspects that might have caused spillover effects in our manipulations.

The Rising Issues in Human Rights aggregate theme also indicated several issues within the human rights arena that are particularly critical at this moment in time. Specifically, the importance of addressing the distinct issues between Migrant versus Local Workers. Our experts outlined the various distinctions between local and migrant workers, detailed the unique vulnerabilities that migrant workers experience, and, in particular, migrant workers’ lack of awareness of and/or hesitance to use the various avenues of support they may have. Additionally, all interviewees stressed the importance of considering Forced Labor & Modern Slavery as a focal CHRA. These insights provide novel pathways to investigate regarding consumer perceptions.

Beyond Cultural Influences and the Rising Human Rights Issues, our experts also discussed various Consumer Factors that lead to differing levels of perceived importance of CHRAs in consumption choices. In particular, the Lack of Proximity and Lack of Relevance are themes that are interesting for our research question. Consumers can justify deprioritizing CHRAs due to the distance between themselves and where these abuses occur, and additionally, consumers perceive there is little they can do about the abuse. Thus, CHRAs are not perceived as relevant to their purchasing choices.

These findings have aided us in defining our scope of research for the experimental studies. Firstly, expert opinions support that culture does have an influence on how different consumers may perceive CHRAs, and also that there is value in investigating these perceptions beyond a purely Western lens. Furthermore, we also find that incorporating issues that are less established in consumer research such as forced labor and migrant labor would be particularly relevant for the field.

Pre-Test One: Psychological Closeness of Modern Slavery, Power Distance Belief, Harm Perceptions, and Downstream Consequences

To operationalize psychological proximity in a practically relevant manner, and to reflect the findings of the expert interviews, we aimed to understand how consumer attitudes differ when (fictional) Company X conducted CHRAs against locals (ingroup, and more psychological proximity) compared to migrant workers in the US (outgroup, and less psychological proximity) and workers in another country (outgroup, and even less psychological proximity). We recruited 300 participants (Mage = 40.5, SD = 12.82, 56.7% female) via Prolific to participate in this online experiment,

Summary of Findings. In our first study, psychological proximity had no significant effects on our dependent variables of brand attitude, willingness to sign a petition against the company, and agreement with corrective action against the company.

Critically, our manipulation check failed, which could have been because the differences between our conditions were not salient enough. Alternatively, we also believe that our phrasing of the CHRA was too heavyhanded. The CHRA we outlined was modern slavery, following the advice from our expert interviews. However, we noticed some reactance from participants for the specific term “slavery”. This led to a ceiling effect for all the dependent variables, with little variation across any of the groups. To isolate the effect of CHRAs in follow-up experiments, we will adjust our phrasing to be less historically or emotionally charged.

However, we did find that PDB did influence harm perceptions, wherein those with higher PDB reported lowered harm perceptions for CHRAs against foreign workers. We also found that increased harm perceptions resulted in decreased brand attitude, increased willingness to sign a petition against Company X, and corrective action against Company X.

Pre-Test Two: Commonness of a CHRA and Moral Outrage via Harm Perceptions

To test the Common is Moral heuristic, we aimed to establish whether unethical business practices established as common in a country are perceived as less immoral than when they are uncommon, resulting in less moral outrage. To do this, we recruited 199 participants (Mage = 40.6, SD = 13.14, 60.8% female) via Prolific. The study was a 2-leveled (CHRA common vs. CHRA uncommon) between-subjects design.

Summary of Findings. We did not find a direct effect of the commonness of a CHRA in a particular country generating less moral outrage. However, using Hayes PROCESS Macro, we did find that if a CHRA was stated as common in a country, it resulted in lowered harm perceptions compared to when the CHRA was stated to be uncommon (b = -0.50, SE = .28, t (195) = -2.22, p = .028). Furthermore, moral outrage was also reported lower when harm perceptions were lower (b = 0.59, SE = 0.76, t (196) = 2.42, p < .001). PDB had a significant negative effect on harm perceptions across conditions, namely, participants who had a higher power distance belief perceived CHRAs as less harmful (b = -0.46, SE = 0.07, t (195) = -6.75, p <.001). Thus, we concluded that the Common is Moral heuristic (Lindenmeier et al., 2014) partially holds in this pilot sample, and we aim to further establish this finding in follow-up studies.

Cross-Cultural Effects: Forthcoming Studies

While we were unable to establish a consistent effect of psychological proximity and the Common is Moral heuristic on harm perceptions and moral outrage, we have found that PDB has a significant negative effect on harm perceptions. We have also identified some critical factors in the development of the stimuli, namely, to make the CHRA descriptions less incendiary to allow for variance between the groups.

With this, we believe that we are at a good point to begin our cross-cultural studies, which will run in three waves. The first wave will involve 50 participants per country (a total of 150), where we aim to ensure that our stimuli are similarly perceived across our cultural samples to ensure we are able to isolate the experimental effects.

The second wave will involve 700 participants per country (a total of 2100 participants). In this wave, we will test the effects of psychological proximity and the Common is Moral heuristic on moral outrage through harm perceptions, and account for the moderating role of PDB. The stimuli will be adjusted to each country to ensure the Local vs Migrant Worker vs Foreign Worker conditions are accurate to each country, and the Commonness of the CHRA will be manipulated per country as well.

In the third wave (involving an estimated 150 participants per country, with 450 participants in total), we plan to identify some cross-cultural mitigation strategies for any acceptance of CHRAs, for example, by increasing empathy (Eklund et al., 2019; Lee et al., 2016; Xu et al., 2021).

In the era of data capitalism, technological advancements and the commodification of personal data have fundamentally reshaped market dynamics, often creating significant power asymmetries between big data firms and individuals. This paper argues that mainstream economic frameworks, particularly those rooted in neoclassical economic thought, are inadequate for addressing the ethical challenges posed by this shift. These frameworks prioritize efficiency and profit maximization, often neglecting issues of social justice, consumer autonomy, and societal well-being.

Drawing on the principles of the Economy of Francesco (EoF) movement, which is deeply rooted in Franciscan economic thought and the civil economy tradition, this paper proposes an alternative ethical framework. It emphasises the importance of the common good, reciprocity, and the stewardship of resources in economic interactions. Through this lens, I introduce the concept of data citizenship, which repositions individuals from passive consumers to empowered citizens with control over their digital identities. This shift challenges the prevailing logic of data extraction and calls for the democratisation of data wealth, equitable resource distribution, and regulatory frameworks that protect human dignity and foster societal well-being.

In addition to critiquing the manipulative practices of data capitalism, the paper offers practical policy recommendations, including stronger regulations for data ownership, transparent data governance, and the creation of data cooperatives. These reforms aim to humanise data capitalism by aligning business practices with the common good and by fostering a trinomial approach that involves markets, the state, and society in the governance of data.

This paper contributes to the growing discourse on how businesses can redesign their practices to not only achieve economic prosperity but also advance social justice and sustainability.

Employee blood donations: Novel method for employee engagement in CSR

One in three Australians will need blood, yet only one in 30 (3%) currently donates, with blood donations declining even further during the COVID-19 years. Ensuring adequate numbers of blood, plasma, and platelet donors nationally is essential to maintaining the vital supply of these life-saving products, as they enable treatment for cancer, disease, and trauma patients, pregnant women, and new mothers.

One novel way of addressing this gap is by encouraging employees to donate blood through their workplace. Australian Red Cross Lifeblood has introduced “Lifeblood Teams”, an initiative encouraging people to donate blood as a team, primarily through the workplace. This can be done as part of a company’s corporate social responsibility (CSR) and employee engagement. Lifeblood collaborates with organisations to boost donations. However, little research exists on group blood donations or employee workplace blood donations.

The study aimed to improve the understanding of employees’ motivations, benefits, barriers to workplace blood donations, and positive workplace outcomes. Based on a mixed-method study with 300 survey responses and 19 interviews, the study offers evidence-based guidance to Lifeblood and its corporate partners on better employee engagement in this significant activity and maximising mutual benefits.

Literature review

Blood donation motivations, in general, encompass both internal and external drivers. Internally, altruism emerges as a predominant motivator, where individuals selflessly desire to help others in need and experience emotional satisfaction from contributing to their community’s well-being (Chell et al., 2018). Empathy and a sense of social responsibility towards those requiring blood transfusions are also internal factors compelling individuals to donate, contributing to their community’s welfare (Chell et al., 2018; Ferguson et al., 2019). Additionally, self-efficacy and perceived behavioural control, reflecting people’s confidence in their ability to contribute to this life-saving cause, play vital roles in blood donation (Bednall et al., 2013). Carver et al. (2018) also suggested that social influence, including peer pressure and support from social circles, is also a powerful motivator. Applied to workplace blood donations, we could expect to see a combination of internal/external and altruistic/self-serving drivers, as well as the influence and encouragement of work peers. Yet, data on these motivations and drivers in workplace settings is currently lacking.

Contrary to motivations, blood donation barriers are self-related and include fear of needles and blood, physical discomfort during or after donation, and health issues. Barriers can also comprise recent treatments, lack of knowledge about the process, concerns about potential health risks, time constraints, inconvenient donation site locations, restrictive criteria, and fear of side effects like dizziness or weakness (Masser et al., 2008; Thorpe et al., 2020). It is imperative to understand what stops people from donating blood in the workplace and if any barriers can be addressed and removed.

Blood donation offers numerous benefits to individuals and society. The primary advantage is the opportunity to save lives through blood provision for surgeries, trauma care, and medical treatments, highlighting donors’ altruistic nature (Bednall et al., 2013). Donors often experience personal satisfaction and pride as contributors to their community’s well-being, fostering a sense of shared responsibility and community connection. For society, a stable and safe blood supply is crucial for various medical treatments, including emergencies (Chell et al., 2018). Additionally, there are potential health benefits for donors, such as a reduced risk of certain health conditions (Bednall et al., 2013). We still need to understand the benefits to employees who donate blood through the workplace, their teams, company, and society.

Involving employees in giving through the workplace, including blood donations, is often part of CSR. CSR is often referred to as corporate actions aimed to voluntarily promote social good beyond the interests of the firm and its shareholders and its legal obligations. However, as CSR is often perceived as charitable giving (Brammer et al., 2009), Haski-Leventhal (2021, p. 10) offered a more comprehensive definition: “a holistic and long-term approach to the broad responsibilities of business, based on stakeholder integration and ethical behaviour, while utilising the firm’s resources and brand to address societal and environmental issues.” To achieve such a holistic approach, companies involve their stakeholders, especially their employees, in giving. While corporate volunteering has been documented previously, no publications on employee blood donations exist. There is no current knowledge of the relationship between those different forms of giving through the workplace.

Extensive corporate volunteering research shows that people’s giving individually differs from doing so through the workplace regarding how and why. While people often volunteer for altruistic reasons (to help people or a cause) and for self-centred reasons (e.g., career opportunities), they do so in the workplace for different motivations: volunteering helps make their work more meaningful, they want to do it as part of their team, and they are encouraged by seeing how much more they can do together with their peers (Haski-Leventhal et al., 2019, 2021). Word-of-mouth of trusted peers is vital in encouraging people to volunteer through the workplace (Plewa et al., 2015), as it is in blood donations in general (Carver et al., 2018; Martin et al., 2019), but data is still lacking on how this applies to employee blood donation.

Furthermore, research shows that corporate volunteering offers positive outcomes for employees (addressing needs and increasing well-being, see Haski-Leventhal et al., 2019); companies (e.g., creating shared value, purpose, and employee engagement, Brammer et al., 2009; Porter & Kramer, 2011); and the broader community (access to resources). Yet, there are no parallel studies on the positive outcomes of donating blood through the workplace. Extensive research on other forms of giving highlights the beneficial effects on the giver’s life, physical health, and psychological well-being (Harbaugh et al., 2007). When these are performed in the workplace, donating blood is not only more effective but can also benefit the business sector in Australia and help promote CSR. Understanding how to enhance such giving through the workplace can also provide a meaningful manner for employers to engage employees and achieve numerous positive outcomes for the employees, employers, society, and the economy (Brammer et al., 2009). Consequently, these innovative ways of individual and organisational giving can change the giving landscape in Australia and benefit all players (including new and excluded ones) on the micro, meso, and macro levels.

It is critical to understand how blood donation through the workplace benefits employees, their teams, the organisation, and society, as it could build a strong rationale (the “business case”) for doing so on a broader level. If more companies realise the multi-faceted benefits of blood donations in the workplace, as they did with corporate volunteering, an increase in the number of companies involved in blood supply can be expected.

Methods

To explore employee blood donations through the workplace, we utilised a mixed-methods approach (quantitative and qualitative data collection) involving a large-scale survey and interviews. The research aims were to:

1. assess donors’ giving behaviour, blood donations, motivations, barriers, and intentions to donate blood in the future;
2. examine the organisational factors and processes that can help facilitate this giving (processes, culture, norms, leadership behaviour, team cohesiveness, etc.); and
3. identify positive outcomes of blood donations to donors and companies.

We surveyed donors and non-donors in four Australian companies. The survey focused on giving behaviour, blood donations through and outside the workplace, motivations, barriers, and intentions among donors and non-donors. It also looked at several positive outcomes for individuals and the company. Overall, 359 employees participated in the survey, of which 299 were deemed usable data.

We conducted interviews to collect qualitative data and gain insight into people’s perceptions, experiences, and psychological mechanisms that encourage or prevent employees from donating blood through the workplace. We developed several interview guides to collect data on the processes and outcomes of blood donations and explore what could help employers increase participation and impact. Overall, 19 interviews were conducted with workplace donors (7), non-workplace donors (5), Lifeblood champions and CSR officers (5), and non-donors (2).

The researchers analysed the data and shared their findings with the Lifeblood team to develop further insights and interpretations. We analysed the aggregated results for all four companies. The analysis will examine the relationship between blood donation, gender, and work mode (from home, the workplace, or hybrid). In addition, we conducted a theme analysis on the qualitative data, including the interview transcripts and the open-ended questions in the survey, which will also be presented.

Of the 299 valid survey responses, 168 identified as female (56.2% of the total sample), with only 1% (four people) identifying as non-binary. The average age of respondents was 42 years. Regarding organisational level, 5.7% were in senior management, 27.8% in middle management, 41.8% intermediate, and 18.1% were in entry-level jobs. Most employees worked in hybrid mode (80.0%), mainly from home (51.2%). Education levels included 13.7% school level, 17.4% reported a trade qualification, 37.1% had a bachelor’s degree, and 28.8% had a post-graduate degree or diploma. Most respondents (86%) were employed full-time. Two respondents were CSR officers, 15 were workplace Lifeblood champions, and 14 were Lifeblood champions through another role. Table 1 provides the sample’s details.

Findings

The findings of the research will be presented at the conference. They will examine motivations, barriers and other factors related to donating blood in general and through the workplace in particular. The qualitative and quantitative data will be used to explore what makes employees donate blood through the workplace while also assessing the roles of gender identity, working mode (from home or office), and employment type.

For example, when asked about their motivation to donate blood through the workplace, the top answers were: “If I donate blood through my workplace, I am confident that I can find time to donate”; “Donating blood through the workplace is more convenient” (where 47.5% of females strongly agreed vs 28.6% of males; and those who work from the workplace strongly agreeing more than others); “Donating blood is aligned with our corporate values” (39.5% of females strongly agreed vs 21.4% of males); “If I donate blood through my workplace, I will more likely remember to donate” (39.5% of females strongly agreed vs 21.4% of males, and 39% of hybrid mostly from home strongly agreed vs only 7.7% of those working from home only).

The main barrier for the respondents was lack of awareness of such an option (35.1% agreed or strongly agreed ), followed by “I feel that donating blood is a very personal and private activity” (26.8%), “No one in my immediate team donates blood” (25.8%), “I don’t know anyone in my workplace who donates blood” (25.1%, but 8.9% of males strongly agreed vs 4.9% of females). Interestingly, while 54.7% strongly disagreed with “Our workplace should be about work and performance only”, far more females did so than males (61.7% vs 43.8%). Similar results were found for “I feel a blood donation program is only done for PR” (54.9% of females strongly disagreed vs 31.1% of males). Males agreed more with “I would lose time from work” (17% vs 13.6% of females).

More advanced statistical analysis will be conducted and shared in the presentation.

References

Australian Red Cross (2024). Donate as a group. Available at: https://www.redcross.org.au/act/action-catalogue/fundraising-and-donations/donate-as-a-group/

Bednall, T. C., Bove, L. L., Cheetham, A., & Murray, A. L. (2013). A systematic review and meta-analysis of antecedents of blood donation behavior and intentions. Social science & medicine, 96, 86-94.

Brammer, S. J., Pavelin, S., & Porter, L. A. (2009). Corporate charitable giving, multinational companies and countries of concern. Journal of Management Studies, 46(4), 575–596.

Carver, A., Chell, K., Davison, T. E., & Masser, B. M. (2018). What motivates men to donate blood? A systematic review of the evidence. Vox sanguinis, 113(3), 205-219.

Chell, K., Davison, T. E., Masser, B., & Jensen, K. (2018). A systematic review of incentives in blood donation. Transfusion, 58(1), 242-254.

Ferguson, E., Murray, C., & O’Carroll, R. E. (2019). Blood and organ donation: health impact, prevalence, correlates, and interventions. Psychology & Health, 34(9), 1073-1104.

Harbaugh, W. T., Mayr, U., & Burghart, D. R. (2007). Neural responses to taxation and voluntary giving reveal motives for charitable donations. Science, 316(5831), 1622–1625.

Haski-Leventhal, D. (2021). Strategic CSR: Holistic approach to responsible and sustainable business (2nd ed.). SAGE.

Haski-Leventhal, D., Kach, A., & Pournader, M. (2019). Employee needs satisfaction and positive workplace outcomes: The role of corporate volunteering. Nonprofit and Voluntary Sector Quarterly, 48(3), 593–615.

Lifeblood (2024). Our research. Available at: https://www.lifeblood.com.au/our-research

Masser, B. M., White, K. M., Hyde, M. K., & Terry, D. J. (2008). The psychology of blood donation: Current research and future directions. Transfusion Medicine Reviews, 22(3), 215-233.

Plewa, C., Conduit, J., Quester, P. G., & Johnson, C. (2015). The impact of corporate volunteering on CSR image: A consumer perspective. Journal of Business Ethics, 127, 643-659.

Porter, M., & Kramer, M. (2011). Creating shared value. Harvard Business Review, 89(1/2): 62–77.

Thorpe, R., Masser, B. M., Nguyen, L., & Davison, T. E. (2020). Understanding donation frequency: Insights from current plasma donors. Vox Sanguinis, 115(2), 174-181.

This study examines how majority and minority employees differ in their experiences of inclusion, inclusive leadership, and an inclusive climate. It responds to previous calls in the literature to provide further insight into these differences (e.g., Fujimoto & Uddin, 2022; Nishii, 2013; Randel et al., 2018; Shore et al., 2018). Specifically, we will investigate whether employees who perceive themselves as part of the majority or minority group experience different levels of inclusion and whether these differences are influenced by their perceptions of inclusive leadership and an inclusive climate. By focusing on individual-level perceptions, we aim to offer deeper insights into how organizations can foster inclusion for all employees, regardless of their demographic background. To investigate the relationship between majority and minority status, inclusion levels, inclusive leadership, and an inclusive climate, we conducted a survey targeting employees from fifteen large organizations in the Netherlands. Data collection occurred between December 2023 and March 2024 and included responses from approximately 1,100 employees across various demographic backgrounds. The analysis focuses on individual-level perceptions. We will use Structural Equation Modeling with Partial Least Squares (SEM-PLS) to estimate the relationships between majority/minority status, perceived inclusion, inclusive leadership, and inclusive climate, in line with the theoretical model underlying our hypotheses. The analyses will be conducted in the upcoming months.