Examining the Effect of Social Media Communication on Donation Intention via Perceived Moral Obligation
Abstract
Social media plays an important role in influencing charity-giving responses. Building on Stimulus-Organism-Response (S-O-R) model, this study examined the influence of social media communication i.e., firm-created content (FCC) and user-generated content (UGC) on behavioral response of donation intention through perceived moral obligation (PMO) as a mediator. A cross-sectional online survey was conducted with the followers of selected NPOs’ social media pages. Data were collected from 307 respondents. Authors employed structural equation modelling technique (SEM) for hypotheses testing. Results indicated that stimuli of FCC and UGC positively influenced PMO, which in turn, generated behavioral response of donation intention. The study was novel in the sense that it attempted to fill the research gap of empirically examining the underlying psychological mechanism through which social media communication influences behavioral outcomes particularly in the charitable NPO context. The study has theoretical implications and practical contributions from multidisciplinary perspectives such as consumer behavior, social media communication, and NPOs.
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