The effect of organization type on societies’ approval of employee financial compensation and the moderating role of job emphasis.

(1)

The effect of organization type on societies’ approval

of employee financial compensation and the

moderating role of job emphasis.

(2)

The effect of organization type on societies’ approval of employee

financial compensation and the moderating role of job emphasis.

Master Thesis

MSc Marketing Management University of Groningen Faculty of Economics and Business

Department of Marketing

July 1st_{, 2019}

(3)

ABSTRACT

This study contributes to the body of overhead aversion research in the charity context by examining whether clearly communicating the job status changes donor’s minds on appropriateness of financial compensation. There is some evidence that for the charity sector job emphasis does indeed positively moderate the perceived appropriateness of financial compensation. The previous literature is further expanded by adding the public sector to one’s perception of appropriateness of financial compensation. A survey experiment including nearly 500 U.S. participants showed that the public sector is more similarly perceived to the for-profit sector than the charity sector. In the contrary to what was expected, the overall attitude towards the charity sector is the most positive out of all three organization types.

(4)

PREFACE

This thesis is part of my final phase of the Master Marketing Management study at the Rijksuniversiteit Groningen. A guest lecture by Dr. Marijke Leliveld about ‘The psychology of donating to charity’ sparked my interest for the topic. The overall idea behind this paper, understanding when and how we engage and support prosocial behavior, eventually lead to the topic of this thesis. This study provided an opportunity to gain a better understanding of the psychological aspect behind marketing and to investigate what makes consumers think and behave in certain ways.

I would like to thank Dr. Marijke Leliveld for her valuable input, guidance and continuous support during the process of writing this thesis.

Groningen, July 1st_{, 2019}

(5)

Our society is dependent on the existence of many different organization types. Non-profit organizations, for instance, are trying to do good for our society by solving societal issues, such as poverty, hunger and illnesses, for local as well as global causes (Moore, 2000). For-profit companies, on the other hand, provide us with services and goods like food, electronics, clothes and they keep our economy running. Finally, the existence of the public sector secures education, healthcare and safety, in form of nurses, doctors, teachers, firefighters and policemen. (Mosher, 1978; Goulet & Frank, 2002)

All of these organization types have something in common: they provide jobs for our society. Hence, as a consequence they also all face the issue of how much to pay their employees. However, society’s approval towards financial compensation of these different types of occupations seems to differ between the organization types (Leliveld, Mouhdi & Zhong, & Bolderdijk, 2019). For example, for-profit organizations are not often criticized for paying their employees, as it is common practice to financially compensate employees for their work. In fact, the concern is more often whether employees are perhaps even underpaid for the work they do. It is also possible that the employer will be prosecuted and forced to pay his employees any underpaid amounts they were entitled to, based on minimum wage. Moreover, in those cases employers are likely to face additional penalties as well (Williams, 2018).

(7)

Put differently, being able to pay good charity employees sufficiently can result in more donations coming in, which results in more causes that can be supported (Newman, Shinderman, Cain, & Sevel, 2018). However, charity’s overhead expenditures also play a role in the donation decision of the donors. Charities with higher overhead receive less donations than charities with lower overhead (Portillo & Stinn, 2018), which is making it difficult to hire and pay good employees.

Hence, there seems to be a large difference between for-profit and charity organizations when it comes to employee compensation. This seems to be in line with the concept of tainted altruism, which implies that people dislike individuals who benefit from doing good (Newman & Cain, 2013). Therefore, receiving a paycheck for working at a charity may be perceived as inappropriate by many people.

Interestingly, public sector organizations are - like charities - also often aiming at serving the people and doing good for society at large (Goulet & Frank, 2002). Firefighters, nurses, doctors, teachers, and the police all work for a safer and better society. They take care of people in need, very similar as to what charity employees do (Buurman, Delfgaauw, Dur & Van den Bossche, 2012). To the best of my knowledge, no research has been done about whether people dislike paying those who work in the public sector similarly as they dislike paying those who work for a charity. Moreover, many jobs exist in all three organization types. For example, a nurse can work in a private hospital, a public hospital or for a charity. Similarly, an animal caretaker can work in private veterinary practice, a government funded public petting-zoo or in a charity animal shelter.

The question thus becomes, what determines whether it is perceived as appropriate to receive financial compensation for the work performed? Why are we in favor of paying for-profit employees but not charity employees? And how appropriate do we find it to pay people working in the public sector?

(8)

the bankers decided to resume their work. These examples show that it is not that clear how different (or equal) the for-profit and the public sector are perceived.

When it comes to charity, interestingly a recent preliminary study suggests that charity work is often perceived as a strictly voluntary and unpaid work (Leliveld et al., 2019). Whereas most people agree that people, in general, should be paid for their work, they don’t perceive charity work to be ‘real’ work, but instead strictly as volunteerism. People motivated their answers by writing ‘I believe it’s inappropriate to financially compensate someone if the work they are doing is voluntary, since it’s their own time they’re putting in for supposed altruistic motives.’ or ‘I’m not sure if people who take part in non-profit charitable organizations should be paid. I feel that is a voluntary thing and any money should go to charity.’

Hence, the question arises if people would be less critical of employee payment in the charity sector, once it is made clear that it is a real job opposed to voluntary work. Therefore, in this research I tested whether people will be more accepting of employee compensation in charity organizations once people are aware that the job is a full-time job (by explaining the employee had to properly apply for the job and compete for the position with other applicants).

In sum, the aim of this thesis is two-folded. First, I studied how financial compensation of employees is perceived for being active in for-profit, public and charitable contexts. Second, I studied whether emphasizing charity work is a regular job changes people’s willingness to accept financial compensation. Moreover, it is tested whether appropriateness of the financial compensation and expectancy violation have a mediating effect on the general attitude towards the individual and the organization.

THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK

In order to get a better understanding of why overhead aversion can be observed for the charity sector but not for the for-profit sector, it will first be explained what overhead aversion is and what already has been researched about it. Further, some other theories related to the differences between charities, for-profits and the public sector will be discussed. Namely, theory of tainted altruism, relational schemata and taboo trade-offs. Finally, the theory of expectancy violation and job emphasis as a potential mediator are explained.

Overhead aversion

(9)

are very sensitive towards how charities spend their money (Gneezy et al., 2014; Caviola, Faulmüller, Everett, Savulescu, & Kahane, 2014). Consumers seem to prefer when their donations are put towards the ultimate cause: they want their money to have direct impact on “the good” the charity is doing (Duncan, 2004; Gneezy et al., 2014; Wong & Ortmann, 2015). Previous studies have shown that donors often use overhead as a first measure of determining which charity to donate to (Caviola et al., 2014; Gneezy et al., 2014).

Overhead aversion causes many issues for charities as the tension created between what the donor wants and believes to be best, and the ability that charities can fulfill their objectives is counterproductive (Portillo & Stinn, 2018). In fact, higher salaries for charity employees increases the organization’s ability to attract top talent, and larger budgets can raise public awareness and therefore generate more donations and revenue to do good (Newman et al., 2018). However, charities in the U.S., as well as abroad, are heavily reliant on individual donors (McDowel, Li, & Smith, 2013; Weisbrod & Dominguez, 1986). A recent study shows that if an overhead-free donation option is available to donors, the average donor will prefer to donate to that charity over charities with overhead expenses (Gordon & Khumawala; 1999Portillo & Stinn, 2018; Tinkelman, 1998). Hence, if a donor is deciding which charity to donate to and no overhead-free charity is an option, donors prefer if their donations go towards fundraising efforts opposed to salary-related expenditures (Portillo & Stinn, 2018). In fact, they showed that the component of overhead potential donors are most critical about is the financial compensation of the employees.

Clearly, the overhead aversion of potential donors hinders the charity from doing good. An advertisement by the CharityDefenseCouncil.org, makes this very clear. The ad shows a young man working for a charity, dedicated to finding a cure for breast cancer. The person featured on the advertisement (Please see Appendix A, Table 1 for the full ad) criticizes that people argue his work is not contributing to the cause, while he points out that without his work there is not even a cause. He further points out that he works on ‘the cause’ tirelessly every hour of the day and every day of the week, as he is extremely committed to the work he does. The advertisement further states “My name is Martin Hodges. I’m committed to ending breast cancer, and I’m overhead.”

(10)

Tainted altruism

According to Newman and Cain (2013), people often criticize charitable efforts that also provide personal gains. When people consider a charitable effort that at the same time also realizes a personal benefit, such as financial compensation, they see an essential contrast between the charitable and selfish behavior. Newman and Cain (2014) introduced the concept of so-called tainted altruism, which implies that people do not like benefitting from doing good. This is in line with donors’ aversion to pay employees (i.e., benefit) for their work at a charity (i.e., doing good). This is often even perceived as worse, less moral and less ethical, than not giving to charity at all (Newman & Cain, 2014). When consequently the same behavior is considered in the absence of self-interest, they conclude that the person did not behave as altruistic as he or she could have (Newman & Cain, 2013). Therefore, people are likely to perceive the person in question in a negative way (Newman & Cain 2013).

However, in for-profit organizations there is no apparent charitable effort, but rather a more selfish, profit driven behavior at play. In this case, people never make a comparison between charitable and selfish behavior, as the charitable component is missing entirely, and therefore people do not even consider whether the person could have been more altruistic. Hence, people do not have a negative view towards the person or organization when benefitting from being a for-profit employee.

In the contrary however, potential donors perceive a high salary for working at a charity, and therefore doing something good for society, as tainted (Newman et al., 2018). While the theory of tainted altruism shows that doing good and financially benefitting from it, is perceived as wrong (Newman & Cain, 2013), the public sector does not seem to cause this same reaction. Therefore, we ask ourselves why that is the case. The relational schemata can potentially explain this difference in attitude.

Relational Schemata and Taboo Trade-offs

(11)

Table 1 Fiske's (1992) four forms of relationships

Charities are often perceived in the context of communal sharing, where receiving financial compensation for your efforts seems inappropriate to many people. However, for-profit organizations are related to market pricing relationships, where financial compensation is widely accepted. Whereas the public sector has some components that fit within authority ranking, for example teacher and student relationships. Nevertheless, research on compensation for poor service delivery showed that the for-profit and the public sector are mostly perceived very similarly (Thomassen, Leliveld, Van de Walle & Ahaus, 2017). Therefore, the public sector can also be matched to market pricing relationships. This also implies that the relationship people have with the public sector context is more important than the purpose of the public sector (i.e. doing good for society).

(12)

theory affects what we believe to be appropriate behavior. This leads to the following hypotheses:

H1: Financial compensation will be found more appropriate for for-profit

organizations and the public sector, and less appropriate for charities.

H2: Job emphasis moderates the effect of context, in that people will find it more

appropriate for charity employees to get paid to the same extent as public sector and for-profit organizations when it is emphasized that it is a job compared to when it is not emphasized.

Derived from the relational schemata is the theory of taboo-tradeoffs (McGraw et al., 2012; McGraw & Tetlock, 2005; Tetlock, 2003; Tetlock et al., 2000). This leads to another explanation to why donors are overhead averse, as lingering over a taboo trade-off makes one a target for moral outrage (Tetlock, 2003). Potential donors do not want to give to charities that have payment systems in place for their employees, as they consider it a taboo. This theory shows that many values charities stand for, such as protection of human lives and preserving natural environments are considered as sacred by many people. Therefore, they don’t find it appropriate to financially compensate for these important values as people don’t like the thought of mixing these spheres by trading sacred for secular values. Such tradeoffs are considered as taboo trade-offs (Tetlock, 2003). Trade-offs that are made in the for-profit sector, secular against secular values, are acceptable as they are considered routine trade-offs (Tetlock, 2003).

This theory however does not seem to fully explain why people are alright with financial compensation for public sector employees compared to charity workers. Also based on relational schemata is the theory of expectancy violation, which is concerned with the expectations people have regarding others (Burgeoon & Hale, 1988; Purkiss, Perrewé, Gillespie, Mayes & Ferris, 2006; Burgoon, 2015).

Expectancy violation

The expectancy violation theory (EVT) describes how people react to personal space violations (Burgoon, 1978), and has been expanded and applied to different types of behavioral and communicative violations (Bettencourt, Greathouse, Charlton & Mullholland, 1997; Bevan, Ang & Fearns, 2014; Biernat, Vescio & Billings, 1999; Campo, Cameron, Brossard & Frazer, 2004).

(13)

(Burgoon & Hale, 1988). People place either positive or negative value on any violation of expectancy in order to make sense of it (Miller-Ott & Kelly, 2015). By judgments of valence, people evaluate the behavior and try to determine how much it differs from their expectations and try to assess whether that behavior is better or worse than was expected by them (Miller-Ott & Kelly, 2015). Previous research shows that expectancies guide behavior and have a persistent effect on peoples’ interactions (Burgoon, 2015). The difference between the expectation of the observer and the behavior of the observed are negative when behavior falls short of what was expected (Burgoon & Hale, 1988). Violation of the expected, results in a negative effect, such as anger towards the individual violating the expectations (Burgoon & Hale, 1988).

Based on relational schemata it can be assumed that the expectations people have towards the individuals and towards the organizations differs significantly between charities compared to the public sector and for-profit organizations. According to relational schemata for-profit and public sector are considered very similarly and therefore it can be assumed that they will be considered equally appropriate /expected to financially compensate their employees. Whereas based on the theories of overhead aversion, tainted altruism, relational schemata and taboo trade-offs, charity is not. According to Kim, Campbell, Shepherd & Kay (2019) strongly passionate workers are perceived to be more likely to volunteer freely for work. As, charity work is often brought into context with passion, society as such might expect people that work for a charity to be more passionate about their work and hence volunteer for free.

H3: People will expect financial compensation less in the charity sector, compared to

the public sector and the for-profit sector.

H4: Job emphasis moderates the effect of context, in that people will expect charity

employees to get paid to the same extent as public sector and for-profit organizations when it is emphasized that it is a job compared to when it is not emphasized.

Job emphasis as potential moderator

The discussed theories of overhead aversion, taboo tradeoffs, relational schemata and tainted altruism all show that society has different concepts of whether and for whom financial compensation is appropriate.

(14)

actual work. In the contrary, most people seem to believe that working for a charity organization automatically implies volunteer work, ‘pro bono’. Several participants pointed out that financial compensation is appropriate for everyone, as long as the salary matches the expertise, workload, skills, and education required, as well as that there should be a proper application procedure.

This led to the moderating variable of this study. It will therefore be tested whether providing participants with extra information about the job, leads to higher perceived appropriateness of financial compensation and to lower expectancy violation. More formally,

H5: When job is not emphasized, the general attitude towards both individual and

organization will be more positive for the public sector and the for-profit sector than for the charity, because of the perceived inappropriateness of the financial

compensation.

H6: Job emphasis moderates the effect of context, in that people will have a more

positive attitude towards charity employees and charity organizations when it is emphasized that it is a job compared to when it is not emphasized that it is a job.

In sum

(15)

Figure 1 Conceptual model

METHODOLOGY Participants and design

A total of 388 US citizens (50.5% male, 49.2% female, 0.3 other; mean age = 39.18; SD = 11.71) participated via a digital web questionnaire (Qualtrics) using the online Amazon Mechanical Turk platform and were paid $0.60 for their participation. The majority of participants (48.7%) completed a Bachelor’s degree as their highest level of education and the majority of participants (64.7%) were full-time (40+ hours a week) employees. The participants in this study were randomly assigned to a 2 (job description: neutral vs. job emphasis) x3 (organization type: charity vs. public sector vs. for-profits) between-subjects factorial design.

Procedure

Participants were presented with a scenario involving a person, called A. Taylor who is working for an organization. Here I manipulated organization type as being either a charity, public sector or a for-profit organization. For the charity scenario the text stated, ‘A. Taylor is

an animal caretaker at a non-profit, charity animal shelter and gets financially compensated for this.’ The public sector scenario said, ‘A. Taylor is an animal caretaker at a fully government funded petting zoo and gets financially compensated for this.’ Participants

receiving the for-profit scenario read, ‘A. Taylor is an animal caretaker at a privately-owned

veterinary practice and gets financially compensated for this.’

(16)

extra information about the work of A. Taylor. They were additionally told that A. Taylor had to formally apply for the job, which included a job interview. Further, it was said that A. Taylor has the necessary credentials, skills and experience needed for the job. Below is the example of the charity setting without and with job emphasis. A full overview of all scenarios can be found in Appendix B.

(No job emphasis condition):

A. Taylor is an animal caretaker at a non-profit, charity animal shelter and gets financially compensated for this.

(Job emphasis condition):

A. Taylor is operating full time (40-hour week) as an animal caretaker at a non-profit,

charity animal shelter. A. Taylor had to formally apply for the job opening and was

then invited for a job interview. A. Taylor is certified for the job and was employed based on skills and experiences. A. Taylor gets financially compensated by the organization.

Note that for the job description, the profession of the animal caretaker was carefully chosen after consulting U.S. residents. It turned out that for example nurses have a very high standing in the U.S. especially given recent debates about healthcare. To make sure I would have sufficient variation in opinions I chose not to use the profession of the nurse.

After reading the scenario, participants were asked to answer several questions. Unless stated otherwise, they answered using 7-point Likert scales ranging from ‘strongly disagree’ to ‘strongly agree’. Participants were asked to respond to questions concerning the concepts of interest for this experiment: appropriateness of the financial compensation, expectancy violation, general attitude towards the organization, and general attitude towards the individual. Table 2 provides an overview of all the specific items, and how they were (or were not) combined into scales.

(17)

7-point Likert-scale ranging from -3 ‘much worse than expected’ to +3 ‘much better than expected’. The general attitude towards the individual was measured with thirteen questions tapping into different aspects (e.g. perceived altruism, morality, doing good for society). Participants were for example asked whether they believed A. Taylor was an altruistic person and their responses were again rated on 7-point Likert-scales from strongly disagree to strongly agree. One of the items measuring this dependent variable had to be excluded for the analysis due to a typo (this question stated A. Miller instead of A. Taylor). The general attitude towards

the organization was measured with eleven questions. Here participants were among other

(18)

Table 2 Overview of variables and items

Dependent variable Cronbach's _Alpha Correlation Items Appropriateness of financial compensation

(1) Appropriateness financial compensation

.694** • Financial compensation for A. Taylor is appropriate. I believe A. Taylor should be _{financially compensated for the efforts.} • I believe A. Taylor should be financially compensated for the efforts.

(2) Inappropriateness

financial compensation .504** • Financial compensation for A. Taylor is inappropriate.

• I believe A. Taylor should not be financially compensated for the efforts. (3) Performance bonus • A. Taylor deserves to receive a financial bonus based on performance.

Expectancy violation

(1) Positively surprised • I am positively surprised that A. Taylor is financially compensated by the organization. (2) Negatively surprised • I am negatively surprised that A. Taylor is financially compensated by the _{organization.}

(3) Second paid job • I assume A. Taylor has a paid job somewhere else, next to this function. (4) Expectation • Given that A. Taylor is financially compensated, to what extent is that in line with _{what you expected? ( -3: much worse than expected / +3 much better than expected)}

General attitude towards the individual

(1) Doing good for society _.922 • I think A. Taylor is doing something good for society at large. • I think the work A. Taylor is doing is meaningful for society. • I think A. Taylor has a strong sense of social responsibility.

• I value the work A. Taylor is doing from the perspective of the society at large. (2) Value the work .513** •I value the work A. Taylor is doing from the perspective of my own personal well-_being. •I expect to be myself reliant on people like A. Taylor in the future.

(3) Character .764** • I like A. Taylor.

• I respect A. Taylor.

(4) Morality -.309** • A. Taylor is altruistic. • A. Taylor is egoistic (recoded) (5) Moral person • A. Taylor is a moral person (6) Competence • A. Taylor is a competent person

General attitude towards the organization

(1) Overall impression _.974 • Overall impression of the organization

(Dislike-Like, Negative-Positive, Unfavorable-Favorable, Bad-Good, Unpleasant-_Pleasant) (2) Value the work .783 • I have a positive attitude towards the organization A. Taylor works for. • I value the work this organization does.

• I would consider working for this organization (3) Hypocritical/ exploitative

organization .801** • To what extent do you think this organization is hypocritical? • To what extent do you think this organization is exploitative? (4) Generous organization • To what extent do you think this organization is generous?

In order to check the manipulation of context, I asked, ‘In what type of organization was A. Taylor operating?’. An additional four manipulation checks were added as well, stating ‘Did A. Taylor have to formally apply for the job?’, ‘Did A. Taylor have a job interview before being offered the job?’, Does A. Taylor have the necessary credentials for the job?’, ‘Was A. Taylor hired based on skills and experience?’.

(19)

and of administrational labor. Because it is beyond the scope of the current thesis, I will not present these results in the Results section.

Questions concerning age and gender were also included in the survey, using a single item. Additionally, an attention check (Oppenheimer et al., 2009) was added to the questionnaire to assess whether participants were paying attention and properly reading and understanding the questions.

RESULTS

Attention and manipulation checks. Participants that failed the attention check were excluded

from the analysis which led to the exclusion of 27 participants. An additional 69 participants failed the main control question, ‘In what type of organization was A. Taylor operating?’ (for details on how many participants failed in which condition, please see Appendix A, Table 1). Further, 46 participants failed one or more of the additional four manipulation checks. To see a list of how many people failed which specific manipulation check please see Appendix A, Table 2B.

It was decided to exclude the 69 participants that failed the main control question, as their responses distorted the results. However, the participants that failed one or more manipulation checks were not excluded as their responses did not change the overall results.

Dependent variables. If not stated otherwise, all analyses used a 3 (organization type:

(20)

(21)

Appropriateness financial compensation. The ANOVAs on each of the three variables

regarding appropriateness of financial compensation yielded only two significant effects. First of all, I found a significant main effect of organization type on perceived inappropriate financial compensation, F(2,382)=3.05, p=.049. Post-hoc contrast analysis showed that financial compensation was perceived as more inappropriate for charity (M=2.01, SD=1.47) than for the public sector (M=1.62, SD=1.19), p=.048. For the for-profit this was not significant (M=1.89,

SD=1.50).

Second, the analysis yielded a significant interaction effect on perceived appropriateness of financial compensation, F(2,382)=4.44, p=.012. Further analysis revealed that when job was not emphasized participants perceived financial compensation less appropriate for the charity (M=6.09, SD=.89) than for the public sector (M=6.51, SD=.89),

p=.005 and for the for-profit organization (M=6.58, SD=.79), p=.004. When job was

emphasized this effect for charity disappears. Public sector (M=6.36, SD=.74), charity (M=6.44, SD=.98) and for-profit organization (M=6.33, SD=.86) are all seen as about equally appropriate.

These results are in line with hypothesis 1 and 2. The main effect shows exactly the expected outcome of hypothesis 1 and the interaction shows exactly hypothesis 2. However, for both this is only true for 1 out of 3 variables.

Expectancy violation. The ANOVAs on each of the four variables regarding expectancy

violation yielded a significant main effect for organization type for three of the four variables and one interaction effect of organization type and information condition.

The analysis yielded a significant main effect of organization type for positively surprised, F(2,382)=10.82, p<.0001. The post-hoc contrast analysis showed that participants were more positively surprised about financial compensation for charity (M=3.71, SD=2.04) than for the for-profit sector (M=2.52, SD=1.94), p<.0001 and also more positively surprised for the public sector (M=3.14, SD=2.08), than for the for-profit sector (M=2.52, SD=1.94),

p=.046.

The ANOVA also yielded a significant main effect of organization type for expectation,

F(2,382)=12.67, p<.0001. The post-hoc contrast analysis showed that participants found

financial compensation of the employee better than expected for charities (M=4.85, SD=1.02) compared to the public sector (M=4.53, SD=.89), p=.008, and compared to the for-profit sector (M=4.27, SD=.64), p<.0001.

(22)

were more likely to think that the person working for a charity had a second job (M=3.06,

SD=1.70) than the person working for a for-profit organization (M=2.32, SD=1.53), p=.001.

For the public sector there was no significant difference (M=2.69, SD=..)

These main effects are in line with hypothesis 3. In three out of four variables participants find it more surprising in the case of charity that the employee is financially compensated compared to the for-profit sector. One of them showed also a significant effect compared to the public sector. This at least partly confirms hypothesis 3.

The analyses also yielded one significant interaction effect for 2nd_{paid job}

F(2,382)=5.37, p=.005. For the charity sector, participants were more likely to think that the

person had a second paid job when the job was not emphasized (M=3.50, SD=1.60) than when the job was emphasized (M=2.69, SD=1.70), p=.003. Public sector (no job emphasis M=2.68, SD=1.47; job emphasis M=2.69, SD=1.65) and for-profit sector (no job emphasis M=2.04, SD=1.28; job emphasis M=2.53, SD=1.68;) showed no difference for the job emphasis condition. This interaction effect is in line with hypothesis 4. It shows exactly the effect we expected, however only for 1 out of 4 variables.

General attitude towards the individual. The ANOVAs on each of the six variables

regarding general attitude towards the individual yielded a significant main effect for organization type for two of the six variables, both in the same direction.

The analysis yielded a significant main effect of organization type on whether people think the employee is doing something good for society, F(2,382)=3.13, p=.045. Here the post-hoc contrast analysis gives only one close to significant value, showing that the participants thought the individual working for a charity organization (M=5.69, SD=1.1) was doing more good for society than the individual working for a for-profit organization (M=5.36, SD=1.08),

p=.053. For the public sector there was no significant difference (M=5.44, SD=1.11).

I found a significant main effect of organization type on whether people valued the work the employee is doing, F(2,382)=3.66, p=.027. The post-hoc contrast analysis showed that participants value the work of the charity organization employee (M=4.64, SD=1.38) more than the work of the for-profit organization employee (M=4.17, SD=1.42), p=.033. For the public sector there was no significant difference (M=4.52, SD=1.48).

There were no significant main effects of information, nor any significant interaction effect.

General attitude towards the organization. The ANOVAs on each of the four variables

(23)

The analyses yielded a significant main effect of organization type for overall impression F(2,382)=5.40, p=.005. The post-hoc contrast test showed that the overall impression of the organization was better for the charity (M=6.13, SD=.93) compared to both the public sector (M=5.76, SD=1.14), p=.007 and the for-profit sector (M=5.74, SD=.97),

p=.007.

This variable also showed a significant interaction effect, F(2,382)=4.25, p=.015. When job was emphasized participants attitude was better towards the charity organization (M=6.25,

SD=1.04) compared to the attitude towards the public sector (M=5.61, SD=1.22), p<.0001 and

compared to the for-profit organization (M=5.54, SD=.98), p<.0001. When job was not emphasized there was no difference between charity (M=6.00, SD=.76), public sector (M=5.92, SD=1.04) and for-profit (M=5.99, SD=.91).

There was also a significant main effect of organization type on whether people valued the work the organization is doing F(2,382)=5.20, p=.006. The post-hoc contrast analysis shows that participants value the work of the charity organization more (M=5.83, SD=.99) compared to both the public sector (M=5.45, SD=1.15), p=.007 and the for-profit sector (M=5.45, SD=1.00), p=.015.

There was also a significant main effect of organization type on whether people thought the organization is generous F(2,382)=15.78, p<.0001. The post-hoc contrast analysis showed that participants perceived the charity organization (M=5.47, SD=1.08) as more generous, than both the public sector organization (M=4.78, SD=1.44), p<.0001 and the for-profit organization (M=4.59 SD=1.33), p<.0001.

Moderated Mediation Effect. The ANOVAs already showed part of the model, but to

formally test the conceptual framework I also ran PROCESS analyses. To test the conceptualized model with information condition as the moderator, a moderated mediation PROCESS analysis model 8 (5000 bootstraps, 95% CI; Hayes, 2017) was performed only on the variables that showed an interaction with job type in the ANOVAs. Therefore, as mediators the 2nd_{paid job of expectancy violation was used as well as appropriate financial compensation.} The overall impression of the organization was used as the dependent variable. Because organization type has 3 levels it had to be split into two dummy variables. Process version 3.3 allows for group variables with multiple levels and then makes dummies automatically. Dummy1 was labeled as charity organization vs. public sector organization. Dummy2 was labeled as charity organization vs. for-profit organization.

(24)

information condition, appropriateness and expectancy violation, as well as general attitude towards the organization as the dependent variable shows that the effect of organization type on attitude towards the organization disappears when the other variables are included. There is no direct effect of public vs. charity, b=-.20 t(380)=-1.21, p=.23. There is also no direct effect of charity vs. for-profit within this model, b=-.08 t(380)=-.41, p=.68. There is however a clear effect of the mediator appropriateness of financial compensation on attitude towards the organization within this model, b=.42 t(380)=7.31, p<.0001. There is also an effect of the mediator expectancy violation on attitude towards the organization, b=.08 t(380)=3.38,

p=.0008. Please find the indirect effects of appropriateness of financial compensation in Table

4.

Table 4 Indirect effects of appropriateness of financial compensation

Organization type Information condition Indirect Effect LLCI ULCI Charity vs. Public Sector No job emphasis .16 .03 .32

Charity vs. Public Sector Job Emphasis -.03 -.12 .09

Index -.20 -.37 -.03

Charity vs. For-Profit No job emphasis .19 .05 .35

Charity vs. For-Profit Job Emphasis -.04 -.15 .09

Index -.23 -.43 -.05

Note. Significant effects are in bold

(25)

Table 5 Indirect effects of expectancy violation

Organization type Information condition Indirect Effect LLCI ULCI Charity vs. Public Sector No job emphasis -.01 -.08 .05

Charity vs. Public Sector Job Emphasis .00 -.02 .02

Index .01 -.05 .09

Charity vs. For-Profit No job emphasis -.02 -.13 .08

Charity vs. For-Profit Job Emphasis -.00 -.03 .02

Index .02 -.08 .13

Expectancy violation shows no mediation or moderation mediation. There is no difference between public sector and charity and between for-profit sector and charity for no-information. There is also no difference for either comparisons in the information condition. Please find the indirect effects of expectancy violation in Table 5. The index of moderated mediation for public vs. charity is .01, CI[-.05, .09]. The index of moderated mediation for for-profit vs. charity effect is .02, CI[-.08, .13]. Therefore, expectancy violation is no mediator or moderator.

The results of the moderated mediation analysis are partly in line with hypothesis 6. There is moderated mediation going on for both charity vs. public and charity vs. for-profit, however only for appropriateness of financial compensation and not for expectancy violation. And the effect is in the wrong direction. People are already positive about charities when job is not emphasized and they become even more positive when job is emphasized. Further, they are overall slightly more positive towards charity than towards both the public and for-profit sector.

Mediation Effect. The conceptual model shows a moderated mediation, however in the

ANOVAs only a few interaction effects were found and instead mostly main effects of organization type. Therefore, it was decided to study mediation analysis for the variables that had only main effects. To carry out these mediation analyses, for each of those variables a PROCESS analysis model 6 was conducted (5000 bootstraps, 95% CI; Hayes, 2017).

(26)

The results of these are shown in Table 6. The mediators used are inappropriateness of financial compensation, positive surprise and expectation. The dependent variables used are, whether the employee is doing good for society, whether they value the work of the employee, whether they value the work of the organization and whether they view the organization as generous.

Table 6 Summary statistics of eight PROCESS model 6 mediation analyses Appropriateness of financial

compensation Expectancy Violation Mediators Dependent _variable Organization type Effect BootLLCI BootULCI Effect BootLLCI BootULCI

A-2, E-1 GI-1

Charity vs. Public Sector .0500 .0048 .1205 -.0371 -.0928 .0026 Charity vs. For-Profit .0154 -.0308 .0810 -.0953 -.1825 -0.0269

A-2, E-1 GI-2

Charity vs. Public Sector -.0017 -.0457 -.0457 -.0704 -.1647 .0040 Charity vs. For-Profit -.0005 -.027 .0269 -.1807 -.3097 -.0773

A-2, E-4 GI-1

Charity vs. Public Sector .0429 .0032 .1063 -.0472 -.1085 -.0015 Charity vs. For-Profit .0132 -.0265 .0700 -.0895 -.1767 -.0079

A-2, E-4 GI-2

Charity vs. Public Sector -.0171 -.0658 .0223 -.0549 -.1325 .0070 Charity vs. For-Profit -.0052 -.0436 .0201 -.1041 -.2173 .0118

A-2, E-1 GO-2

Charity vs. Public Sector .0645 .0103 .1423 -.0564 -.1293 .0042 Charity vs. For-Profit .0198 -.0462 .0928 -.1448 -.2421 -.0669

A-2, E-1 GO-4

Charity vs. Public Sector .0167 -.0203 .0637 -.0485 -.1283 .0026 Charity vs. For-Profit .0051 -.0213 .0347 -.1245 -.2320 -.0389

A-2, E-4 GO-2

Charity vs. Public Sector .0539 .0075 .1197 -.0752 -.1497 -.0159 Charity vs. For-Profit .0165 -.0332 .0790 -.1426 -.2366 -.0602

A-2, E-4 GO-4

Charity vs. Public Sector .0084 -.0296 .0515 -.0799 -.1680 -.0185 Charity vs. For-Profit .0026 -.0206 .0272 -.1513 -.2694 -0.0607

Note. Significant effects are indicated in bold See key to table 6:

Mediator: Appropriateness financial compensation: A-2 = Inappropriate financial

compensation

DV: General attitude towards individual: GI-1 = Doing good for society GI-2 = Value the work Mediator: Expectancy violation:

E-1 = Positively surprised E-4 = Expectation

DV: General attitude towards organization: GO-2 = Value the work

(27)

The mediation analyses show a clear mediation pattern for expectancy violation and appropriateness of financial compensation. For charity compared to the public sector both expectancy violation and appropriateness of financial compensation are significant mediators. For charity sector compared to the for-profit sector only expectancy violation is a significant mediator. Table 6 together with the ANOVA results shows that people have a more positive attitude towards charity employees and charity companies than towards for-profit employees and companies and part of the reason why is because people didn’t expect the charity employees to be financially compensated.

Something similar happens when people compare public sector to the charity. They have a more positive attitude towards the charity because they did not expect the charity employees to be financially compensated compared to the public sector employees. Inappropriateness shows a similar pattern: people were more positive about the charity compared to the public sector when people felt it was more appropriate that the employee was financially compensated.

Regarding hypothesis 5, the results do show mediation of appropriateness and expectancy violation on the relationship between organization type and general attitude towards individuals and the organizations. However, the means are again in the opposite direction just like the moderated mediation results. People are more positive towards charities than towards both the public and for-profit sector.

Extra exploratory analyses

Expectations about type of labor. In order to test, whether participants’ impression of how

much physical labor and how much clerical/ administrative labor A. Taylor performs possibly influenced their answers, an ANOVA analysis was conducted. Physical labor was not significantly differently perceived by participants F(2,385) = 2.88, p =.057. The overall mean of how much physical labor A. Taylor was expected to perform (M=5.53, SD=1.04) suggests that people expected mostly physical labor (Mcharity = M=5.55, SD=1.06); Mpublic = M=5.64,

SD=.92; Mfor-profit = M=5.33, SD=1.14).

(28)

GENERAL DISCUSSION

The aim of this thesis was to study what people think about the acceptability of financial compensation within charity organizations vs. public sector organizations vs. for-profit organizations. Donors are overhead averse when it comes to giving to charity and prefer if employees are not financially compensated, which leads to charity organizations trying to avoid high administration and funding costs (Gneezy et al., 2014; Meer, 2017). This fact comes with a powerful side effect, namely that it leads to a really stark, mutually exclusive choice between doing very well for yourself and your family or doing good for the world. Each year, this choice sends tens of thousands of people, who could make a huge difference in the nonprofit sector, directly into the for-profit sector because they’re not willing to make a lifelong economic sacrifice (Pallotta, 2013). Therefore, it is important to understand what drives overhead aversion in charity and how it can be overcome. Preliminary research showed that job emphasis could have the potential to reduce overhead aversion in charity (Leliveld et al., 2019).

This thesis extends the research by showing whether people perceive financial compensation as appropriate within charities, public sector, and for-profit organizations. Further, I also studied whether the job emphasis information condition indeed leads to more perceived appropriateness of financial compensation for the charity sector.

The results showed that, in line with research on overhead aversion (Gneezy et al., 2014; Portillo & Stinn, 2018), there was some evidence that financial compensation was perceived as least appropriate for charities. However, participants were more positively surprised about financial compensation for the charity sector, compared to the public sector and for-profit. Which is not in line with what was expected based on tainted altruism (Newman & Cain, 2014) and taboo trade-offs (Tetlock, 2003), namely that participants would be negatively surprised about financial compensation for charity employees.

In line with what was expected based on preliminary research (Leliveld et al., 2019) about job emphasis, the exploratory question on whether participants expected a 2nd_{paid job} showed that participants were more likely to assume that the person working for the charity had a second job, compared to the other two settings. With the information condition on job emphasis this difference went away.

(29)

(Burgoon & Hale, 1988). Participants valued the work of the charity organization more and perceived it to be more generous compared to the other two sectors.

In this thesis I also tested whether appropriateness of financial compensation and expectancy violation are suitable mediators for the attitude towards the individual as well as the attitude towards the organization, as it can be assumed based on theory (Miller-Ott & Kelly, 2015). This study found that when comparing the public sector to charity, both expectancy violation and appropriateness of financial compensation are significant mediators. However, when charity is compared to the for-profit sector, only expectancy violation functions as a mediator and no evidence for appropriateness of financial compensation as mediator was found.

Theoretical implications

This experiment contributes to the existing literature in several ways. Surprisingly, the results of this research indicate exactly the opposite of what was expected, when it comes to which organization type is perceived most positively. Already when no job emphasis is provided, the attitude towards the charity organization is the most positive, which is not in line with what was expected based on the theory of tainted altruism (Newman & Cain, 2104) and taboo trade-offs (Tetlock, 2003). However, this could be explained by the theory that consumers use warmth and competence as the two fundamental dimensions to govern social judgment, in order to form a perception of a firm (Aaker, Vohs, Mogilner, 2010). Hence, one explanation could be that the non-profit animal shelter was perceived as especially warm and kind-hearted, which lead to a very positive impression of the organization. When job is emphasized the attitude towards the charity organization becomes even better, still also in relation to the public sector and the for-profit sector. This again gives some indication that participants were even more positive about the organization once they were made aware of the job status of the employee. Which shows, that emphasizing the job status is important for charities.

(30)

only on one of the measures. Which could have some impact for future research and will be further discussed below.

To the best of my knowledge, there is limited research on how the public sector differs from the for-profit sector and the charity sector. This study offers a first glimpse at the unexplored research field of the public sector in this context of financial compensation. This research shows that there is often no perceived difference between the public sector and the for-profit sector, which is in line with previous research about public and private settings when it comes to poor service delivery compensation (Thomassen et al., 2017). I add to this knowledge by showing that when it comes to the general attitude towards the organization public sector and for-profit sector are perceived very similarly. Which means that people have a similar perception of for example, whether they dislike or like the organization. Whether they have a negative or positive impression, and whether they value the work or not.

However, the public sector differs significantly from the charity sector when it comes to attitude towards the organization. Which shows that regardless of both sectors doing good for people and aiming at serving our society, they are not perceived in the same way. One explanation could be that public sector employees are financially compensated by the government. People do not actively choose to “donate” their money to public sector organizations (i.e. they pay via mandatory tax system) unlike they do to charities. Hence, this might be a reason they are more sensitive towards financial compensation in charity, as donors want their money to go to “the cause” (Duncan, 2004; Gneezy et al., 2014).

Contrary to what was predicted in the original conceptual model, the analyses showed more evidence for mediation rather than a moderated mediation. For charity compared to the public sector both expectancy violation and appropriateness of financial compensation are significant mediators. For charity sector compared to the for-profit sector only expectancy violation is a significant mediator. The analyses show that people have a more positive attitude towards charity employees and charity companies than towards for-profit employees and companies and part of the reason why is because people didn’t expect the charity employees to be financially compensated.

Similarly, when the public sector is compared to charity, they have a more positive attitude towards the charity because they did not expect the charity employees to be financially compensated compared to the public sector employees.

Managerial implications

(31)

people charity work is expected to be volunteer work. This seems to be the main reason that they do not like to accept financial compensation for the charity employee. If charities change their way of communication, they can make potential donors more aware of the work the employee does. If this becomes more transparent more people are in favor of financial compensation for employees. Which means that they will not refrain from donating to a certain charity because of their overhead costs. Moreover, once people find out it is a proper job, people are pleasantly surprised and their attitude becomes more positive. This is another indicator that mangers should emphasize that many people working at a charity are not simply volunteers. An idea would for instance be to change the way of advertising. For example, advertisements in the for-profit sector are often angled at emphasizing that the best employees work for their company, therefore implying that they will deliver the best work. Charities could follow a similar approach, by accentuating the quality and capability of their employees.

Limitations and Future Research

Like all research, this study also has some limitations. First of all, many participants failed the manipulation checks for my manipulation of job information. Specifically, 46 participants failed at least one or more of those four questions. Combined with the participants that failed the overall control question and that were excluded, a strikingly large number of participants was unable to recall the information from the beginning of the survey. On the positive side, these participants were fairly equally distributed over the organization types (for more detailed information on the attention check fails please see Appendix A, Table 2B). Potentially, the manipulation could have been made clearer.

(32)

only a difference on expected administration work and not on expected physical work. Which shows that to a big extent the functions and duties of the animal caretakers in the different settings were perceived comparably.

As there was only some evidence that providing additional information about the job moderates appropriateness of financial compensation and expectancy violation for charities this needs to be tested further in the future.

Moreover, the sample used in this study consisted of U.S. participants only. In order to generalize the findings in an international context a similar approach should be tested in different countries, rather than only the U.S.

(33)

REFERENCES

Aaker, J., Vohs, K. D., & Mogilner, C. (2010). Nonprofits are seen as warm and for-profits as competent: Firm stereotypes matter. Journal of Consumer Research, 37(2), 224-237. Aggarwal, P. (2004). The effects of brand relationship norms on consumer attitudes and

behavior. Journal of consumer research, 31(1), 87-101.

Allen, I. E., & Seaman, C. A. (2007). Likert scales and data analyses. Quality progress, 40(7), 64-65.

Bettencourt, B. A., Dill, K. E., Greathouse, S. A., Charlton, K., & Mulholland, A. (1997). Evaluations of ingroup and outgroup members: The role of category-based expectancy violation. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 33(3), 244-275.

Bevan, J. L., Ang, P. C., & Fearns, J. B. (2014). Being unfriended on Facebook: An application of expectancy violation theory. Computers in Human Behavior, 33, 171-178.

Biernat, M., Vescio, T. K., & Billings, L. S. (1999). Black sheep and expectancy violation: Integrating two models of social judgment. European Journal of Social Psychology, 29(4), 523-542.

Boer, N. I., Berends, H., & Van Baalen, P. (2011). Relational models for knowledge sharing behavior. European management journal, 29(2), 85-97.

Brooke, J. (1996). SUS-A quick and dirty usability scale. Usability evaluation in industry, 189(194), 4-7.

Burgoon, J. K. (1978). A communication model of personal space violations: Explication and an initial test. Human Communication Research, 4(2), 129-142.

Burgoon, J. K. (2015). Expectancy violations theory. The international encyclopedia of interpersonal communication, 1-9.

Burgoon, J. K., & Hale, J. L. (1988). Nonverbal expectancy violations: Model elaboration and application to immediacy behaviors. Communications Monographs, 55(1), 58-79.

Buurman, M., Delfgaauw, J., Dur, R., & Van den Bossche, S. (2012). Public sector employees: Risk averse and altruistic?. Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, 83(3), 279-291. Campo, S., Cameron, K. A., Brossard, D., & Frazer, M. S. (2004). Social norms and expectancy violation theories: Assessing the effectiveness of health communication campaigns. Communication Monographs, 71(4), 448-470.

(34)

Dainton, M., & Stafford, L. (2000). Predicting maintenance enactment from relational schemata, spousal behavior, and relational characteristics. Communication Research Reports, 17(2), 171-180.

Duncan, B. (2004). A theory of impact philanthropy. Journal of public Economics, 88(9-10), 2159-2180.

Fiske, A. P. (1992). The four elementary forms of sociality: framework for a unified theory of social relations. Psychological review, 99(4), 689.

Fiske, A. P. (1991). Structures of social life: The four elementary forms of human relations: Communal sharing, authority ranking, equality matching, market pricing. Free Press. Fiske, A. P., & Haslam, N. (1996). Social cognition is thinking about relationships. Current

directions in psychological science, 5(5), 143-148.

Gneezy, U., Keenan, E. A., & Gneezy, A. (2014). Avoiding overhead aversion in charity. Science, 346(6209), 632-635.

Gordon, T. P., & Khumawala, S. B. (1999). The demand for not-for-profit financial statements: A model of individual giving. Journal of Accounting Literature, 18, 31.

Goulet, L. R., & Frank, M. L. (2002). Organizational commitment across three sectors: Public, non-profit, and for-profit. Public Personnel Management, 31(2), 201-210.

Groza, M. D., Pronschinske, M. R., & Walker, M. (2011). Perceived organizational motives and consumer responses to proactive and reactive CSR. Journal of Business Ethics, 102(4), 639-652.

Haslam, N. (Ed.). (2004). Relational models theory: A contemporary overview. Psychology Press.

Hayes, A. F. (2017). Introduction to mediation, moderation, and conditional process analysis: A regression-based approach. Guilford Publications.

Kim, J. Y., Campbell, T. H., Shepherd, S., & Kay, A. C. (2019). Understanding contemporary forms of exploitation: Attributions of passion serve to legitimize the poor treatment of workers. Journal of personality and social psychology.

Leliveld, C. Mouhdi, W. Zhong, & J.W. Bolderdijk, 2019. On the appropriateness of being paid: Compensating work for charities, public sector and for profits. Working paper. McDowell, E. A., Li, W., & Smith, P. C. (2013). An experimental examination of US

individual donors’ information needs and use. Financial Accountability & Management, 29(3), 327-347.

(35)

Peter McGraw, A., Schwartz, J. A., & Tetlock, P. E. (2011). From the commercial to the communal: Reframing taboo trade-offs in religious and pharmaceutical marketing. Journal of Consumer Research, 39(1), 157-173.

McGraw, A. P., Tetlock, P. E., & Kristel, O. V. (2003). The limits of fungibility: Relational schemata and the value of things. Journal of Consumer Research, 30(2), 219-229.

Meer, J. (2017). Are overhead costs a good guide for charitable giving? iza World of Labor. Miller-Ott, A., & Kelly, L. (2015). The presence of cell phones in romantic partner

face-to-face interactions: An expectancy violation theory approach. Southern Communication Journal, 80(4), 253-270.

Moore, M. H. (2000). Managing for value: Organizational strategy in for-profit, nonprofit, and governmental organizations. Nonprofit and voluntary sector quarterly, 29(1_suppl), 183-204.

Mosher, F. C. (1978). Professions in public service. Public Administration Review, 38(2), 144-150.

Newman, G. E., & Cain, D. M. (2014). Tainted altruism: When doing some good is evaluated as worse than doing no good at all. Psychological science, 25(3), 648-655.

Newman, G. E., Shniderman, A., Cain, D. M., & Sevel, K. (2018). Do the Ends Justify the Means? The Relative Focus on Overhead Versus Outcomes in Charitable Fundraising. Nonprofit and Voluntary Sector Quarterly, 0899764018794903.

Oppenheimer, D. M., Meyvis, T., & Davidenko, N. (2009). Instructional manipulation checks: Detecting satisficing to increase statistical power. Journal of experimental social psychology, 45(4), 867-872.

Pallotta, D. (2013). Dan Pallotta: The way we think about charity is dead wrong [Video file]. Retrieved from

https://www.ted.com/talks/dan_pallotta_the_way_we_think_about_charity_is_dead_wron g

Planalp, S. (1985). Relational schemata: A test of alternative forms of relational knowledge as guides to communication. Human Communication Research, 12(1), 3-29.

Portillo, J. E., & Stinn, J. (2018). Overhead aversion: Do some types of overhead matter more than others?. Journal of behavioral and experimental economics, 72, 40-50.

Purkiss, S. L. S., Perrewé, P. L., Gillespie, T. L., Mayes, B. T., & Ferris, G. R. (2006). Implicit sources of bias in employment interview judgments and decisions. Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, 101(2), 152-167.

(36)

Tetlock, P. E., Kristel, O. V., Elson, S. B., Green, M. C., & Lerner, J. S. (2000). The psychology of the unthinkable: taboo trade-offs, forbidden base rates, and heretical counterfactuals. Journal of personality and social psychology, 78(5), 853.

Tinkelman, D. (1998). Differences in sensitivity of financial statement users to joint cost allocations: The case of nonprofit organizations. Journal of Accounting, Auditing & Finance, 13(4), 377-393.

Thomassen, J. P., Leliveld, M. C., Van de Walle, S., & Ahaus, K. (2017). Compensating citizens for poor service delivery: Experimental research in public and private settings. Public Administration, 95(4), 895-911.

Weisbrod, B. A., & Dominguez, N. D. (1986). Demand for collective goods in private nonprofit markets: Can fundraising expenditures help overcome free-rider behavior?. Journal of Ayopublic economics, 30(1), 83-96.

Wing, K. (2004). Getting what we pay for: Low overhead limits nonprofit effectiveness. Williams, G. (2018, January 8). Wages, underpayment & liabilities: who’s responsible & what

should you do? Retrieved from InsideHR: https://www.insidehr.com.au/liability-wages-underpayment/

(37)

APPENDICES

Appendix A Figure 1:

Table 1:

Main control question

Charity Scenarios Public Sector

scenarios For-Profit Scenarios Correct Failed Correct Failed Correct Failed In what type of

organization was

(38)

Table 2A:

Manipulation checks

No job emphasis

Charity Public Sector For-Profit

Yes No I’m not _sure Yes No I’m not _sure Yes No I’m not _sure Did A. Taylor have

to formally apply

for the job? 15 4 45 6 3 60 4 4 38

Did A. Taylor have a job interview before being offered the job?

16 4 44 6 4 59 4 5 37

Does A. Taylor have the necessary credentials for the job?

28 1 35 15 1 53 12 2 32

Was A. Taylor hired based on skills

and experience? 25 3 36 13 2 54 11 1 34

Note: Participants in these settings were not provided with the information to answer these questions. They had to make assumptions instead.

Table 2B:

Job emphasis

Charity Public Sector For-Profit

Yes No I’m not _sure Yes No I’m not _sure Yes No I’m not _sure Did A. Taylor have

to formally apply

for the job? 67 4 4 71 1 2 57 1 2

Did A. Taylor have a job interview before being offered the job?

65 5 5 68 4 2 51 3 6

Does A. Taylor have the necessary credentials for the job?

69 0 6 71 1 2 55 0 5

Was A. Taylor hired based on skills

and experience? 66 1 8 68 1 5 52 3 5

(39)

Appendix B – Thesis Survey Welcome

The purpose of this investigation is to study person evaluations. You are hereby invited to participate in this investigation. Participation is voluntary.

You will be presented with a short introductory text. You will be asked to indicate how you feel about certain statements and to answer some questions. Finally, some general

demographic questions will be asked.

All the information that you provide will be treated confidentially and kept anonymous. The study will take approximately 4 minutes, and you will be provided with $0.60 for your efforts.

If you agree that you have read this text, that you do not have any questions regarding study participation, that you are at least 18 years old, and that you wish to participate in this study, please check the ‘I AGREE’ box and press next at the bottom of the page.

o

I AGREE

o

I DO NOT AGREE Scenario 1a:

Please read the following carefully. Below you are shortly introduced to a new person, named A. Taylor.

A. Taylor is an animal caretaker at a non-profit, charity animal shelter and gets financially compensated for this.

Scenario 2a:

(40)

Scenario 3a:

A. Taylor is an animal caretaker at a privately-owned veterinary practice and gets financially compensated for this.

Scenario 1b:

A. Taylor is operating full time (40-hour week) as an animal caretaker at a non-profit, charity animal shelter. A. Taylor had to formally apply for the job opening and was then invited for a job interview. A. Taylor is certified for the job and was employed based on skills and experiences. A. Taylor gets financially compensated by the organization.

Scenario 2b:

A. Taylor is operating full time (40-hour week) as an animal caretaker at a fully government funded petting zoo. A. Taylor had to formally apply for the job opening and was then invited for a job interview. A. Taylor is certified for the job and was employed based on skills and experiences. A. Taylor gets financially compensated by the organization.

Scenario 3b:

(41)

Mediators & Dependent Variables:

Appropriateness of financial compensation:

(42)

Expectancy violation:

Please indicate to what extent you agree with the following statements (1 = strongly disagree; 7 = strongly agree) 1: Strongly disagree 2 3 4 5 6 7: Strongly Agree I am positively surprised that A. Taylor is financially compensated by the organization.

o

I am negatively surprised that A. Taylor is financially compensated by the organization.