Browsing by Author "Breeze, Beth"

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    Bill and Melinda Gates: philanthropy caught in the crosshairs of society’s obsession with celebrity
    (The Conversation US, Inc., 2021-05-13) Breeze, Beth; Shaker, Genevieve; Lilly Family School of Philanthropy
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    Different Drivers: Exploring Employee Involvement in Corporate Philanthropy
    (Springer, 2018) Breeze, Beth; Wiepking, Pamala; Lilly Family School of Philanthropy
    Corporate Philanthropy (CP) is multi-dimensional, differs between sectors and involves both individual and organisational decision-making to achieve business and social goals. However, the CP literature characteristically focuses on strategic decisions made by business leaders and ignores the role of employees, especially those in lower status and lower paid positions. To redress this imbalance, we conducted a qualitative study of employees’ involvement in CP processes in ten workplaces in the South East of England to identify whether and how they are involved in CP decision-making and to capture their perspective on the nature of CP and the benefits generated by such activities. We specifically chose to study workplaces where employees are involved in the actual execution of the CP strategy, prioritising companies with a visible presence on the high street. The results illustrate the benefits of involving employees in CP decision-making, which we argue derives in part from the ‘liminal-like states’ that typify CP activities organised by shop floor staff, involving the temporary overturning of hierarchies, humanising of workplaces and opportunities for lower level staff to prioritise their personal philanthropic preferences and signal their charitable identity to colleagues and customers. Whilst the data also suggest that CP decision-making remains predominantly top-down and driven by profit-oriented goals, we conclude that employees should be involved in choosing charitable causes as well as in designing and implementing workplace fundraising, in order to maximise the advantages of CP for the company and for wider society.
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    Global Philanthropy: Does Institutional Context Matter for Charitable Giving?
    (Sage, 2021-02-04) Wiepking, Pamala; Handy, Femida; Park, Sohyun; Neumayr, Michaela; Bekkers, René; Breeze, Beth; De Wit, Arjen; Einolf, Chris; Gricevic, Zbignev; Scaife, Wendy; Bethmann, Steffen; Breen, Oonagh B.; Kang, Chulhee; Katz, Hagai; Krasnopolskaya, Irina; Layton, Michael D.; Mersianova, Irina; Lo, Kunag-Ta; Osili, Una; Pessi, Anne Birgitta; Sivesind, Karl Henrik; Yamauchi, Naoto; Yang, Yongzheng
    In this article, we examine whether and how the institutional context matters when understanding individuals’ giving to philanthropic organizations. We posit that both the individuals’ propensity to give and the amounts given are higher in countries with a stronger institutional context for philanthropy. We examine key factors of formal and informal institutional contexts for philanthropy at both the organizational and societal levels, including regulatory and legislative frameworks, professional standards, and social practices. Our results show that while aggregate levels of giving are higher in countries with stronger institutionalization, multilevel analyses of 118,788 individuals in 19 countries show limited support for the hypothesized relationships between institutional context and philanthropy. The findings suggest the need for better comparative data to understand the complex and dynamic influences of institutional contexts on charitable giving. This, in turn, would support the development of evidence-based practices and policies in the field of global philanthropy.