The Journal of Consumer Affairs has accepted an article for publication by Anne Hamby and Niusha Jones, both assistant professors in the Department of Marketing. Their article, “Exploring the effects of for-profit and nonprofit size congruency: An exchange perspective on cause-related marketing,” can be accessed in The Journal of Consumer Affairs.
“We were interested in researching the subject because we noticed that past research on cause-related marketing promotions (where a for-profit and nonprofit partner on a promotion, often related to a for-profit’s products) tends to focus on specific types of large for-profit and smaller nonprofit partnerships,” said Hamby. “We wondered if consumer perceptions of such partnerships would be influenced by the basic demographic characteristic of organizational size.”
The research shows that congruence in size (large and small) between for-profit and nonprofit organizations does matter in the context of cause-related marketing (CM) promotions. In general, the authors find that people view a partnership between a small for-profit and large nonprofit as a low-fit arrangement, and as a consequence have a less positive attitude towards the CM promotion. Consumers’ perceptions of low fit between a small for-profit and a large nonprofit is more likely to occur when the CM promotion leads to the donation of money versus goods.