Capital with beliefs—a study of charitable donations of private business owners in Wenzhou, China

Abstract

Borrowing Weber's dual-interest model and "switchman" hypothesis, this study uses survey data to analyze the internal driving force and diversity in the charitable giving behaviors of private business owners from Wenzhou, China. The study found that (1) the political and religious beliefs of business owners can have a positive influence on donation behaviors; (2) there are significant differences in the direction, form, and consequences of the donation due to differences in these beliefs, highlighting the selection variation of different beliefs and the affinity of differential interests; and (3) the Chinese Communist Party, as an institutional environment outside of the power of business owners, is able to affect charitable giving by channeling the ideal interests of business owners.Keywords: Belief; Private business owners; Charitable donations "If money, according to Augier, 'comes into the world with a congenital blood-stain on one cheek, ' capital comes dripping from head to foot, from every pore, with blood and dirt" (Marx 1995, 825). This saying, which equates capital with "bloody money" (Lagemann 1989, 23), is the extreme expression of "evil" in moral judgment. It emphasizes the exploitation of noncapital owners by capital owners. The focus of this study is "capital with beliefs" that is associated with donation behaviors (Bradley 1987;Brooks 2006) and looks at the behavior and logic of interests behind capital owners' charitable donations or giving. Specifically, this paper focuses on private business owners in Wenzhou, China. Are their beliefs associated with their donation behaviors? If so, how are they related?Theory and literature review Three factors and donationsAs a social phenomenon, charitable donations are evidently related to transferring a donor's material interests. Why are people willing to make generous donations? The existing literature has focused on political, economic, and religious factors to explain this behavior.

Waking from Mao’s Dream: Communist Ideological Imprinting and the Internationalization of Entrepreneurial Ventures in China

“…There are many examples of how entrepreneurs’ CPC membership negatively affected their cooperation with foreign firms. For example, a 2011 survey of Chinese private entrepreneurs showed that a majority of the interviewed entrepreneurs with communist beliefs expressed a negative attitude toward foreign capitalism but embraced market practices (Zhou and Hu, 2015), as did Mingshan Yin—founder of the large motorcycle and automobile manufacturer Lifan Group ( The Economist , 2003). These prior studies and examples suggest that the communist ideological imprint is still functioning, even though it is incongruent with the current business environment and detrimental to an organization’s survival and success by constraining its attempts to adapt to and profit from the changing environment.…”

Charitable donations by China’s private enterprises

“…17 Their main finding was that political connection has a statistically significant positive correlation with charitable giving. A fourth study is that of Zhou and Hu (2015), who studied the charitable giving behaviour of private business owners in Wenzhou using data collected in 2011 and who reported that owners with religious believes and those taking part in religious activities tend to donate more than others. This study also reported that the existence of a party organization at the firm level affects donation behaviour.…”

Donors’ attitude towards fundraising efforts in UAE during COVID-19 pandemic: the moderating role of ethics

“…Similarly, trust in charities denominates donors’ perception of non-commercial and charity activities like fundraising campaigns to ensure that charities are honest and involve the affected parties in the process (Alhidari et al , 2018). On the other hand, ethics denote cultural, religious, social and human aspects of the donors that motivate them to raise the funds to mitigate the pandemic impact (Zhou and Hu, 2015). In this regard, five items were used to measure charity projects and trust in charities, four questions for attitude toward fundraising and six questions for the ethical factor adapted from (Bin-Nashwan et al , 2020; Sarea and Bin-Nashwan, 2020).…”