Investigating Individuals' Monetary Donation Behaviour in Saudi Arabia

395 Pages·2014·5.08 MB·English

Investigating Individuals’ Monetary
Donation Behaviour
in Saudi Arabia

By
Ibrahim Sulaiman Alhidari

Thesis Submitted in Fulfilment of the Requirements for the Degree of
Doctor of Philosophy
Marketing & Strategy Section Cardiff Business School,
Cardiff University

i
In the name of Allah, the Entirely Merciful, the Especially Merciful

“Allah (the God) makes the way to Paradise easy
for those who treads the path in search of knowledge”
(Prophet Muhammad peace be upon him)

ii
Declaration

This work has not previously been accepted in substance for any degree and is not
concurrently submitted in candidature for any degree.
Signed (Ibrahim Alhidari)
Date: 10. 09. 2013

STATEMENT 1
This thesis is being submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree
of Doctor of Philosophy
Signed (Ibrahim Alhidari)
Date: 10. 09. 2013

STATEMENT 2
This thesis is the result of my own independent work/investigation, except where
otherwise stated. Other sources are acknowledged by footnotes giving explicit
references.
Signed (Ibrahim Alhidari)
Date: 10. 09. 2013

STATEMENT 3
I hereby give consent for my thesis, if accepted, to be available for photocopying and
for inter- library loan, and for the title and summary to be made available to outside
organisations.
Signed (Ibrahim Alhidari)
Date: 10. 09. 2013

iii
Dedication

With a grateful heart I dedicate this dissertation

To…
The soul of my missed father Sulaiman Alhidari
And my beloved and great mother Lateefah Alfouzan
May Allah enable me to reward you with love and respect

And to…
My beloved wife and children
Who gave me unconditional support

And, finally, to…
All of the volunteers, donors and workers in the charitable sector across the world
Please accept my effort in this study as a brick in your grateful and beautiful humanitarian
building

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Acknowledgements

All praise to Almighty Allah, the Lord of the Universe, for His blessing and mercy without
which this work will not be realised. Peace be upon the beloved prophet Muhammad for his
teachings that always enlighten my life.
A PhD is a long journey and I am personally indebted to many individuals and several
parties who have kindly provided much needed support and assistance to reach the end of
this study.
With a deep sense of gratitude, I wish to express my sincere thanks to Dr. Shumaila
Yousafzai and Dr. Mirella Yani-De-Soriano my supervisors, for their unconditional support,
endless encouragement and constructive guidance from the first step of my study until the
final touches. I also thank Dr. Uzma Javed for her support in many parts of the statistical
analysis.
I would like to thank my government, Saudi Arabia, and my employer; Imam
Muhammad ibn Saudi University for giving me the opportunity to undertake this study and
for providing financial support and other assistance throughout my study at Cardiff Business
School.
My heartfelt thanks go to my beloved mother, Lateefah Alfouzan who has sacrificed
a lot in letting me and my family travel abroad and live far away from her for many years.
For her and for my beloved missed father, the best I can say is that I beg the Generous Allah
to reward them the highest position in His Paradise. Similar thanks go to my oldest and
respected brother Muhammad, who facilitated many challenges that I faced during my study
in the UK.
Last, but not least, my utmost gratitude to my lovely family who have travelled with
me to Cardiff, to my beloved wife Norah, for her understanding, sacrifice and support. She
along with my children, Ammar, Shahad, Lateefah and the little Aseel have truly provided
me a true love and strong inspiration to accomplish this study.

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List of Abbreviations

AVE: Average Variance Extracted
CFA: Confirmatory Factor Analysis
CFI: Comparative Fit Index
COs: Charitable Organisations
D2: Mahalanobis Distance
EFA: Exploratory Factor Analysis
GCC: Gulf Co-operation Council
GFI: Goodness of Fit Index
IRO: International Relief Organisation
KMO: Kaiser-Meyer-Olin
NPO: Non-Profit Organisation
PBC: Perceived behavioural control
RMSEA: Root Mean Square Error of Approximation
SCT: Social Cognitive Theory
SET: Social Exchange Theory
SEM: Structural Equation Modelling
TPB: Theory of Planned Behaviour
TRA: Theory of Reasoned Action
TLI: Tucker-Lewis Index
χ 2: chi-square

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Abstract

The primary objective of this thesis is to develop a conceptual model which will help to
understand individuals’ monetary donations to Charitable Organisations (COs) in Saudi
Arabia. Although individuals are one of the main funding sources for many COs, research
in this area is limited. Most of the previous studies have been conducted in Western countries
and they have principally investigated the relationship between individuals’ demographic
characteristics and their monetary donation behaviour. The present study fills the gap in the
literature by conducting a substantive research on Muslim donors’ behaviour. This study
examines Saudi individuals’ intentions and the extent to which these intentions are related
to individuals’ self-reported donation to COs. It also investigates the role of individuals’ trust
in the COs, as well as their behavioural differences with regards to the level of their religiosity
and demographic characteristics (e.g. income, age and gender).
Structural Equation Modelling (SEM) is used to rigorously test the validity of the
measurement models in order to examine the comprehensive set of hypothesised
interrelationships among the variables and their comparative effects on individuals’
intentions and self-reported monetary donation to COs. The data were collected through
drop off questionnaires. A survey was administered to a convenience sample of respondents
and 221 completed questionnaires were received.
Firstly, the empirical results show that behavioural intention to donate to COs
translate over time into self-reported behaviour. Secondly, they show that attitudes toward
helping others and attitudes toward giving monetary donation to COs have a significant
effect on behavioural intention. Thirdly, moral responsibility and social norms have a
significant impact on behavioural intention. Fourthly, perceived behavioural control has a
significant impact on behavioural intentions but not on self-reported behaviour. Fifthly, trust
in COs has a significant impact on both behavioural intention and self-reported behaviour.
Sixthly, an individual’s perceptions of the ability, integrity, and benevolence of COs are direct
antecedents of his or her trust in the COs, making trust a multi-dimensional construct.
Seventhly, an individual’s trust disposition has a direct impact on his or her behavioural
intention. And finally, Saudi individuals do not differ in their monetary donation behaviour
on the basis of their religiosity and most of the demographic characteristics.
The main theoretical implication of the study is that while the theory of reasoned
action and the theory of planned behaviour are useful in explaining Saudi individuals’
monetary donation behaviour to COs, extending the theory to include the combined effect
of new variables and moderators increases our understating of the underlying phenomenon.
An individual’s monetary donation behaviour is still a complex, elusive, yet extremely
important phenomenon. The model proposed and validated in this thesis advances the
theory and research on monetary donations to COs and provides a comprehensive
understanding of donors’ behaviour for practitioners in charitable and not-for-profit
organisations.

Keywords: individuals’ monetary donation, Saudi Arabia, donation behaviour, trust in
charitable organisations, perceived ability, perceived integrity, perceived benevolence, trust
disposition, moral responsibility, TPB, TRA, structural equation modelling, SEM

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Table of Contents

Chapter One: Introduction
1.1 Research Context 3
1.1.1 The Charitable Organisations Sector 3
1.1.2 COs and Individual Donations 5
1.1.3 The COs Sector in Saudi Arabia 7
1.2 The Background to this Research 8
1.3 Justification for the Research 10
1.4 Research Objective 11
1.5 Research Questions 12
1.6 Research Methodology 12
1.7 Contributions of the Present Research 13
1.8 Structure of this Thesis 14
1.9 Summary 16

Chapter Two: An Overview of the Saudi Charitable
Organisations Sector

2.1 History of the Saudi Charitable Sector 18
2.1.1 First stage: 1932-1961 19
2.1.2 Stage Two: 1961-2001 20
2.1.3 Stage Three: 2001 to Date 20
2.2 Defining Charitable Organisations in Saudi Arabia: 22
2.3 The Structure of the Saudi Charitable Sector 25
2.4 Funding in the Charitable Organisations Sector 29
2.4.1 Funding Forms in the Saudi Charitable Sector 29
2.4.2 Funding Sources in the Saudi Charitable Sector 32
2.4.2.1 Government 32
2.4.2.2 Charitable Foundations 33
2.4.2.3 Corporates 34
2.4.2.4 Individuals 34
2.5 Summary 35
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Chapter Three: Individuals’ Monetary Donation Behaviour: A
Literature Review of the Theoretical Models

3.1 Background and Definition of Monetary Donation Behaviour 37
3.1.1 Defining the Individuals’ Donation Behaviour in a Saudi Context 40
3.1.1.1 Decision rules of Saudi donation 40
3.1.1.2 Donation Decision-making between zakat and sadaqa 45
3.1.1.3 How Saudi donation choose a CO 47
3.1.1.4 Conclusion 50
3.2 Theoretical Foundations of Individuals’ Monetary Donation Behaviour 51
3.2.1 The Sociological Approach 52
3.2.2 The Psychological Approach 53
3.2.3 Multi-dimensional Approach 54
3.3 Literature Review on the Multi-dimensional Approaches of Monetary Donation Behaviour 62
3.3.1 Social Cognitive Theory 63
3.3.2 Social Exchange Theory 64
3.3.3 The Theory of Reasoned Action 65
3.3.4 The Theory of Planned Behaviour 67
3.3.4.1 Application of the TPB in relation to Monetary Donation 69
3.4 Theoretical Foundation for the Present Study based on a Revised Version of the TPB 73
3.4.1 Monetary Donation Behaviour 74
3.4.1.1 Donation behaviour and social desirability 74
3.4.2 The Influence of Behavioural Intention on Giving Monetary Donations to COs 76
3.4.3 Attitude towards Giving Monetary Donations to COs 80
3.4.4 Social Norm 82
3.4.5 Moral Responsibility 83
3.4.6 PBC 85
3.5 A Comparison of the TRA, the TPB, and the Revised TPB 86
3.6 Summary 89

Chapter Four: The Role of Trust in Individuals’ Monetary
Donation Behaviour

4.1 Defining Trust in the Charitable Donation Context 91
4.2 The Theoretical Foundation of Trust in COs 94
4.2.1 Characteristics of Trust in relation to Monetary Donation 94
4.2.2 Dimensions of Trust in Monetary Donation Context 100
4.3 Previous Conceptualisation of Individual’s Trust in COs 103
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4.3.1 MacMillan et al.’s (2005) Model of Trust in Funding COs 103
4.3.2 Torres-Moraga et al.’s (2010) Model of a Donor’s Trust in COs 104
4.3.3 Sargeant et al.’s (2006) Model of Trust in COs 106
4.3.4 Review of the Three Models 107
4.4 A Proposed Model of Trust for an Individual’s Monetary 108
Charitable Giving Behaviour
4.4.1 Perceived Ability 110
4.4.2 Perceived Integrity 110
4.4.3 Perceived Benevolence 111
4.4.4 Disposition to Trust 111
4.4.5 Trust Outcome 112
4.5 Summary 113

Chapter Five: The Moderating Role of Individuals’ Characteristics
in Charitable Donation Behaviour

5.1 The Moderating Role of Religiosity on Individuals’ Monetary Donation to COs 116
5.1.1 Religion in the context of Saudi Arabia 116
5.1.2 Religion’s Influence on Human Behaviour 117
5.1.3 The influence of Religious Affiliation and Religiosity on Human Behaviour 123
5.1.4 Religiosity 124
5.1.4.1 Religiosity Dimensions 127
5.1.4.2 Defining and Measuring Religiosity in the Islamic Context 128
5.1.5 The Role of Religiosity in Monetary Donation Behaviour 131
5.2 The Moderating Role of Demographics on an Individual’s Monetary Donations to COs
137
5.2.1 The Moderating Role of Income on an Individual’s Monetary Donation to COs 140
5.2.2 The Moderating Role of Gender on an Individual’s Monetary Donation to COs 141
5.2.3 The Moderating Role of Age on an Individual’s Monetary Donation to COs 142
5.3 Summary 143

Chapter Six: Conceptual Development

6.1 Models Comparison 145
6.1.1 Ensuring a Fair Comparison 146
6.1.2 Hypotheses for Model Comparison 147
6.2 A Model of Saudi Individuals’ Monetary Donations to COs 148
6.2.1 Behavioural Intention and Behaviour Donation 150
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