Corporate philanthropy can have a positive impact on employees | News | Notre Dame News | University of Notre Dame Skip To Content Skip To Navigation Skip To Search University of Notre Dame Notre Dame News Experts ND in the News Subscribe About Us Home Contact Search Menu Home › News › Corporate philanthropy can have a positive impact on employees Corporate philanthropy can have a positive impact on employees Published: January 27, 2016 Author: William G. Gilroy Corporate philanthropy benefits organizations in many ways: Giving enhances a business’s reputation and strengthens a business’s efforts toward corporate social responsibility. But does corporate philanthropy do anything to benefit a business’s employees? Researchers Emily Block and Michael Mannor from the University of Notre Dame’s Mendoza College of Business; Ante Glavas, now at Kedge Business School in France; and Laura Erskine at the University of California, Los Angeles examined how corporate philanthropy affects those inside the organization. They analyzed three years’ of data on the attitudes of an average of 14,577 employees in 53 offices. The researchers found an overall positive impact on employees of businesses practicing corporate giving. They also found that the way that firms choose to deploy those funds has a huge impact on the degree to which giving affects employees. “Specifically, the impact is stronger when firms donate to a few big and visible targets rather than to a wider range of charities chosen by the employees themselves,” Block said. Of particular interest in the findings is that by coupling donations with opportunities to volunteer, organizations can enhance the positive impact on employees. “Also, surprisingly, we found that employees respond more positively to donations to larger more strategic and more centralized targets,” Block said. “We thought, wrongly, that self-interested employees would look for ways to pay for their own pet projects. However, that was not what we found empirically. Employees care about impact.” The study appears in the Journal of Business Ethics. An abstract of the study can be found here: http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10551-015-2930-8. Contact: Emily Block, 574-631-3299, eblock1@nd.edu Posted In: Research Home Experts ND in the News Subscribe About Us Related October 05, 2022 Astrophysicists find evidence for the presence of the first stars October 04, 2022 NIH awards $4 million grant to psychologists researching suicide prevention September 29, 2022 Notre Dame, Ukrainian Catholic University launch three new research grants September 27, 2022 Notre Dame, Trinity College Dublin engineers join to advance novel treatment for cystic fibrosis September 22, 2022 Climate-prepared countries are losing ground, latest ND-GAIN index shows For the Media Contact Office of Public Affairs and Communications Notre Dame News 500 Grace Hall Notre Dame, IN 46556 USA Facebook Twitter Instagram YouTube Pinterest © 2022 University of Notre Dame Search Mobile App News Events Visit Accessibility Facebook Twitter Instagram YouTube LinkedIn