Relationship quality and giving behaviour in the UK fundraising sector: Exploring the antecedent roles of religiosity and self-construal

Purpose: The current study aims to examine the extent to which donor religiosity and self-construal encourage the development of donor-perceived relationship quality and intention to give in the future. Donor-perceived relationship quality is conceptualised as a higher-order construct composed of trust, commitment, and satisfaction. Design/methodology/approach: The study employed a personally administered structured questionnaire to collect data. A total of 227 completed questionnaires was analysed. Confirmatory factor analysis was employed to assess the measurement properties of the study constructs. Structural equation modelling using a full estimation approach was performed to test the proposed research model. Findings: The study results indicate that religiosity and self-construal are important contributors of relationship quality, while religiosity and relationship quality have a direct impact on intention toward future giving. Research limitations/implications: The study findings provide practitioners in the fundraising sector in the UK with useful insights on relationship fundraising. Relationship quality should be developed in the context of an integrated charity-donor dyad, in order to enhance the likelihood of giving behaviour. Also, charities may find advantage in targeting religious and relationally interdependent self-construal individuals. Replication of this research within other settings is needed to test the external validity of the present findings. Originality/value: The main contribution of this study lies in that it investigates the impact of religiosity and self-construal on perceived relationship quality in the charity-donor context, which is largely unexplored in the extant literature.