Abstract
Endorsement is used by charitable organizations to stimulate public support, including monetary donations. This article reports a field experiment that examined the effect of leader and peer endorsement on student volunteering. The experiment was conducted with over 100,000 students from five UK universities and compared the effect on volunteering rates of email endorsements by politicians, celebrities, and peers, to a control group that received an email but no endorsement. We examined outcomes seven weeks after the original e-mails, including click-throughs to volunteering unit websites, attendance at volunteering training, registration with volunteering units, and actual volunteering. Peer endorsements reduced click-throughs to volunteering unit websites. There were positive treatment effects for endorsement by politicians on subsequent training but no significant effects of any of the endorsements on our other outcome measures. Overall, we found little support for the provision of leader and celebrity endorsement, and confirm negative effects for peer endorsement.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Pages (from-to) | 1-19 |
| Number of pages | 19 |
| Journal | Journal of Nonprofit and Public Sector Marketing |
| DOIs | |
| Publication status | E-pub ahead of print - 22 Oct 2018 |
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The Impact of Peer, Politician, and Celebrity Endorsements on Volunteering: A Field Experiment with English Students. / John, Peter; James, Oliver; Moseley, Alice; Ryan, Matt; Richardson, Liz; Stoker, Gerry.
In: Journal of Nonprofit and Public Sector Marketing, 22.10.2018, p. 1-19.Research output: Contribution to journal › Article
TY - JOUR
T1 - The Impact of Peer, Politician, and Celebrity Endorsements on Volunteering: A Field Experiment with English Students
AU - John, Peter
AU - James, Oliver
AU - Moseley, Alice
AU - Ryan, Matt
AU - Richardson, Liz
AU - Stoker, Gerry
PY - 2018/10/22
Y1 - 2018/10/22
N2 - Endorsement is used by charitable organizations to stimulate public support, including monetary donations. This article reports a field experiment that examined the effect of leader and peer endorsement on student volunteering. The experiment was conducted with over 100,000 students from five UK universities and compared the effect on volunteering rates of email endorsements by politicians, celebrities, and peers, to a control group that received an email but no endorsement. We examined outcomes seven weeks after the original e-mails, including click-throughs to volunteering unit websites, attendance at volunteering training, registration with volunteering units, and actual volunteering. Peer endorsements reduced click-throughs to volunteering unit websites. There were positive treatment effects for endorsement by politicians on subsequent training but no significant effects of any of the endorsements on our other outcome measures. Overall, we found little support for the provision of leader and celebrity endorsement, and confirm negative effects for peer endorsement.
AB - Endorsement is used by charitable organizations to stimulate public support, including monetary donations. This article reports a field experiment that examined the effect of leader and peer endorsement on student volunteering. The experiment was conducted with over 100,000 students from five UK universities and compared the effect on volunteering rates of email endorsements by politicians, celebrities, and peers, to a control group that received an email but no endorsement. We examined outcomes seven weeks after the original e-mails, including click-throughs to volunteering unit websites, attendance at volunteering training, registration with volunteering units, and actual volunteering. Peer endorsements reduced click-throughs to volunteering unit websites. There were positive treatment effects for endorsement by politicians on subsequent training but no significant effects of any of the endorsements on our other outcome measures. Overall, we found little support for the provision of leader and celebrity endorsement, and confirm negative effects for peer endorsement.
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85055559969&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1080/10495142.2018.1526743
DO - 10.1080/10495142.2018.1526743
M3 - Article
SP - 1
EP - 19
JO - Journal of Nonprofit and Public Sector Marketing
JF - Journal of Nonprofit and Public Sector Marketing
SN - 1049-5142
ER -