Research on the path choice behavior of donated materials under major epidemics
Authors: Gui Ping , Yang Zufeng , Che Jun 
Published: March 2022

PurposeIn the face of major disasters, the Chinese people's willingness to donate has increased and the result is that the donation paths have increased. However, there are certain differences in the choice of donation paths for different types of individuals. It is crucial to pay more attention to the attitude and donation path selection of donors and propose strategies to promote individual donation behavior. The purpose of this study is to propose a conceptualized moderated mediation model for testing the linkage between individual attitude and donation path selection through the mediating effect of donors' behavioral intention and the moderating effect of behavioral difficulty perception or social pressure between donors' attitude and their donation path selection.Design/methodology/approachBased on a questionnaire survey of 628 community workers during COVID-19 in China. Self-reported measures were used to obtain data on IA, BI, SP, BDP and DPS. Survey data were used to test the proposed model using hierarchical regression analysis. Mediation analyses with bootstrap via PROCESS were used to ascertain the proposed relationship.FindingsThe results showed that individual attitude are positively related to donation path selection. Moreover, this study finds that behavioral intention serves as a mediator in the relationships between individual attitude and donation path selection. The social pressure and behavioral difficulty perception negatively moderate the relationship between individual attitude and behavioral intention.Research limitations/implicationsThere are still some shortcomings in this study: First, although the data collected at multiple points in this study are all individual data. Future research can add evaluations of relatives, friends or colleagues to individual scheduling of survey subjects to reduce homology errors. Second, although this study has verified the mediating role of the opposite sex, some of the mediating results show that there may be other variables that play a role in the relationship between individual attitudes and donation path selection. In the research on path selection, the integrated theoretical perspective has rich connotations but has not attracted enough attention from the academic community. This research is only based on this single theoretical perspective to construct, verify and explain the model, and there should be other integrated theories. The fit point can be used to analyze the influence mechanism of individual attitudes on the choice of donation path.Practical implicationsFirst of all, we must deepen our understanding of the connotation and role of individuals' attitudes. In the event of a major epidemic, the following two types of measures will be taken to improve individuals' attitudes toward specific donation paths: First, the sponsors of each donation should do their best to donors and provide more information about donations, because the more information resources they have, the stronger the experience of the corresponding donation path, and the more they will choose the path. The sponsor of the second donation must show concern for major epidemics that are prone to occur and a desire to help people affected by disasters, so as to enhance the emotional identity of the donor, thereby increasing the probability of the donor choosing a specific donation path. Secondly, donation sponsors should be wary of the negative influence of social pressure on the donation path selection of individual donors. Donation sponsors can train individuals who are willing to donate, guide them in social relations, online public opinion and other pressure methods and improve the possibility of individuals choosing specific donation routes.Social implicationsDeepen the understanding of the content and effectiveness of the behavioral difficulty perception that has a profound impact on the donor. The greater the tendency to make a path choice is often affected by the individual's perception of the difficulty of behavior. The perception of difficulty of a certain donation path will cause the individual to retreat and inhibit the possibility of the individual choosing the path. Therefore, donation sponsors should take all measures to make their own donation channels simpler and more efficient, thereby reducing the individual's perception of the difficulty of donation behavior.Originality/valueDrawing on TPB theory, a theoretical framework is constructed that specifies the process through which individual attitude affects donation path selection to expand collective understandings of individual attitude in the donation context. Furthermore, the boundary conditions of the underlying process are investigated, which further enhances the contribution of this paper to the extant literature on individual attitude.