| In recent years,more and more hotels bring corporate philanthropy into corporate strategic planning.As the direct stakeholder groups,consumers are the most important expectations,supervisors and judges for enterprises to fulfill their social responsibilities.Thus,consumers’ perception and evaluation of hotels’ philanthropy actions are very important for hotels to estimate the effectiveness of the strategy.Time donation and monetary donation are common ways for hotel to fulfill their philanthropic responsibilities.However,scholars had paid a little attention to discuss the strategic outcome of hotel donation actions,and often regard the monetary donation and time donation as the same dimension of charity.Therefore,it is noteworthy to analyze the differential strategic effect between monetary donation and time donation from the perspective of consumers.Although previous research has explored the differential influence of monetary donation and time donation on consumer response from the cognitive pathway,there is little research to discuss the underlying mechanism from emotion and affect-based processes.Moreover,it is even less clear whether the emotional mechanism may be a more explanatory mechanism than the cognitive process.The characteristics of the hotel industry determine that it needs to meet and realize the emotional value of consumers,so it is particularly necessary to analyze the differentiated influence of time donation and monetary donation on consumer response from the emotional process.Grounded in the affective events theory and stereotype content model,this paper focused on monetary donation and a time donation and proposed an emotion-motivational mechanistic model to analyze the serial mediation role of perceived warmth and brand warmth and the moderate role of the relative donation amount.Three studies were used to investigate the effects of two types of hotel donations on consumers’ brand attitudes under different scenarios.Specifically,study 1 used a single factor(monetary donation/time donation/control group)inter-group experimental design,comparative analysis the differentiated effect of different types of hotel donation behavior on consumer brand attitudes;study 2 used a single factor(monetary donation/time donation)inter-group design to examine the serial mediating effect of perceived warmth and brand warmth,and compared the explanatory power of emotional experience and rational cognition;study 3employeed a 2(type of charitable donation: money donation/time donation)×2(relative donation amount: high/low)inter-group experimental design to explore the differential effects of two types of hotel donations on consumers’ emotional and attitude responses under different relative donation amount.This paper drew the following conclusions: first,compared with the non-donation message,the hotel philanthropy actions can significantly enhance consumer brand attitude,and time-donations(VS.monetary donations)result in a more positive attitude towards the hotel brand;Second,perceived warmth and brand warmth fully and serially mediates the relationship between donation type and consumer attitude toward hotel.It is also discovered the emotional process is a more explanatory mechanism than rational process.Third,relative donation amount moderates the relationship between donation type and perceived warmth;compared with time(monetary)donations,hotel adopt high(low)relative donation amount will result in higher levels of perceived warmth and brand attitude towards consumers for monetary(time)donations.The present study provides a new theoretical explanation for understanding the influence of hotels’ philanthropy actions on consumer brand attitude;complements and strengthens the mechanism and strategic effect of hotel philanthropy;deepens the stereotype content model and its application in the field of hotel philanthropy.Besides,this paper contributes to helping hotel managers clearly understand the effect of hotel philanthropy,and play an important role in guiding hotels to implement philanthropy initiatives to enhance consumer attitude towards the hotel.It has important marketing significance for hotels to use donation activities to enhance consumer brand attitude. |
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