Why ‘Doing Good’ is not Good Enough: Essays on Social Impact Measurement

__Abstract__ "We are facing a paradox of ‘doing good’. There is a clear role for philanthropic and Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) efforts to play in addressing the social problems that our world faces today. However, evidence seems to suggest that this ‘doing good’ is not effectively solving these social problems. ‘Doing good’ is thus often not good enough. The objectives of this doctoral thesis are to contribute to denuding this paradox of ‘doing good’, and to provide concrete suggestions on how this ‘doing good’ can be done better. A multilevel perspective is taken to identify three main causes for the paradox: 1) goal incongruence between the private sector, government, and the philanthropic sector, 2) a lack of results (impact) measurement at the organizational level, and 3) information asymmetry in the market of ‘doing good’ between donors,

Free to help? An experiment on free will belief and altruism

How does belief in free will affect altruistic behavior? In an online experiment we undermine subjects' belief in free will through a priming task. Subjects subsequently conduct a series of binary dictator games in which they can distribute money between themselves and a charity that supports low-income people in developing countries. In each decision task, subjects choose between two different distributions, one of which is more generous towards the charity. In contrast to previous experiments that report a negative effect of undermining free will on honest behavior and self-reported willingness to help, we find an insignificant average treatment effect. However, we do find that our treatment reduces charitable giving among non-religious subjects, but not among religious subjects. This could be explained by our finding that religious subjects associate more strongly with social norms that prescribe helping the poor, and might therefore be less sensitive to the effect of reduced belief in free will. Taken together, these findings indicate that the effects of free will belief on prosocial behavior are more nuanced than previously suggested