The outbreaks of Middle East respiratory syndrome (MERS) previously in Middle East and recently in South Korea have raised serious concerns world-wide, reinforcing the importance of developing effective and safe vaccines against MERS-coronavirus (MERS-CoV). A number of vaccine candidates have been developed on the basis of viral vectors, recombinant proteins, DNAs, nanoparticles, and recombinant MERS-CoV, and some of them have shown efficacy in laboratory animals. However, the paucity of financial support has made it difficult to transfer effective candidates from the preclinical stage to clinical trials. Here, we summarize currently available MERS vaccine candidates and illustrate strategies for future development, with the aim of provoking government agencies and Big Pharma to invest more funds for developing efficacious and safe MERS vaccines.
Our purpose in this study was to validate the role of consumers' perceived trust and satisfaction in the internal mechanism of the effect of nonprofit organizations' social media strategies on consumers' donation intention and electronic word-of-mouth. We developed an online survey that was completed by 242 followers of the One Foundation nonprofit organization on social media. Responses were analyzed with a structural equation model. The results showed that both dissemination and interactivity had a significantly positive effect on consumers' perceived trust and satisfaction, which subsequently influenced their donation intention, and electronic word-of-mouth. Disclosure had a positive effect only on trust. Practical implications for managers of nonprofit organizations are discussed.
Microcharity is a charity participation mode gaining popularity in China. It has been found that individuals take a more active role in following the work of the microcharity compared to the passive role traditionally taken in charities. Based on the motivation–opportunity–ability theory, we examined the influences of altruistic motivation, shared vision, and perceived accessibility on charitable behavior in a microcharity context. A survey was completed by 240 microcharity donors in China. The results showed that shared vision moderated the relationship between altruistic motivation and charitable behavior, and that perceived accessibility moderated the interactions among altruistic motivation, shared vision, and charitable behavior. Our findings deepen the understanding of charitable behavior in relation to microcharities and may be useful for microcharity practitioners.
We examined the influence mechanism of employees' donation intentions in 4 different mobilization contexts in the workplace in China. Employees (N = 528) from 50 organizations in China completed a survey and the results showed that mobilization context has a significant effect both on employees' perceived pressures and on donation intentions. Specifically, the relationship between employees and the organizer of the contributions in the workplace had a stronger influence on both employees' perceived pressures and donation intentions than did releasing a list of donors and amount of donations. In addition, perceived pressure was found to play a mediating role between the mobilization context and employees' donation intentions, and also to have a significantly negative effect on employees' donation intentions.
PurposeOne purpose of this paper is to examine several factors that potentially influence a consumer's purchasing decision to participate in cause‐related marketing (CRM) program in the Chinese context. The other is to empirically test the hypothesized relationship between cause's attributes and purchase intention in such environment.Design/methodology/approachThis paper develops a measure for exploring the cause's attributes influencing consumer's purchasing intention. Two groups of valid samples, respectively, with 178 and 376 respondents are collected through questionnaire survey. Exploratory factor analysis (EFA) and confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) are employed to extract and test the key influential attributes on the basis of data of two samples respectively, and structural equation model is used to define the structure of influencing attributes and to measure the degree of impact for each attribute on the consumer's purchasing intention.FindingsThe results show that the degree of cause's participation for consumer, fit between the brand and the cause, cause importance, congruence between the firm's product and the cause, cause proximity play an important role in consumers' attitudes toward the product and firm and their intentions to purchase the advertised product and participate in the CRM campaign, which suggests an opportunity for nonprofits to compete for these vital resources by nurturing and leveraging the antecedent factors and an opportunity for firms to select a cause partner.Research limitations/implicationsThe sample is a convenience sample that is the main limitations of this research. The EFA and CFA is difficult to generalize to a larger audience, and there was a lack of experimental control for the questionnaire investigation, so the quality of questionnaire can not be ensured.Practical implicationsThis research should help firms determine the best partners for strategic social alliances, and provide an advice on how to make them maximum participation, also should help current and potential consumers ascribe personality traits to nonprofit organizations and differentiate between nonprofits on the basis of the cause's attributes. At the same time, this paper provides several interesting areas for future research that will further aid marketing managers to develop a more effective CRM campaign to fit with goals of corporate, which adds some valuable insights or new ideas to develop essential theory.Originality/valueThis paper offers interesting insight into the development of CRM campaigns, and explores the five variables: the degree of cause's participation for consumer; fit between the brand and the cause; cause importance; congruence between the firm's product and the cause; cause proximity also should influence consumer's purchasing attitude, intention and decision behavior in the Chinese context.
We revealed the mechanism of customer citizenship behavior through an Internet charity platform by examining the validity of the unified theory of acceptance and use of technology (UTAUT). We introduced trust in, and interactivity of, the Internet charity platform to develop a model based on the UTAUT, and conducted an online survey with 302 participants in China. The results show that performance expectancy and effort expectancy had a positive impact on reparticipation intention, which led to an increase in customer citizenship behavior, on which facilitating conditions also had a significant positive impact. Further, trust in the Internet charity platform moderated the influence of performance expectancy and effort expectancy on reparticipation intention, and the interactivity of the Internet charity platform promoted the impact of facilitating conditions on customer citizenship behavior. Practical implications for managers of nonprofit organizations are discussed.
To investigate the public service motivation (PSM) of public- and private-sector employees in a Chinese context, comparative studies were conducted with 2 independent samples. In Study 1, confirmatory factor analysis was implemented to assess the level of PSM in 250 public employees. In Study 2, 247 respondents from private companies were evaluated. Results gained in these studies not only provided evidence supporting the construct validity of this measure of PSM in a Chinese context, but also demonstrated that, comparatively, public-sector employees' levels of PSM were relatively higher than those of private-sector employees, especially in relation to the attraction to public policymaking and commitment to public interest dimensions of PSM.
