Relationship quality and giving behaviour in the UK fundraising sector : Exploring the antecedent roles of religiosity and self‐construal

Purpose – The current study aims to examine the extent to which donor religiosity and self‐construal encourage the development of donor‐perceived relationship quality and intention to give in the future. Donor‐perceived relationship quality is conceptualised as a higher‐order construct composed of trust, commitment, and satisfaction. Design/methodology/approach – The study employed a personally administered structured questionnaire to collect data. A total of 227 completed questionnaires was analysed. Confirmatory factor analysis was employed to assess the measurement properties of the study constructs. Structural equation modelling using a full estimation approach was performed to test the proposed research model. Findings – The study results indicate that religiosity and self‐construal are important contributors of relationship quality, while religiosity and relationship quality have a direct impact on intention toward future giving. Research limitations/implications – The study findings provide practitioners in the fundraising sector in the UK with useful insights on relationship fundraising. Relationship quality should be developed in the context of an integrated charity‐donor dyad, in order to enhance the likelihood of giving behaviour. Also, charities may find advantage in targeting religious and relationally interdependent self‐construal individuals. Replication of this research within other settings is needed to test the external validity of the present findings. Originality/value – The main contribution of this study lies in that it investigates the impact of religiosity and self‐construal on perceived relationship quality in the charity‐donor context, which is largely unexplored in the extant literature.