How Do Donors Use Accounting Information in Non-profit Donation Decisions?
Visit dates to be confirmed for 2021/22
Biography
Matthew Hall is Professor of Accounting at Monash University. His research interests relate to management accounting and performance measurement, with a specific focus on measuring value in difficult to measure contexts, such as in mutuals and cooperatives, non-profits, and social enterprises. His work has been published in a variety of leading international journals in the accounting, management and non-profit fields, including Accounting, Organizations and Society, Management Accounting Research, Harvard Business Review, Journal of Management Studies, Nonprofit and Voluntary Sector Quarterly and Voluntas. He is an associate editor of Management Accounting Research as well as an editorial board member of several top accounting journals such as Accounting, Organizations, and Society. Before returning to Australia in 2016, Matthew worked for ten years at the London School of Economics and Political Science.
Summary
This study examines how individual donors use accounting information in non-profit donation decisions. Using a vignette technique centred on a hypothetical non-profit organisation, we conduct 20 interviews with individual donors. We find individual donors steer themselves towards non-profit organisations they can trust rather than acting like investors in seeking out the most efficient non-profit organisations. Findings show how traditional efficiency ratios are at best a crude proxy, with individual donors preferring financial information on specific types of expenditures, along with narratives, stories, and images about the activities and impact of charitable work. Mobilising theory on the social meaning of charitable donations (Zelizer 1997), we argue this is because donors are primarily interested in evaluating whether and how non-profit organisations have spent donations on those activities for which their funds were intended. Our findings provide a more nuanced and complex view on the role of accounting information in non-profit donation decisions.
Professor Hall is hosted by Dr Emma Pugh, Economics, Finance and Management
Planned events include:
Public lecture
Professor Hall will explore the role of accounting information in non-profit donation decisions highlighting that donors are primarily interested in evaluating whether and how non-profit organisations have spent donations on those activities for which their funds were intended. The lecture will emphasise the importance of studying alternative organisational settings including charities, NGOs, and cooperatives and hence bridge the gap between management and accounting researchers.
Writing seminar
An open half-day seminar for early career researchers and Ph.D. students about the technicalities and the process of getting research published. He will examine the technical aspects of writing up research in a format appropriate for publication in accounting, including the importance of following journal guidelines and house style, and the value of using a clear structure to frame papers.
