Pro-social behaviour and philanthropy are critical traits to act in a responsible manner towards society and environment through providing money, time and efforts. Most studies have focused on stable locations. However, conflict may still appear as potential places for such behaviour. This chapter raises three major inquiries: Do individuals and corporates perform pro-social behaviour in conflict context? If so, how do they perform such behaviour? How does literature approach specifically consumer pro-social behaviour in conflict and post-conflict locations. This chapter tries to conceptually review recent literature of pro-social practices in conflict contexts. The chapter reveals that no absolute positive impact relating to violence and conflict on pro-social behaviour. The majority of evidence supports the idea that pro-sociality increases during times of war. People exposed to direct violence may participate more in social activities, with early development of environmental and consumer issues. Moreover, entrepreneurship is found to have similar implications on the war-torn society.
Top1. Introduction
Pro-social behaviour and philanthropy indicate to actions in the sake of public goods towards society and surrounding environment through participation and contributing money, time and efforts to the society’s most important issues (Brown & Ferris, 2007). The core motivation of both practices towards others in society and nature is the individual moral responsibility (Nickel & Eikenberry, 2010). Pro-social behaviours, in general, cover a diverse kind of practices including donating, volunteering, voting and supporting environmental causes (Lay & Hoppmann, 2015). This notion originally signifies to altruistic and empathic giving and was used for the first time before more than one hundred years ago (Penner, Dovidio, Piliavin, & Schroeder, 2005). Consumer pro-social behaviour represents an example of taking care of others while purchasing goods and needs (Small & Cryder, 2016). Consumer pro-social behaviour refers to a broader conception than pro-environmental behaviour, which focuses on environmental issues only.
On the other hand, philanthropy, in its simplicity, refers to courtesy and benevolence (Sulek, 2010). Schervish (1998) identified it as the feeling of care which is managed by moral responsibility beyond self-interest, towards others. Philanthropy is commonly reflected in same aforementioned set of activities including volunteering and donations (Lay & Hoppmann, 2015). Therefore, many literature bring both terms synonymously, especially when discussing individual level of practices such as volunteering, generosity and donations (Lay & Hoppmann, 2015). They are basically the individual responsibility rather than governmental and public ones (Imada, 2010). In order to approach the largest possible number of articles in conflict and post conflict, this chapter uses both terms as keywords in search engines.
From this perspective, most pro-social behaviour and philanthropy studies have focused on stable locations and developed countries like USA and Europe (Mattis et al., 2000; Paxton, Reith, & Glanville, 2014; Schuyt, Bekkers, & Smit, 2010). However, conflict and post conflict contexts may still appear as potential places for such behaviours, especially with evidences that indicate to positive legacies of violence and increasing participation in social involvement (Bauer et al., 2016; Grosjean, 2014). Conflict here refers to a wide-scale violence and armed crisis that caused due to political, religious, economic or ethnic reasons (Brück, Naudé, & Verwimp, 2012). Furthermore, post conflict also presents a fragile place that faces huge challenges despite of it relative stability compared with conflict locations (Santos, 2003). With a world which constantly evolves through cycles of crisis and conflicts (Pirkkalainen & Abdile, 2009), addressing pro-social behaviour and philanthropic issues seems to be crucial in general and with specific emphasizing on corporates and consumers.