Resumen de Hierarchy Leadership and Social Distance in Charitable Giving

Jipeng Zhang, Huan Xie

• This article investigates the effect of hierarchy leadership and social distance on prosocial behavior in a field experimental setting of sequential charitable giving conducted in an organization. The treatments vary in whether the leading (first) donor's identity is revealed to the following donors as a hierarchy leader, a peer, or a stranger. The followers' giving in the Leader and Peer treatments responds positively to the leader's giving, but no significant response is found in the Stranger treatment. However, on average, the followers in the Leader treatment give less than those in both the Peer and Stranger treatments. This is due to a negative effect on the followers' giving when the leaders contribute a small amount in the Leader treatment.