Korean Journal of Policy Studies

Graduate School of Public Administration, Seoul National University

Korean J. Policy Stud. 2017; 32(1):53-70

pISSN: 1225-5017, eISSN: 2765-2807

Article

The Effect of Trust on Giving: Evidence from Korean-Americans in California*

Seong-gin Moon¹

¹Seong-gin Moon is an Associate Professor at the Department of Public Administration, Inha University. E-mail: moons@inha.ac.kr.

© Copyright 2017 Graduate School of Public Administration, Seoul National University. This is an Open-Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/) which permits unrestricted non-commercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

Received: Feb 09, 2017; Revised: Feb 17, 2017; Revised: Mar 21, 2017; Accepted: Mar 24, 2017

Published Online: Apr 30, 2017

Abstract

Trust in a nonprofit organization is recognized by many scholars as a pivotal function of giving activity. However, there is limited empirical evidence, and it remains unclear how trust influences giving practices. This study empirically examines the effects of trust toward nonprofit organizations on giving among Korean-Americans in California. Based on the Korean-American Philanthropic Survey, regression models are constructed to estimate such effects. The empirical results indicated a strong and positive relationship between trust in nonprofits and giving. Basically, immigrants with a greater stock of trust in nonprofits are more likely to give than their counterparts. In addition, acculturation, age, female, and religiosity are significantly and positively related to giving.

Keywords: Trust; giving; nonprofit organizations; Korean immigrants