IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/gam/jsusta/v17y2025i21p9440-d1778517.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The Role of Income, Happiness, and Norms in Fostering Pro-Social Behavior: A PLS-SEM Analysis of Charitable Giving and Its Contribution to Sustainable Development in Uzbekistan

Author

Listed:
  • Azimjon Musamuxamedov

    (Graduate School, Westminster International University in Tashkent, Tashkent 100047, Uzbekistan
    School of Business and Management, Management Development Institute of Singapore in Tashkent, Tashkent 100027, Uzbekistan)

  • Dostonbek Eshpulatov

    (Department of Economics, Gulistan State University, Gulistan 120100, Uzbekistan
    Department of Accounting and Finance, Gulistan State University, Gulistan 120100, Uzbekistan)

  • Raufhon Salahodjaev

    (Department of Economics, University of Tashkent for Applied Sciences, Gavhar Street 1, Tashkent 100149, Uzbekistan
    Laboratory for Social and Human Capital, Kurgontepa District, Tashkent 100131, Uzbekistan)

Abstract

Charitable giving plays a vital role in advancing sustainable development, yet little is known about its determinants in transitional economies. This study addresses this gap by examining the socioeconomic and psychological drivers of prosocial financial behavior in Uzbekistan, integrating the Theory of Planned Behavior (TPB), Norm Activation Theory (NAT), and Well-Being Theory. Data from a sample of 348 individuals reveal two distinct pathways of giving: one shaped by resources (income, age) and another by subjective well-being (happiness). While income, age, and happiness emerged as significant positive predictors of charitable behavior, traditional TPB factors such as attitude, subjective norms, and perceived behavioral control were not supported in this context. A surprising finding was the negative association between personal norms and charitable giving, challenging assumptions of Western-centric models and pointing to the importance of cultural and institutional conditions, such as trust in charities and informal giving practices. The study contributes to sustainability research by showing that fostering well-being and targeting specific demographic groups can enhance philanthropy, while also emphasizing the need for culturally sensitive approaches in understanding prosocial behavior within emerging economies.

Suggested Citation

  • Azimjon Musamuxamedov & Dostonbek Eshpulatov & Raufhon Salahodjaev, 2025. "The Role of Income, Happiness, and Norms in Fostering Pro-Social Behavior: A PLS-SEM Analysis of Charitable Giving and Its Contribution to Sustainable Development in Uzbekistan," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 17(21), pages 1-25, October.
    • Handle: RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:17:y:2025:i:21:p:9440-:d:1778517
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/17/21/9440/pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/17/21/9440/
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Hui-Cheng Yu & Lopin Kuo, 2021. "Corporate Philanthropy Strategy and Sustainable Development Goals," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(10), pages 1-10, May.
    2. Theresa Gehringer, 2020. "Corporate Foundations as Partnership Brokers in Supporting the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 12(18), pages 1-24, September.
    3. Ajzen, Icek, 1991. "The theory of planned behavior," Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, Elsevier, vol. 50(2), pages 179-211, December.
    4. Luis Pérez y Pérez & Pilar Egea, 2019. "About Intentions to Donate for Sustainable Rural Development: An Exploratory Study," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 11(3), pages 1-14, February.
    5. Laura Vicente-Gonzalez & Elisa Frutos-Bernal & Jose Luis Vicente-Villardon, 2025. "Partial Least Squares Regression for Binary Data," Mathematics, MDPI, vol. 13(3), pages 1-29, January.
    6. Anna Napiórkowska & Piotr Zaborek & Marzanna Katarzyna Witek-Hajduk & Anna Grudecka, 2025. "Individual Cultural Values and Charitable Crowdfunding: Driving Social Sustainability Through Consumer Engagement," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 17(11), pages 1-26, June.
    7. Jinguang Guo & Chenglai Yang, 2024. "Sustainable Consumption and Residents’ Happiness: An Empirical Analysis Based on the 2021 Chinese General Social Survey (CGSS2021)," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 16(20), pages 1-22, October.
    8. Leonid Krasnozhon & John Levendis, 2020. "The Relationship Between Happiness, Volunteering, and Donating," Journal of Economic Insight, Missouri Valley Economic Association, vol. 46(1), pages 1-14.
    9. Nicholas Apergis & Chi Keung Marco Lau & Fatma Öğücü Şen & Shixuan Wang, 2021. "Market Integration between Turkey and Eurozone Countries," Emerging Markets Finance and Trade, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 57(9), pages 2674-2686, July.
    10. Stefanos Balaskas & Aliki Panagiotarou & Maria Rigou, 2023. "Impact of Personality Traits on Small Charitable Donations: The Role of Altruism and Attitude towards an Advertisement," Societies, MDPI, vol. 13(6), pages 1-17, June.
    11. Dolan, Paul & Peasgood, Tessa & White, Mathew, 2008. "Do we really know what makes us happy A review of the economic literature on the factors associated with subjective well-being," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 29(1), pages 94-122, February.
    12. Yuangao Chen & Ruyi Dai & Jianrong Yao & Yixiao Li, 2019. "Donate Time or Money? The Determinants of Donation Intention in Online Crowdfunding," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 11(16), pages 1-21, August.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Baudier, Patricia & Kondrateva, Galina & Ammi, Chantal, 2023. "Can blockchain enhance motivation to donate: The moderating impact of religion on donors' behavior in the USA's charity organizations," Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Elsevier, vol. 191(C).
    2. Myung Ja Kim & C. Michael Hall, 2019. "Can Co-Creation and Crowdfunding Types Predict Funder Behavior? An Extended Model of Goal-Directed Behavior," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 11(24), pages 1-23, December.
    3. Myung Ja Kim & James F. Petrick, 2021. "Roles of constraint and attachment in crowdfunder behavior for sustainable development: An extended theory of planned behavior," Sustainable Development, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 29(4), pages 780-792, July.
    4. Godfred Matthew Yaw Owusu & Gabriel Korankye & Octavia Ama Serwaa Otchere & Maryam Kriese, 2022. "Money on the mind: emotional and non-cognitive predictors and outcomes of financial behaviour of young adults," SN Business & Economics, Springer, vol. 2(11), pages 1-22, November.
    5. Baber, Hasnan, 2020. "Intentions to participate in political crowdfunding- from the perspective of civic voluntarism model and theory of planned behavior," Technology in Society, Elsevier, vol. 63(C).
    6. Agnieszka Szewczyk & Zbigniew Stempnakowski, 2021. "Social Energy as the Driving Force behind Crowdfunding—Analysis and Classification of Selected Attributes," Energies, MDPI, vol. 14(19), pages 1-32, September.
    7. Attié, Elodie & Meyer-Waarden, Lars, 2022. "The acceptance and usage of smart connected objects according to adoption stages: an enhanced technology acceptance model integrating the diffusion of innovation, uses and gratification and privacy ca," Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Elsevier, vol. 176(C).
    8. Samah Ibnou-Laaroussi & Husam Rjoub & Wing-Keung Wong, 2020. "Sustainability of Green Tourism among International Tourists and Its Influence on the Achievement of Green Environment: Evidence from North Cyprus," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 12(14), pages 1-24, July.
    9. Ivo Vlaev & Antony Elliott, 2014. "Financial Well-Being Components," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 118(3), pages 1103-1123, September.
    10. Hyun Hye Kim & EunKyoung Han, 2020. "The Application of the Theory of Planned Behavior to Identify Determinants of Donation Intention: Towards the Comparative Examination of Positive and Negative Reputations of Nonprofit Organizations CE," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 12(21), pages 1-19, November.
    11. Metcalfe, Robert & Dolan, Paul, 2012. "Behavioural economics and its implications for transport," Journal of Transport Geography, Elsevier, vol. 24(C), pages 503-511.
    12. Saeed Awadh Bin-Nashwan & Adel Sarea & Meshari Al-Daihani & Abdullahi Bala Ado & Halima Begum & Mushari Hamdan Alosaimi & Hijattulah Abdul-Jabbar & Mohammed Khalifa Abdelsalam, 2022. "Fundraising Appeals for the COVID-19 Epidemic Fight: A Cross-Country Study of Donor Responses," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 14(11), pages 1-20, May.
    13. Hajiheydari, Nastaran & Delgosha, Mohammad Soltani, 2023. "Citizens' support in social mission platforms: Unravelling configurations for participating in civic crowdfunding platforms," Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Elsevier, vol. 189(C).
    14. Xiaojie Zhang & Lili Wang, 2022. "Factors Contributing to Citizens’ Participation in COVID-19 Prevention and Control in China: An Integrated Model Based on Theory of Planned Behavior, Norm Activation Model, and Political Opportunity S," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 19(23), pages 1-18, November.
    15. Maria Andersson & Ola Eriksson & Chris Von Borgstede, 2012. "The Effects of Environmental Management Systems on Source Separation in the Work and Home Settings," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 4(6), pages 1-17, June.
    16. Tran Huy Phuong & Thanh Trung Hieu, 2015. "Predictors of Entrepreneurial Intentions of Undergraduate Students in Vietnam: An Empirical Study," International Journal of Academic Research in Business and Social Sciences, Human Resource Management Academic Research Society, International Journal of Academic Research in Business and Social Sciences, vol. 5(8), pages 46-55, August.
    17. Peng Cheng & Zhe Ouyang & Yang Liu, 0. "The effect of information overload on the intention of consumers to adopt electric vehicles," Transportation, Springer, vol. 0, pages 1-20.
    18. Alsalem, Amani & Fry, Marie-Louise & Thaichon, Park, 2020. "To donate or to waste it: Understanding posthumous organ donation attitude," Australasian marketing journal, Elsevier, vol. 28(3), pages 87-97.
    19. Mohammed Akhmaaj, Asmaeil Ali & Sharif, Mohamed Omar, 2024. "The effects of planned behavior model constructs and technology acceptance model constructs on online purchasing behavior: An empirical study on internet users in the Libya city of Tripoli," Technology in Society, Elsevier, vol. 79(C).
    20. Benoît Lécureux & Adrien Bonnet & Ouassim Manout & Jaâfar Berrada & Louafi Bouzouina, 2022. "Acceptance of Shared Autonomous Vehicles: A Literature Review of stated choice experiments," Working Papers hal-03814947, HAL.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:17:y:2025:i:21:p:9440-:d:1778517. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: MDPI Indexing Manager (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.mdpi.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.