Effects of Word-of-mouth WOM On Donators’ Relationship with CSOs in Egypt after 2013

Any research effort to measure the state of civil society, thus, has to take into consideration the peculiar circumstances facing civil society in Egypt today, the dynamics of the time it lives in, and its transforming growth and development.([i])
 This study explored the effect of WOM on the relationship between the donators and the local wide-gap CSOs in Egypt in the period between 2013 and 2015.  Many articles discussed the negative effects of the government’s decision to suspend and freeze over 1000 CSOs after the ousting of former president Mohamed Morsi, declaration of Moslem Brotherhood as a terrorist entity, freezing liquid assets and suspension of CSOs run by MB members.  Suspicion, lack of credibility of donators in all wide-gap CSOs described the relationship between the two parties.  The inability of CSOs to engage in a healthy dialogue with donators to defend reputation, allowed the negative WOM to dominate and lead to enormous drop in donation money.
The research questions aimed to understand three major variables: nature of WOM; donators’ responses to WOM and corresponding patterns of donations to CSOs before and after 2013.
The results of this study regarding the credible sources of information about CSOs conform to the universal trend of media consumption; hence the increasing dependence on the internet, personal reviews and recommendations from friends, while drastic decrease of dependency on print media.
The WOM model, the framework of this study, suggests that friends and family as well as people with similar interests are the greatest influencers in the WOM process, which move the recipients from the awareness stage to taking a decision or adopting a behavior.  Main factors that affect the WOM process are:
Tie Strength, perceptual affinity, demographic similarity, and source expertise.
The results of the first two research questions support the assumption that friends constituted the credible source of information about CSOs more than traditional media and it was proven that internet friends, colleagues and friends were more trusted and closer to believe than family members.  The respondents positioned facebook friends (53%), work colleagues (35%) and friends (28.3%) as the closest, most believed sources of WOM regarding CSOs after 2013 in that order, Which confirms the assumptions of the WOM model; namely the stronger the tie between the sender and receivers of WOM, the more it will be believed.  Facebook friends and work colleagues share the same perceptual affinity and demographic similarity of the sources and receivers of WOM. The researcher can infer that such conditions of the negative WOM regarding CSOs in Egypt lead to the increase WOM effect on behavior, namely the donation behavior of Egyptians during that period.   Source expertise did not appear as a valid factor in WOM regarding CSOs.  A surprising result showed that 60% of the respondents’ between18-25 was frustrated of the NWOM and they generated PWOM using social media to defend the reputation of CSOs.
While the majority of the sample (58%) stated that they were regular donators to local CSOs before 2013, only 12% declared they remained regular donators after 2013. The respondents referred the change in their donation behavior to the turbulent economic environment and the distrust in the local CSOs.  The donators channeled their charity money to closer relatives and acquaintance out of distrust in the credibility of CSOs.
This study explored the dynamics of WOM model and its reflections on the donators’-CSOs relationship.  Hence, this study could provide valuable guidelines to CSOs  to use pro-active public relations and WOM model as marketing techniques that would create a more beneficial, sustainable and mutual relationships between the two parties.
Future research is needed to further investigate the role of WOM on consumer behavior and its effects on decision- making process.  Wide-gap CSOs in Egypt will remain a rich field of study for many more decades, as their role in social, political and economic lives of millions of Egyptians is escalating, despite the crisis situations they face in specific periods of time in Egyptian modern history.
 
 

 


([i]) " Egypt’s Changing Civil Society: The Muslim Brotherhood and New Media" http://www.scribd.com/doc/24176037/Egypt%E2%80%99s-Changing-Civil-Society-The-Muslim-Brotherhood-and-New-Media.