Water Crisis: The Reasons of Pakistan Running Dry

According to an article published in The News, (2018), Pakistan is on the verge of becoming a ‘dry state’ by the year 2025 as its water shortage has reached an alarming level. The warnings issued by the Pakistan Council of Research in Water Resources (PCRWR) to the authorities amplifies the impact of water scarcity all around the geographic frontiers of the country, making it necessary to address the need for more reservoirs and dams that could save the water that goes wasted every year during floods. As the extent of this issue has increased turning it into a social issue, it calls out for a generous relief in consideration of dam donations by the people of Pakistan. A report published by the Stanford social innovation review, 2018, states Pakistan to be a society that is one of the most philanthropic nations of the world.

For example, in terms of the proportion of gross domestic product (GDP) contributed to charities, The Pakistani population gives a far higher rate of more than one percent, pushing it to ranks closer to some of the wealthier nations like United Kingdom and Canada that stands at 1.3 and 1.2 percent contribution respectively. The same report indicates that about 98 per cent of people in the country give in one form or another – if not with cash, then with in-kind donations or by volunteering for needy causes, portraying a behavior that emphasizes on a rooted sense of compassion for the society. But despite this tradition of giving, Pakistan needs to realize the full impact of philanthropy for more sustained development efforts and must make efforts to institutionalize the individual tendency of giving and redirect it towards more-structured efforts.

Today, rapid changes are taking place due to innovations in various fields that are not just confined to earning profits and income but are also inclined towards inhibiting sensitivity towards different social issues the world seems to be aware of. Before social issues concerned the public corporations and non-profit organizations, but as the intensity of issues increased, they have become an attraction to businesses, entities and individuals. Right at this point, in order to pay attention to social issues and initiate solutions, concepts like social marketing are studied.

The concept of social marketing emerged as a discipline in the 1970s with the studies of Philip Kotler and Gerald Zaltman regarding marketing. However, the roots of understanding of this concept was analyzed in studies formulated by various scholars such as Wiebe, Meendelsohn, Lazrsfeld, Metron, Hyman & Sheatley in the 1940’s and 1950’s. As a socialist, Wiebe drew this conclusion in one of the articles he wrote in 1950’s that marketing practices could also be successful in fields other than commercial firms’ marketing their goods and services. Considering this, in 1971, Kotler and Zaltman defined marketing a technology that could be applied to bring about social changes, calling it social marketing. A study conducted by Kestane, 2014, emphasized that Kotler and Zaltman defined social marketing as the convenience of applying marketing practices on social issues.

However, it was also noted that this definition of social marketing was a product typology-based definition. This definition led to confusion considering the overlap of different academic terms of similar social ideology as that of social marketing, making it harder to distinguish different distinctions that have important implications for present and future practical applications, academic discussions, and field research.

Kotler et al. (2002) defines behavior as accepting and rejecting a new or present attitude for the betterment of individuals, groups or society as a whole, and emphasized that social marketing is not limited to public but concerns nonprofit and profit organizations. Social marketing is also defined as a process of creating a behavioral change using marketing principles in order to gain value for society with literature focusing on public heath, environment and communities. Thus, social marketing is a promising framework for planning and implementing social change. Only a few careful discussions of the power of social marketing considering different aspects of social change have been discussed focusing on the need for more research into this phenomenon. Thus, the vast scope of philanthropy existent in Pakistan is where the relevance of social marketing pertaining to water scarcity in consideration of dam donations would play a massive role in creating a change of behaviors amongst people that would initiate large scale charitable giving’s to address solve a national issue.

Social marketing focuses on creating a behavior that aims at building value for the society, but it is necessary to understand the scope of people’s charitable behavior considering their intentions. Previous researches on charitable giving, associated charitable giving with demographic factors such as gender, age, marital status, income and education wherein individual’s behavior and intention to donate is syndicated with the levels of education, age and income. Such researches provide valuable insights pertaining into charitable giving but it is descriptive at best. Researchers relying on descriptive aspects of charitable giving fail to further our understanding on the factors that would encourage increased levels of charitable giving.

In recent years, however, more researchers have begun to consider a broader range of influences on charitable giving, including decision-making processes in charitable giving, the role of trust and commitment, and the role of social relations. Yet, the literature that contributes to a social-psychological understanding of the factors that trigger an individual’s decision to donate to charity has been extremely limited. However, this gives rise to the need for research considering a theoretical framework that considers a range of individual factors, such as attitudes, and social factors, such as norms, that influence charitable giving. Considering this gap in literature, research can focus on one of the most influential and a well- supported theory used for studying human behaviors, i.e. theory of planned behavior pertaining to charitable giving in the Pakistani context, specifically to the dam donations. The ‘Theory of Planned Behavior’ (TPB) is one of the most commonly used consumer behavior theory that understands and predicts human behavior. In its most simple form, the Theory of Planned Behavior states that it is intentions that drive a human behavior, in other words people behave based on what they intend to do and these intentions are influenced by constructs, namely, ‘Attitude’, ‘Subjective Norm’ and ‘Perceived Behavioral Control’.

The TPB has been applied to the study of health behaviors such as healthy eating, alcohol and tobacco use, exercise behavior, prediction of pro-social behaviors such as blood donation and volunteering behavior. However, although there are a number of studies focusing on philanthropic behaviors, but considering charitable giving it is necessary to understand human behavior based on other constructs like past behavior, trust, moral norms and conceptions of subjective norms that are important when it comes to donations and improve the explanatory power of the model.
Although much of the research in recent years has demonstrated the power of TPB in depicting human behavior, the role of subjective norms remains under scrutiny.

However, researchers argued that norms are important but the problem arises in a manner they are conceptualized. Considering this, Cialdini and his colleagues argued that instead of seeing norms as a unitary construct, they must defined reflecting the based on the conceptions of what people should do and what they actually do, dividing the subjective norm component into descriptive and injunctive norm. This distinction between the constructs of subjective norms indicate a separate source of motivation and prove to be an effective component in the context of TPB as well as in understanding and promoting pro-social behaviors. In addition to the distinction between injunctive and descriptive norms, some researchers have argued for the inclusion of a third type of norm: a personal injunctive or moral norm, which is basically an individual’s internalized moral rules and since, they focus on personal feelings of responsibility and are distinct from social norms, there is a need to understand their independent effects on intentions.

Researchers argue that moral norms act as a useful predictor of pro-social behaviors wherein they have been included in studies of pro-social behavior such as blood donations, organ donations, and volunteering behavior. Burgoyne et al. (2005) in his study concluded that a sense of personal obligation was an important reason for charitable giving, making it favorable for further researches. To date, very few studies have considered the simultaneous effects of all injunctive norms, descriptive norms and moral norms, in which majority of the studies focusing on either moral norms or injunctive norms (Minton & Rose, 1997), with very few examining the effects of descriptive norms. Thus, it is important to test the effects of all three norms simultaneously in order to develop more effective strategies of behavioral change. Over the years, the role of past behavior as the component of TPB has garnered attention. It is inferred that with repeated performances, many behaviors are determined by the past behaviors of individuals.

Several studies have supported the argument that past behavior is a predictor of unique variance in intentions and behavior along with it being the best predictor of future behavior. Philanthropy as a social component builds on its donors trust. Donors are usually ambiguous about what happens with their donations and where the money is exactly spent with no legal rights over their donations. This lack of transparency could scandalize the entire philanthropic sector hampering the positive relationship that exists between trust and higher donations, inferring that trust plays an important role when it comes to charitable behavior. Considering one of the above studies focusing on the effectiveness of a revised TBP Model in predicting donating intentions and behavior in the Australian context, this research builds on a concept of social marketing considering the dam donation intent in Pakistan.

Moreover, the intention of Pakistanis to donate is explored through the revised theory of planned behavior. This study also takes into consideration that moral norms and social norms are distinct from each other and determine whether an individual’s behavior towards charity is inclined towards the constructs of moral norms or social norms. Problem Statement As illustrated in the arguments above, dams and reservoirs are the need for the hour due to the shortage of water that Pakistan is currently facing. Not only do we need dams due to water scarcity, but erratic weather conditions are making Pakistan prone to drought in the coming days as the water stored in these reservoirs could only last for 30 days in comparison to the standard safe capacity levels of 120 days. This water scarcity is directly linked to global warming that result in climatic changes that Pakistan faces currently. Furthermore, our debt stands at Rs. 30,000 billion and foreign countries are reluctant to lend any further loans for building dams. Considering these reasons, it is necessary that we incorporate social marketing in the context of dam donations and try to understand people’s behavior pertaining to it.

Studies have been conducted in the perspective of charitable giving in various domains, but there is no empirical evidence on studies conducted in the perspective of dam donations specifically in the Pakistani context. Many studies have been conducted all around the world that takes into consideration the socio-economic and demographic aspects of charitable behavior but very limited studies take into consideration the psychological aspects of charitable behavior.