Blood donors and donation agencies as strategic partners: modeling dynamic partnership capabilities as organizational context variables

Abstract Growing blood shortages in Europe necessitate the identification of determinants that influence blood donation. While various factors that motivate individuals to give blood have been empirically established, there is a lack of knowledge concerning organizational factors. Using the theory of planned behavior and a structural equation modelling based on a sample of 3,025 Austrian blood donors, we propose that dynamic partnership capabilities as organizational factors can influence people’s intention to donate blood because they help both partners adapt to each other’s changing needs. We provide empirical evidence that relationship-specific knowledge stores and joint actions as dynamic partnership capabilities positively affect people’s intention to donate blood. These effects are fully mediated by attitudes and perceived behavioral control. Overall, our findings advance the theory of planned behavior by extending it meaningfully with organizational factors. In doing so, we introduce dynamic partnership capabilities as a novel lever for positively influencing blood donation behavior.