Toward a Better Understanding of Volunteering for Nonprofit Organizations: Explaining Volunteers’ Pro-Social Attitudes

Abstract

In addition to currently fueling the nonprofit sector of the economy, volunteering is a key ingredient in community-based or cooperative models of economic exchange, including customer coproduction. The purpose of this study is to develop knowledge about pro-social attitudes of volunteers. Behavioral Reasoning Theory (BRT) provides a framework for understanding how volunteers’ values and reasons for volunteering influence volunteers’ pro-social attitudes. Gender, experience, and age are controlled for in the analysis. Using large-scale survey data from four distinct nonprofit organizations in Australia, structural equation modeling results suggest that the BRT framework is a valuable one for understanding important influencers of volunteers’ pro-social attitudes. In sum, values and reasons that are other-oriented appear to be much more influential than values and reasons for volunteering that are self-focused. Additionally, our results suggest that being a younger volunteer is positively correlated with higher levels of values and reasons for volunteering that are self-focused.

Motivation among hospital volunteers: an empirical analysis in Portugal

“…Looking to volunteers as important NPO stakeholders might be imperative, since this will allow creation of value to an organisation through the identification and comprehension of volunteer motivations and these show up in the adoption of marketing practices of businesses in the non-profit sector. Whether practices such as market orientation or customer relationship management result in enhanced societal outcomes is now a concern, because non-profit organisations with more effective marketing efforts might actually be diverting resources from organisations that have much more impact and many more stakeholders (Briggs et al 2010).…”

“…Theories on volunteer motives have been a central point in recent research, although additional research is required to identify primary reasons and motives for volunteering (Burns et al 2006;Briggs et al 2010). According to Esmond and Dunlop (2004) the first research in volunteer work appeared in the seventies, and altruism was one of the first motives identified (Tapp and Spanier 1973).…”

“…The contribution of social or non-profit enterprises has been enormous and diverse and since they are connected to the marketplace it has become important for marketers (Briggs et al 2010) and the use of marketing concepts in a broader range is not new (Yavas and Riecken 1985). However, the increase in the number of third sector organisations has not been accompanied by an equal growth in the availability of resources, therefore, NPOs are taking a more practical approach and are using techniques and processes which are more frequently seen in the for-profit sector (Randle and Dolnicar 2009).…”

Understanding the Attitude-Behavior Gap for Renewable Energy Systems Using Behavioral Reasoning Theory

“…I t would also be interesting to compare the influence of reasons on attitudes and intentions in high-and low-involvement contexts. Future research should also investigate how different personal values (such as benevolence or achievement) influence reasoning and attitudes (Briggs, Peterson, and Gregory 2009 3 For a more comprehensive discussion of reasons see : Westaby 2005 4 Reasons for behavior, and reasons against behavior manifest themselves when respondents were asked for their ratings about the related measures of these constructs. For example, to measure the latent construct reasons for behavior, questions were posed to respondents about (1) economic benefits, (2) environmental benefits, and (3) independence benefits of adopting solar panels.…”

Managing Volunteerism Behaviour: The drivers of donations practices in religious and secular organisations

“…Much attention has been paid to questions addressing volunteering as a vital behavior in a society (Fisher and Ackerman 1998;Wilson 2000;Allison, Okun et al 2002;Briggs, Peterson et al 2009), as an honorable tradition of community service (Horn 2012;Cornelis, Van Hiel et al 2013). Since early history, volunteering behavior has been a powerful driving force in the betterment of humanity, a key contributor to the solving of the problems of mankind.…”