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Determinants of Volunteerism: A Cross-Disciplinary Reviewand Research Agenda
Determinants of Volunteerism: A Cross-Disciplinary Reviewand Research Agenda
A Cross-Disciplinary Review
and Research Agenda
Walter Wymer
Glen Riecken
Ugur Yavas
INTRODUCTION
The Nonprofit Sector
The nonprofit sector of the economy fulfills important social
functions that would otherwise have to be performed by the government, funded through increased individual and business taxation, or
not performed at all. Nonprofit organizations (NPOs) in the U.S.
number in the thousands and their missions are very diverse, ranging from AIDS volunteer groups to zoological associations. Many
NPOs provide services to groups who cannot afford to pay for
them. These NPOs, therefore, must rely on government grants,
charitable contributions, and volunteers to operate. Charitable giving in the U.S. is reported to be about $123 billion (File, Prince, and
Cermak 1994). In the U.S., about 80 million adults reported some
type of volunteer activity during 1993 with accumulated volunteering estimated as equivalent to 10 million full-time jobs. Valued at a
minimum rate, volunteers, were they paid, would have earned about
$150 billion, or five percent of GNP (Drucker 1989).
Walter Wymer is affiliated with the Indiana University.
Glen Riecken and Ugur Yavas are affiliated with East Tennessee State University.
Address correspondence to: Dr. Glen Riecken, Box 70625, East Tennessee
State University, Johnson City, TN 37614.
Journal of Nonprofit & Public Sector Marketing, Vol. 4(4) 1996
E 1996 by The Haworth Press, Inc. All rights reserved.
Person
S Personality
S Values
S Attitudes
Social Interactions
S Previous
S Current
S Anticipated
Decision
to
Volunteer
Efficacy
S Skill utilization
S Skill development
Contextual
S Time
S Money
S Psychological
Values
Values, compared with attitudes, offer promise in understanding
voluntary participation because: (1) there are fewer values, (2) values determine attitudes, (3) values have a motivational component,
and (4) value changes are more enduring and affect behavior more
than attitude changes (Rokeach 1973; Williams 1979).
Values has proven to be a good discriminator of volunteers and
non-volunteers (Manzer 1974; Heidrich 1988). Volunteers tend to
place more importance on prosocial values (Killeen and McCarrey
1986; McClintock and Allison 1989). For example, Hobfoll (1980)
found that volunteers were significantly discriminated by social
responsibility. Mahoney and Pechura (1980) compared responses of
the Rokeach Value Survey (RVS) between telephone hotline volunteers and a control group and found that twelve values discriminated the two groups. Williams (1987) also used the RVS to measure values. In his study of volunteers working with people with
mental retardation, Williams found that values were able to differentiate volunteers from the general public. Other studies have also
found values to be good discriminators of volunteers with non-volunteers (Hougland and Christenson 1982; Williams and Ortega
1986).
Previous research has consistently reported that volunteers want
to help others (INDEPENDENT SECTOR 1988, 1992). This research indicates that helping others provides prosocial value. These
findings have been controversial, as academicians argue whether
volunteers are demonstrating pure altruism (Gerard 1985) or are
acting from only self-interest (Titmus 1971; Pinker 1979; Smith
1981). Agreement for a moderate position on this discussion is
centering on perceiving volunteers as demonstrating both altruistic
and egoistic behaviors (Wiehe and Isenhour 1977; Frisch and Gerrard 1981; King 1984; Steiner 1984; Van Til 1985; Cnaan and
will have the greatest influence on attitudes and actions. This procedural ranking of values within a value system explains why people
who agree that certain values are good behave in quite different
manners--behavior is most consistent with the most important values. Volunteers and non-volunteers alike would probably agree that
helping others is a good idea. However, volunteers would probably
rank helping others higher than non-volunteers.
Moral-Civic Duty. Volunteers frequently report a sense of moral
responsibility or a sense of duty as a motive (Gerard 1985; Bequette
1990). In one study of local government volunteers in an eight town
area of New Hampshire, the most important reason given for volunteering was a sense of public or civic duty (Luloff, Chittenden,
Weeks, and Brushett 1984). Similarly, Widmer (1985) found that
board members reported it was their civic duty to volunteer. Other
studies have reported findings that volunteers feel a moral obligation or a sense of duty to participate (Cook 1984; Florin, Jones, and
Wandersman 1986; Friedman, Florin, Wandersman, and Meier
1988; Okun 1994).
Religious Beliefs. Opportunities to express religious beliefs and
values are provided through many volunteer roles (Wood and Hougland 1990). In a national survey of charitable giving and volunteering, the third highest ranked motive was expressing religious
beliefs or responding to a moral obligation based on religious beliefs (Hodgkinson 1990; Hodgkinson and Weitzman 1990). Periodic national surveys of U.S. giving and volunteering continually
report a relationship between religious involvement and volunteering (INDEPENDENT SECTOR 1990, 1992). The 1981 European
Values Survey conducted by Gallup using a British sample reported
a similarly important relationship between religious commitment
and volunteering (Gerard 1985).
A longitudinal study by Wineburg (1994) reported that religious
congregations were intensifying their involvement in social services in response to declining government support. Among voluntary action researchers, there is a general consensus that an important relationship exists between religious beliefs and voluntary
participation (Berger 1991). Hodgkinson (1990) suggested that the
future success of the nonprofit sector is dependent on this relationship.
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Attitudes
According to Rokeach (1968, p. 159), An attitude is an organization of several beliefs focused on a specific object (physical or
social, concrete or abstract) or situation, predisposing one to respond in some preferential manner. Unfortunately, there is an inconsistent use of the attitude construct in previous research. For example, in his 1994 literature review, Smith includes values, political
efficacy, civic duty, perceived benefits relative to costs, and purposive incentives as attitudes. Future research should be careful to
define and differentiate important concepts.
Attitudes have been used to help discriminate volunteers from
non-volunteers in specific situations. Yavas, Riecken and Parameswaren (1981) reported that respondent attitude towards United
Way was helpful in discriminating non-donors from respondents
who had made a donation to United Way in the previous two years.
Other studies show that attitudes towards specific organizations or
towards a specific organizations policies were useful in discriminating non-volunteers from volunteers (Smith 1994).
By using Katzs functional approach to attitudes, Omoto and
Snyder (1993) conducted a national survey of AIDS volunteers.
From their study the value expression function emerged as the
prominent attitude function. It is this function from which individuals derive satisfactions by expressing attitudes appropriate to their
personal values and to their concepts of themselves (Rokeach
1973). Okun (1994) reported similar findings using a sample of
senior volunteers.
However, since attitudes are directed at specific objects, their use
in differentiating all volunteers from all non-volunteers is necessarily limited. Attitudes are also limited in predicting volunteer participation because of the potential confounding effects of situational
factors inherent in any volunteer experience. For example, in order
to predict participation using attitudes, not only must the attitude for
the target organization be measured, but so must the attitude for the
volunteer role, organizational client, volunteer supervisor, and so
forth.
It is also doubtful if attitude can be useful to nonprofit marketers
in developing recruitment messages. For example, people may have
positive attitudes towards the Red Cross or the Girl Scouts and not
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SOCIAL VARIABLES
Even though person-related variables have been shown to be an
important aspect of voluntary participation, they are insufficient to
explain volunteerism (Hougland and Christenson 1982). Participation seems, in part, to be also determined by social influences
(Schindler-Rainman and Lippitt 1971; Babchuk and Booth 1969;
Shure 1988).
Friends, family members, and others who are part of an individuals social networks can exert varying degrees of influence on voluntary participation. Social influences provide incentives or disincentives for an individuals volunteer behavior by supporting,
failing to support, or discouraging the behavior of volunteering
(Clary et al. 1994). Previous literature regarding the relationship
between social variables and voluntary participation can be categorized into three parts: influences from an individuals (1) previous
and (2) current social groups, and (3) expectations of future relationships.
Previous Social Influences
Smith and Baldwin (1974) found that parental attitudes about
volunteering influenced their childrens participation when the children became adults. Volunteers are more likely than non-volunteers
to have had parents who were themselves volunteer participants
(Shure 1988).
Current Social Influences
In addition to a family-of-origin influencing participation, an
individuals procreative family also influences volunteering. For
12
13
14
teers. The perceived desirability an individual places on the interpersonal associations could be expected to have some influence on
the decision to volunteer. Unfortunately, little is known about the
relationship between the expected interpersonal interaction with
other volunteers and clients on participation. There is some evidence in the literature that older people, especially widowed seniors, view volunteering as one way to be around other people. The
prospect of making new friends is also a motivator for participation
for some (Gillespie and King 1985).
EFFICACY
Efficacy, as used here, refers to peoples perceptions of their own
bundles of skills, talents, and competencies. Efficacy is reinforced
and generalized by feedback from society. For example, certain
occupations or social positions are rewarded financially and socially. Used thus, groups with high levels of efficacy could be expected
to have internal loci of control, feeling in greater control of their
lives than their counterparts.
Demonstrated Efficacy
In discussing citizen participation, Moe (1980) suggested that as
a precondition to participating people need to believe that their
efforts will make a tangible difference in the collective good provided by an organization. Previous demographic research repeatedly found that volunteers are likely to be well-educated, middle-class
persons with professional (or other socially-prominent) occupational status who, in terms of race or ethnicity, represent the majority of
American and European volunteers (Gerard 1985; Dempsey 1988;
Dunn 1988; Lafer 1989; OConnor and Johnson 1989; Schlegelmilch and Tynan 1989; INDEPENDENT SECTOR 1988, 1992).
These volunteers are likely characterized by a greater sense of
efficacy, perceiving their abilities and talents to be useful to volunteer organizations (Allen and Rushton 1983; Miller 1985; Florin,
Jones, and Wandersman 1986; Brown and Zahrly 1989; Smith
1994). Some volunteers look for voluntary organizations and volunteer roles that can make direct use of their abilities (Widmer 1985).
15
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CONTEXTUAL BARRIERS
Contextual barriers (situations external to the person) can inhibit
or impede ones desire to volunteer. For example, an organization
may require a minimum time commitment that exceeds the maximum time the recruit is willing to donate. Many non-volunteers feel
that they do not have sufficient free time (Cnaan, Kasternakis, and
Wineburg 1993; Clary et al. 1994). An organization may be located
too distant for the recruit to consider feasible. Heidrich (1988)
suggests that a person could live where there may be no organization which matches with the persons values.
There may be other barriers. For example, volunteers absorb a
certain amount of out-of-pocket expenses related to volunteering.
Additionally, a potential volunteer may forgo opportunities to earn
income during the time donated to a voluntary organization, thereby
increasing the opportunity costs associated with volunteering (Rados 1981; Lovelock and Weinberg 1989). Another contextual barrier can be the perceived or actual physical requirements of volunteering. While volunteers tend to report being in good or excellent
health (Shure 1988), poor health has demonstrated to be a deterrent
to volunteering (Fischer and Schaffer 1993).
Psychological or emotional demands may also present contextual
barriers to volunteering. Many human service volunteers must work
in psychologically demanding circumstances, helping needy clients
who give no positive feedback in return. Recipients of human service agencies can feel humiliation, responding to the direct service
volunteer with resentment instead of appreciation (Rubin and Thorelli 1984). Some people participate as hospice volunteers, assisting
terminally ill people prior to their deaths. Hospice volunteers must
be capable of dealing with the powerful emotions surrounding human death (Lafer 1989). Other volunteers help people with AIDS
(Omoto and Snyder 1993). These volunteers have to deal with their
feelings about the person their helping, the person-with-AIDS
death, and possible fear of contracting HIV (Omoto and Snyder
1990).
17
FUTURE RESEARCH
Although much has been learned about why people participate in
voluntary organizations, more needs to be known. Smith (1994)
claims that the scope of most studies is generally too narrow, referring to the tendency to examine a small group of variables contained within one or two determinant factors. Studies examining
volunteer participation at a higher level of abstraction is needed to
obtain a better understanding of the relative importance of factors
and the interaction among them.
Typically, research has progressed by examining the effects of a
variety of variables on voluntary participation outside of a theoretical framework. It is hoped that the framework used in this review
can help to guide subsequent research. A unifying framework is
very helpful in underscoring gaps in our knowledge as well as in
helping to integrate disparate studies being performed across academic disciplines.
Another difficulty with much of the previous research is that the
sample of volunteers tends to be limited to a single organization or
organization type, limiting the generalizability of the findings
(Cnaan and Goldberg-Glen 1991). As a consequence, we know
little about how volunteers in the various categories of the third
sector differ and whether findings in one setting can be generalized
to other settings.
Finally, the lack of a unifying theory embodying concepts from a
variety of disciplines detracts from the appeal of studies dealing
with volunteerism. The synthesis presented in this paper suggests
that while volunteerism has long intrigued scholars from diverse
disciplines such as social psychology, marketing, human resources
management, etc., there is a definite paucity of research grounded
on a cross-fertilization of ideas and concepts from these seemingly
disparate fields.
In addition to conducting future research that addresses these
types of drawbacks in previous research, there are also numerous
questions that need to be examined. Figure 2 presents some of these
questions for future research.
18
Determinant
Variable
Person
Research Questions
1) Which value paradigm best describes volunteers?
2) Are values expressed through volunteerism consistent across volunteer roles? If not, what framework would best explain differences?
19
1) Do non-volunteers feel less competent and capable than volunteers? Are they inhibited by a perception that they possess few
skills or competencies of use to voluntary agencies?
(continued)
20
Context
CONCLUSION
NPOs have been and still are an important part of our society.
Although NPOs always performed marketing functions, they have
only recently received major attention from marketing researchers.
Nonprofit marketing has been accepted as an important field in
marketing research, but the time is ripe to go beyond the descriptive/normative studies to more in-depth analysis. A central concern
is research on volunteer behavior.
Volunteers are essential for many NPOs. Previous work on volunteers among marketing researchers has focused on demographic
differentiation of volunteers and non-volunteers. However, knowing that the volunteer tends to be a person of above-average income
and education who is middle-aged or slightly younger and domestically settled with a spouse and child is insufficient for the NPO in
attracting the best volunteers with the requisite skills (OConnor
and Johnson 1989). Demographic findings are important in identifying potential volunteers for target marketing. However, the manager must also know what factors influence volunteers in order to
construct and deliver the most effective marketing appeals. It is
21
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