تجزیه و تحلیل اقتصادی از انگیزه های افراد داوطلب - یک مطالعه توصیفی کشوری

While some core theories on volunteer labor supply decisions can be found in the economic literature, little efforts were made so far to operationalize these models and verify their implications in an empirical context. This paper aims at narrowing the research gap between the theoretical economic literature on volunteer motivations and the empirically observed motivations for volunteer labor supply. A common indicator ‘voluntary contributions by others’ linking the theories of public goods, private consumption and investment has been identified and examined on the basis of structural equation modeling and regression analysis. Using representative micro data collected for volunteers in Bangladesh, Ghana, Poland and South Korea, the paper finds that this indicator significantly influences an individual's motivation. Particularly, observed findings are in accordance with theoretical predictions.

The institution of volunteerism represents an insufficiently explored research area. Given the potentials ascribed to volunteerism from the sides of academics, policy makers and practitioners, such as its capacity to support public social welfare functions, build social capital, or mitigate unemployment problems (see e.g. Badelt, 1985, Romero, 2000, Gaskin and Davis Smith, 1996 and Robinson and White, 1997), the question regarding what induces individuals to volunteer has not been adequately addressed in the economic literature. While motives underlying volunteer contributions can be identified in theory, little is known about these motivations and their determinants in an empirical context. The path to overcome this missing link between economic theories and empirical evidence is two-fold. On one hand, theories on volunteer labor supply need to be operationalized to allow for an empirical verification of model implications. On the other hand, the latent construct ‘volunteer motivation’ has to be captured and the classification of volunteers into the theoretically proposed motivational groups needs to be verified. This paper is a first attempt to fill this lacuna. In a first part we establish that theoretical implications on volunteer behavior differ according to the underlying motivational framework used. The theories propose that, depending on the motive for volunteering, volunteers will react quite differently to changes in the level of voluntary contributions by others. The degree to which the models imply substitutability between own donations and donations by others can therefore be regarded as an indicator on the basis of which the models can be distinguished empirically. To capture volunteer motives empirically, Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA) is employed. Micro-level data on volunteers, collected through organizational level surveys in Bangladesh, Ghana, Poland and South Korea in July–November 2001 provide the basis for this analysis. Using the obtained motivation measures for volunteers in regression analysis, it then becomes possible to investigate the extent to which volunteer motives are indeed affected by the level of contributions by others and if variations in motives are compatible with model implications. The inclusion of socio-demographic, institutional and country effects as explanatory variables controls for other influences on volunteer motives. Section 2 introduces three fundamental economic theories of volunteer labor supply and deduces model implications. Section 3 defines the operationalization of the concept ‘motivation’ and establishes the conceptual framework. Section 4 presents the regression results and Section 5 concludes.

Volunteerism is regarded as a socially and economically desirable activity. As such, policy makers are concerned with improving their understanding of this institution by identifying factors that stimulate voluntary action and those that inhibit voluntary action. The public goods, private consumption, and investment model provide a framework for clustering the multitude of motivations for volunteering into three core categories differentiated by the source of utility which the volunteer obtains form volunteer work. On the basis of these models, it can be deduced that volunteers will react differently towards changes in the level of contributions by others depending on their underlying motivation for volunteering. Conditional on whether the volunteer follows altruistic, investment or private consumption motivations, he or she will regard own donations and collective donations by others as substitutes, complements or neither. This implies that each of the three motivations for volunteering is also stimulated and inhibited by different factors. To test the validity of these model implications in an empirical context, the latent concept ‘volunteer motives’ was operationalized and the three established motivational groups were verified. Using CFA, it was shown that suitable measures for the three motives, Altruism, Egoism, and Investment, can be obtained from observed indicator variables. In a second part, the determinants of volunteer motives were estimated on the basis of regression analysis, using the operationalized motivation constructs as dependent variables. Regression results revealed that the volunteer's perceived level of public spending, a proxy for ‘contributions by others’, can indeed be regarded as a significant determinant of volunteer motives. It was found to negatively influence altruism motivation and positively influence investment motivation, thereby supporting the established hypotheses. While a neutral influence of public spending was hypothesized for egoism motivation, a positive influence was obtained. This could be explained by the potentially higher degree of ‘warm glow’ feeling obtained by the volunteer when others also contribute towards the public good or service. The results further indicated strong influences of socio-demographic variables and particularly country-specific characteristics on the three volunteer motives. The level of the country's economic development significantly determined the distribution of motives, with economic development positively influencing altruism and private consumption motivation and negatively influencing investment motivation. These findings reveal that volunteers cannot be treated as a homogenous group. Depending on what motivates them to give, they will react quite differently to changes in the level of contributions by others. Further research needs to address the implications of different volunteer motives on the behavior of volunteers. Particularly, it is of high policy relevance to understand in how far differently motivated volunteers also differ in terms of their extent of volunteering, the type of voluntary activity carried out, and the donee industry in which they decide to engage.