Abstract

This study aims to explore the influencing factors of volunteer work motivation in charitable organizations. This study uses random sampling to select 2017 citizens who have participated in volunteer work in charitable organizations in Japan, South Korea and Taiwan (648 from Japan, 592 from South Korea and 777 from Taiwan). The questionnaire recovery rate was 75.99%. The questionnaire type was the structured questionnaire. Descriptive analysis, Pearson product-difference correlation and stepwise regression were used to analyze the data. The research results show that the work motivation of volunteers in charity organizations is mainly affected by corporate social responsibility, organizational commitment and transformational leadership. Therefore, charitable organizations should emphasize the social value of their charitable work and the benefits to personal growth when they provide volunteer work opportunities. Through these methods, more and more people can be attracted to participate in volunteer work and jointly contribute to society.

1. Introduction

Charitable organizations play an extremely important role and make significant contributions to each country. Firstly, charitable organizations have a crucial social assistance and welfare role especially in caring and supporting vulnerable groups such as children, the elderly, people with disabilities and patients. By providing various forms of assistance such as financial, medical, educational and shelter, charitable organizations can help these vulnerable groups obtain better quality of life and welfare protection.

Secondly, charitable organizations also play an active role in social development and progress. Charitable organizations usually play an important role in promoting charitable causes, fundraising, volunteer training and community services. It promotes the rational allocation and utilization of social resources. In addition, charitable organizations also play an important role in promoting social welfare, advocating social values and raising social awareness, making positive contributions to social progress and development. Finally, charitable organizations also play an active role in promoting international image and reputation. With the development of globalization, more and more international institutions and organizations have begun to pay attention to and value the development and promotion of charitable causes. Charitable organizations have also received increasing attention and recognition from the international community. Through promoting international charitable exchanges, cooperation and assistance, charitable organizations can contribute to each country’s international image and reputation.

The busy work and life pace prevalent in society means people have very limited time. In this situation, many people cannot find time to participate in charity volunteering work ¹. This often makes it difficult for charitable organizations to find enough volunteers to participate in their work. It limits their ability to execute mission. Secondly, many people lack knowledge and experience in volunteering work. So, it is difficult for people to provide high-quality volunteer services. Many charitable organizations also face problems in training and managing volunteers, which can result in low volunteer motivation and an inability to sustain long-term involvement in charity work. Thirdly, some charitable organizations have relatively single and repetitive job content, which can have a certain impact on the motivation of volunteers. In addition, some charitable organizations lack effective incentives and feedback mechanisms. Therefore, it is difficult for volunteers to obtain satisfaction and a sense of accomplishment from their charity work. Finally, many people do not have a deep enough understanding and awareness of charity work. Many people have certain prejudices and misunderstandings about charity work, which limits their willingness and motivation to participate. So, charitable organizations need to carry out more publicity and education work, increase people's understanding and awareness of charity work for improving their willingness and motivation to participate in charity work.

Based on the above reasons, the volunteer stay intention in charity organizations is low. It is important to research how to improve the stay intention of volunteers in charity organizations. This study will establish some research hypotheses for building “volunteer stay intention analysis model” in order to analyze which factors will affect volunteer stay intention for providing useful comment to charity organizations.

The remainder of this study will be executed by following step. At beginning, some literatures about this work must be discussed. After that, our model should be built. Research experiment result can be described in next chapter. Finally, conclusion will be discussed and future research must be taken over for ending.

2. Literature Review

Past Literatures about Stay Intention

Ngo et al. (2017) wanted to understand how corporate social responsibility influence organizational commitment and stay intentions. They collected 298 valid samples. According to experiment result, corporate social responsibility is significantly positively related to organizational commitment and stay intention ². Mehmood et al. (2018) used the quantitative research approach to collect 224 traffic police officer samples in 30 sectors in the city of Lahore for investigating the relationship among personnel growth, organizational justice and stay intention ³.

Sanusi and Johl (2020) developed one comprehensive framework to evaluate the relationship between corporate social responsibility and stay intention. In their research, the effect of corporate social responsibility on employee's stay intention was found inconclusive ⁴. Nguyen and Tu (2020) collected employees’ opinion in Vietnam for measuring the relationship among corporate social responsibility, organizational commitment and organizational performance. Experiment result showed that organizational commitment act as mediators between corporate social responsibility and organizational performance ⁵. Almas et al. (2020) collects 417 volunteer samples from 17 non-profit organizations for justifying that leadership styles can increase satisfaction, organizational commitment, and employees stay intention ⁶. Srivastava and Bajpai (2020) collected 382 employee samples in hotel industry. They wanted to understand the relationship between personal growth and stay intention. They found that personal growth, engagement is positively association with stay intention ⁷.

Ruiz‐Palomino et al. (2021) arranged 150 employee samples from Spain in order to understand the relationship among unethical leadership, personal growth satisfaction and stay intention. Based on experiment result, we found that personal growth satisfaction can be a mediator for the relationship between unethical leadership and stay intention ⁸. Sobaih et al. (2022) analyzed and compared the influence ability of transformational leadership and transactional leadership on employee stay intention in hotels. Research result showed that the influence ability of transformational leadership is higher than that of transactional leadership on organizational commitment and stay intention ⁹.

According to collected literatures (Refer to Table 1), corporate social responsibility, personal growth, organizational commitment and leadership are research dimensions which are used frequently for influencing stay intention of employee. However, employee and volunteer is different in human resource market because enterprise needs to pay money to employee and volunteer work for free. In this work, we want to analyze the effectiveness of above dimensions for influencing stay intention of volunteers.

Definition of Research Dimension

Stay Intention

Stay motivation refers to an individual's desire and enthusiasm for engaging in a certain job or occupation, usually including factors such as interest in the work itself, the sense of achievement, self-realization, and contribution that the job can provide. The higher a person's stay motivation, the more likely he or she is to be engaged in the job and to perform well ¹⁰.

Corporate Social Responsibility

The corporate social responsibility of volunteers of charitable organizations refers to the duties and obligations they should undertake in the charitable cause. As volunteers of charitable organizations, they should be passionate and concerned about social welfare, possess a spirit of dedication, and actively participate in charitable activities to create greater value for society. Additionally, they need to have a sense of responsibility, ensuring that their actions align with the purposes and goals of the organization, and taking responsibility for their actions. As part of a team, they need to have a spirit of teamwork, collaborate with other volunteers and organizations to complete tasks together, and achieve common goals. In summary, the corporate social responsibility of volunteers of charitable organizations is to make positive contributions to social welfare through their actions and contributions, promote social progress and development ^{11, 12}.

Definition of corporate social responsibility for volunteers of charitable organizations can be explained in the following aspects: ¹³

1. Spirit of dedication: As a volunteer of a charitable organization, one should possess a spirit of dedication, willing to contribute their time and energy to serve the public welfare.

2. Active participation: As a member of society, volunteers of charitable organizations should actively participate in social welfare activities, promote social justice and public welfare, and create greater value for society.

3. Sense of responsibility: Volunteers of charitable organizations should have a sense of responsibility, ensuring that their actions align with the purposes and goals of the organization, and taking responsibility for their actions.

4. Team spirit: As a volunteer of a charitable organization, one should have a spirit of teamwork, collaborate with other volunteers and the organization to complete tasks together, and achieve common goals.

Personal Growth

The personal growth of charity volunteers refers to the individual development and progress gained through voluntary work and community service in charity organizations ¹⁴. This includes enhancing social skills, developing leadership abilities, increasing self-confidence, cultivating empathy and humility, and learning gratitude. By participating in charity activities, volunteers can achieve a balance between self-realization and contributing to society, thus achieving personal growth and progress. Personal growth for charity volunteers includes the following aspects:

1. Increase social skills: Charity volunteers need to work with different people, which helps them improve their communication and social skills, learn how to build good relationships with people, and increase their network of contacts.

2. Develop leadership skills: Charity volunteers need to play different roles in a team, sometimes as a leader and sometimes as a follower. This helps them develop leadership skills and abilities in practice.

3. Boost confidence: By participating in charity activities, charity volunteers can fully showcase their abilities and talents, which in turn increases their confidence and helps them be more proactive and self-assured in other aspects of their lives and work.

4. Foster empathy: Charity volunteers often interact with vulnerable groups, which helps them better understand and feel the situation and needs of these people, fostering empathy and caring.

5. Cultivate humility and gratitude: In charity activities, charity volunteers can often feel their own value and contribution, which helps cultivate a humble and grateful attitude and learn to cherish what they have.

Organizational Commitment

Organizational commitment refers to degree of volunteer who agree with the charity organizations' values, vision or their thinking. Volunteer with high organizational commitment have a very strong sense for belonging to charity organization ^{15, 16}

Organizational commitment can be organized by following three sub-dimensions:

1. Affective commitment: ^{15, 17}.

Affective commitment refers to identification, emotional dependence and investment of volunteer in charity organization. The hard work and loyalty shown by the volunteer can be mainly due to relationship between the volunteer and charity organization.

2. Continuance commitment:

Continuance commitment refers to the volunteer 's perception of loss caused if they leave the organization such as status, fame, etc.

3. Normative commitment:

Normative commitment reflects the long-term social influence if they stay in the organization.

Transformational Leadership

Transformational leadership is a leadership style where the leader motivates and inspires followers to reach their potential and creativity, thus achieving organizational goals. Transformational leaders focus on the personal growth of their followers and are committed to creating an open, inclusive, and supportive environment that encourages followers' self-realization and creativity. Transformational leadership emphasizes the need for leaders to establish close relationships with their followers, understand and care about their needs and values, and build trust and consensus through interactions with them, thus improving organizational effectiveness and performance ¹⁸. The sub-dimensions of transformational leadership include four aspects: ^{19, 20}

1. Perceived understanding: Leaders understand and perceive the personal needs and values of followers and demonstrate care and support to make them feel valued and respected.

2. Individualized consideration: Leaders show concern and support for the personal growth and development of followers to motivate them to unleash their creativity and potential.

3. Inspirational motivation: Leaders inspire followers to be proactive and creative and to feel passionate and motivated about their work and goals.

4. Knowledge sharing: Leaders provide specific guidance and support to help followers succeed in their learning and development and apply these skills and knowledge to their daily work.

3. Proposed Method and Experiment Process

Definition of Research Dimension

This work built “volunteer stay intention analysis model” which contains four hypotheses in this model. Please refer to Figure 1.

The corporate social responsibility felt by volunteers has a positive impact on inspiring their willingness and engagement in their work. This also suggests that volunteers may perceive a certain connection between their volunteer work and paid employment, as their sense of corporate social responsibility drives them to actively participate in various job opportunities to fulfill their contributions and goals for society ⁴. This positive influence can potentially enhance volunteers' dedication and satisfaction in their work, So.

H1. Volunteers’ corporate social responsibility can positively influence on their stay intention.

Through participation in volunteer activities, volunteers can build more self-confidence. When they realize their contribution to the community or society, their self-esteem increases, which may enhance their willingness to continue volunteering. Involvement in volunteer work provides opportunities to learn new skills and knowledge. Volunteers may gain valuable experiences during volunteer work that contribute to their personal growth. These newly acquired skills and knowledge can increase their confidence in volunteer work and inspire them to continue.

In volunteer work, volunteers have the chance to establish deep interpersonal relationships. This can expand their social networks and provide a support system. When volunteers feel they belong to a supportive and friendly volunteer community, they are more likely to continue their involvement. Achieving volunteer work goals or making a positive impact on the community can bring significant personal satisfaction to volunteers. This sense of achievement can serve as a motivation for them to continue volunteering, as they recognize the importance of their work for others and society, So.

H2. Volunteers’ personal growth can positively influence on their stay intention.

When volunteers feel that the non-profit organization is committed to them, they have more confidence and trust in the organization's intentions and mission. This trust can enhance volunteers' willingness to work because they believe their participation is crucial to achieving the organization's goals and mission. Organizational commitment can make volunteers feel valued and important within the organization. When volunteers perceive that their work is acknowledged and meaningful, they are more motivated to continue their volunteer efforts because they know their contributions are appreciated. Organizational commitment may manifest as providing necessary support, training, and resources to help volunteers fulfill their volunteer roles. This support can increase volunteers' willingness to work because they know they can rely on the organization to overcome challenges and improve their performance. Organizational commitment can encourage volunteers to build deep emotional connections. When volunteers feel a strong emotional connection with the organization, they are more likely to invest more time and effort into volunteering because they care about the organization's mission and values. Organizational commitment can demonstrate a positive work culture that encourages volunteers to participate and emulate this culture. Volunteers may be influenced by the organization's values and commitment, extending this positive culture into their volunteer work, So. H3. Non-profit organization’ organizational commitment can positively influence on their stay intention.

Transformational leadership is a leadership approach that emphasizes a leader's ability to inspire and motivate team members to innovate, surpass themselves, and achieve common goals. This inference implies that transformational leadership in charitable organizations may inspire volunteers to become more actively involved and committed to their work. This is because transformational leaders are typically able to unlock the potential of volunteers, making them feel that their work is crucial to the organization's mission and societal well-being. Volunteers may be inspired by this leadership style to exhibit higher work willingness, increased engagement, and greater dedication, as they see their significant role in bringing about positive social change. Therefore, charitable organization leaders adopting a transformational leadership approach may help ignite greater enthusiasm among volunteers in fulfilling their volunteer work, contributing to the organization's mission accomplishment, and enhancing volunteer job satisfaction, So.

H4. Transformational leadership for volunteers in charity organization can positively influence on their stay intention.

Data Resource

The question items of each research dimension used in this work consult from some literatures. It can refer to Table 2.

Experiment Process

Pre-test Experiment

In this work, the pre-test experiment is conducted from January 1, 2023 to March 31, 2023. Actual test experiment

is conducted from August 1, 2023 to November 30, 2023. Random sampling is applied to investigate volunteer in each charity organization in Taiwan. 297 volunteers are surveyed in re-test experiment. 238 valid questionnaires are generated in this step.

Actual Test Experiment

2654 volunteers are surveyed in actual test. 2017 valid questionnaires are recovered finally. The valid questionnaires collected from Japan, south Korea and Taiwan. The questionnaire recovery rate was 75.99%.

4. Research Results

Reliability Analysis

For illustrating that the questionnaires prepared in this work is suitable for applying in “volunteer stay intention analysis model” as the goal of executing hypothesis test. Reliability analysis has been executed in this work. The results of reliability analysis from research dimensions should be found in Table 3. The results show that the Cronbach's α coefficient of research dimensions are all above 0.70.

Correlation Analysis

Pearson correlation analysis is used to analyze the relationship between each research dimension. Experiment result can refer to Table 4. All of dimensions are positively relative with each other. Except for a few research dimensions (Such as “organizational commitment and transformational leadership”, “organizational commitment and stay intention”) that have a low positive correlation, most research dimensions have a moderate positive correlation.

Regression Analysis

In this work, we use regression analysis to test the hypothesis in " volunteer stay intention analysis model".

This research takes corporate social responsibility, personal growth, organizational commitment and transformational leadership as independent variable. Stay intention will be employed as dependent variable. Refer to formula 1.

stay intention = e

+ t1 * corporate social responsibility

+ t2 * personal growth

+ t3 * organizational commitment

+ t4 * transformational leadership(1)

Among them, e is called as residual value, t₁, t₂, t₃ and t₄ means as regression coefficient.

Based on experiment result, entire hypotheses are significant (Refer to Table 5 and Table 6).

Compare and Analysis Stay Intention Influence Factor Among Different Country

The samples of this study come from three places - Japan, South Korea and Taiwan. This study also divides the data into groups according to the country of data source and conducts regression analysis to understand the differences in the influence of various influencing factors on the willingness to stay in charity organizations in different countries (Refer to Table 7 and Table 8).

Based on experiment result, we can know that non-profit organization’ organizational commitment and transformational leadership for volunteers in charity organization has the influence ability on their stay intention among three country. However, the influence ability of volunteers’ corporate social responsibility on stay intention only is valid for Japan and Taiwan. Compare with Korea citizen, Japan citizen and Taiwan citizen relatively pay attention to corporate social responsibility if they want to provide service in non-profit organization. Non-profit organization need to provide sufficient social contributions for attracting Japan citizen and Taiwan citizen to join. On the other hand, the influence ability of volunteers’ personal growth is valid for Korea. Korea citizen emphasizes the growth which should be provided by non-profit organization. It shows that Korea citizens have a little preference for utilitarianism.

5. Conclusions

Activities in charity organizations are very important for steadiness of society. Volunteers is the core members in charity organizations. However, the volunteer stay intention in charity organizations is low in Taiwan society. This study establishes some research hypotheses to analyze which factors will affect volunteer stay intention.

Based on experiment result, we justified that corporate social responsibility, organizational commitment and transformational leadership can effectively influence the stay intention of volunteers.

In the future, research scholars can try to collect volunteers’ samples in Malaysia, India, USA or Africa for comparing the experiment among different area.

References