Organizational, Motivational, and Cultural Contexts of Volunteering

Theo Wehner held the professorship of Industrial and Organizational Psychology and was head of the Center for Organizational and Work Sciences at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Zurich from 1997 to 2015. He spent 15 years researching in the field of volunteer work in Switzerland, Germany, and with Europe-wide studies. These studies on volunteer work included well over 15,000 individuals and achieved response rates of up to 70%, which are rarely achieved in comparable questionnaire studies. The respondents generated data that are still very rare in volunteer research. Since his retirement in 2015, Theo Wehner has advised charitable institutions and politics on volunteer work.Stefan T. Güntert is a lecturer in Organizational Behavior at the University of Applied Sciencesand Arts Northwestern Switzerland. He received his PhD from ETH Zurich in 2008. His researchinterests include work design, work motivation, volunteering, nonprofit management, and self-determination theory.Harald A. Mieg is the President of the Society for Science Studies, Berlin. He is affiliated with the Humboldt University, Berlin as a Guest Professor. He was earlier at ETH Zurich, where he conducted research into the professionalization of environmental expert services in Switzerland.

• Chapter 1: Definition of volunteer work and a model of volunteer activity.- Chapter 2: Volunteer work as a matter of motivation.- Chapter 3: Volunteer work as an organizational task.- Chapter 4: Volunteering as a psychosocial resource.- Chapter 5: Volunteer work from an international perspective.- Chapter 6: Practical Implications.