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Impact of social information on intentions to volunteer domestically for foreign causes
Author(s) -
Cao Xiaoxia
Publication year - 2018
Publication title -
nonprofit management and leadership
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.844
H-Index - 54
eISSN - 1542-7854
pISSN - 1048-6682
DOI - 10.1002/nml.21318
Subject(s) - pride , volunteer , perception , appeal , psychology , social psychology , public relations , advertising , business , political science , law , agronomy , biology , neuroscience
It is a big challenge for nonprofits devoted to foreign causes to recruit volunteers. To help address this issue and contribute to an understudied area of volunteer recruitment research—the effectiveness of persuasive appeals used for recruitment—this study examined the impact of social information on people's intentions to volunteer domestically for foreign causes because such information is found to influence giving behavior. To be more specific, an online experiment was conducted to investigate how and why social information may influence volunteer intentions. The results showed that the information exerted anticipated indirect positive impacts on the intentions (through increasing the perception that fellow citizens would volunteer in response to a recruitment appeal and arousing collective pride) but had no significant overall impact on the intentions. The findings not only contribute to our understanding of how and why social information may influence volunteering domestically for foreign causes but also suggest effective appeals that nonprofits devoted to foreign causes can use to recruit new volunteers and expand their volunteer base.