Medical Brigades to El Salvador and Honduras: Travel imaginaries and volunteer tourist recruitment

In this paper, I explore travel imaginaries in the recruitment of participants to short-term medical brigades in El Salvador and Honduras. I look in particular at how trip leaders and organization web sites frame the volunteer tourist experience, drawing on familiar, shared imaginaries of poor, backward international settings, and related performative interventions that echo white colonial relationships. Recruitment messaging offers little specific or informed sense of place, ignoring the national histories and socio-economic circumstances of the receiving countries. As a consequence, the health profiles and capacities of El Salvador and Honduras are finally obscured in favor of the valorized performance of visitors and externally-driven protocols and care. The efforts of some brigade sponsors and related organizations to improve health-care delivery to local communities, in particular fundraising among brigade participants and other donors, would seem to separate the link between travel and volunteerism. They continue, however, to reinforce broadly-held imaginaries of international poverty and economic backwardness and related rescue by the Global North. A more realistic understanding of Honduran and Salvadoran economies and politics remains elusive and requires a reorientation of voluntary engagement.

Examining Voluntary Engagement Barriers in Knowledge Sharing Practices for Supply Chain Innovation

Voluntary engagement (VE) creates a sense of coordination and harmonization to share knowledge. The eminence of knowledge sharing (KS) for supply chain (SC) innovation is undeniable to initiate development in products, services, and operations. However, KS process is undergoing challenges in sustaining KS engagement by SC partners. Hence, recent researchers call for the need to address this gap in the literature to assess VE barriers. This paper studies the causal relationship of VE barriers on two MNCs, i.e., Toyota and Suzuki, via the fuzzy DEMATEL approach. The case examination findings indicate culture's alignment as the prime cause of VE and leadership commitment has stronger interdependence. The core problems which need elimination are fear of losing the job, prominence and opportunistic behavior. The study concludes that companies need to instigate the natural attributes of employees’ VE by setting-up earnest guidelines to practice free information and knowledge flow.

Productive engagement and ageing in productivist welfare regimes: questing for an age-friendly city in Hong Kong

The population aged 65 years and above in Hong Kong is projected to rise from 15 per cent in 2014 to 38.4 per cent in 2069. Therefore, the quest for creating age-friendly conditions and the promotion of active ageing has become a priority for the Hong Kong Government and stakeholders in the city. Using a cross-national comparative framework for productive engagement in later life, this article examines the predictors of productive engagement (perceived voluntary engagement) in two districts (the Islands and Tsuen Wan) of Hong Kong – a typical productivist welfare regime in Asia. Data were collected through a social survey to ascertain the perception of an age-friendly city and active ageing in 2016 and 2018 from 1,638 persons aged 60 years and older. The results indicate some differences in the perception of the key determinants in both districts, but the factors associated with productive engagement were consistent, namely social atmosphere, social provisions and the built environment. The findings are discussed within the broader discourse on social gerontology, age-friendly cities and productivist welfare regimes.

Place leadership and the role of the third sector and civil society

Only relatively recently, place leadership has become an important debate in the leadership studies and public administration literatures. From a place leadership perspective, there is clearly a potential role for third sector organisations and the voluntary engagement that citizens can play for places through different activities, such as for example social innovation, public services provision, volunteering, civic engagement, advocacy, enhancement of the quality of life, strengthening of social bonds and social cohesion. However, the topic of civil society and third sector organisations is still neglected in research and public policy debates on place-based leadership. Our special issue aims at filling this gap.

Role of Habits in Cell Phone-Related Driver Distractions

Despite increased media attention and legislation banning some forms of cell phone use while driving, drivers continue to engage in illegal cell phone distractions. Several studies have used the theory of planned behavior (TPB) to explain why drivers voluntarily engage in cell phone distractions, and found that TPB constructs (attitudes, social norms, perceived behavioral control) predict intentions to engage in cell phone distractions while driving. Given that cell phone use is ubiquitous, habits that have formed around their general use may lead to automatic engagement in cell phone distractions while driving. This differs from voluntary engagement, in that habits are carried out automatically, with little thought given to the action or its consequences. Thus, in addition to the TPB constructs that explain intentions, habitual factors should also be considered in understanding why drivers use cell phones. A few studies have examined the role of habits in this context, but they only focused on texting behaviors. An online survey was conducted with 227 respondents to investigate the role of habitual cell phone use in driver engagement in a variety of illegal cell phone tasks (e.g., social media, email). Habitual cell phone use was found to explain unique variance in self-reported engagement after controlling for TPB constructs. Overall, the findings indicate that cell-phone-related distractions may not be entirely voluntary; instead, cell phone habits developed outside of the driving context appear to have a significant effect, suggesting that cell phone use while driving may have become automatic to a certain extent.

Character growth following life events? A study on character strengths during the COVID-19 pandemic

Did the COVID-19 pandemic promote character growth? Studies using sequential samples suggested that collective life events can result in character growth, but their conclusions have been questioned. This study examined character growth during the COVID-crisis using three approaches (perceived changes in oneself and a closer other, and longitudinal analyses of changes). Additionally, it investigated the relationships between character strengths assessed before the pandemic, and well-being, compliance with regulations, and voluntary engagement during the pandemic.German-speaking participants (N = 366, 76.5% female, mean age: 45.33 years) completed an assessment of character strengths up to 1.5 years before the COVID-19 pandemic and reported on perceived changes in character strengths, posttraumatic growth, well-being, compliance, and engagement during the COVID-crisis between June and August 2020. Results show that (a) perceived changes were reported for most character strengths in both oneself and close others, but (b) longitudinal increases were only observed in humility and prudence. Pre-crisis character strengths showed relationships with both (c) posttraumatic and (d) well-being during the crisis and predicted (e) compliance with regulations and (f) voluntary engagement.We conclude that actual character growth was smaller than the perceived changes, but that character strengths predicted positive experiences and behaviors related to the COVID-pandemic.

Rural non-profit leaders and their (in)formal role in local development

Current interest in place-based leadership is playing a crucial role in local development. It concerns mainly politicians and public servants. The role of non-profit leaders is still an under-researched topic. Thus, we ask the following research questions: Are rural areas with local action groups (LAGs) more attractive to people than those without? Within rural areas with LAGs, are those with a higher proportion of non-profit partners more attractive to people?<br />On a sample of 6,262 Czech municipalities, we tested whether membership of municipalities in LAGs and non-profit leadership attributed to positive migration balance. We did it by the application of the propensity score matching method combined with the difference–indifference approach.<br />We found positive estimates for both LAGs’ membership and non-profit leadership on the attractiveness of municipalities. The participation of non-profit leaders makes an important difference. These results underline the importance of bottom-up approaches with voluntary engagement. Moreover, our findings demonstrate contradictory aspects of top-down imposed policies.

Scottish Inshore Fisheries Integrated Data System (SIFIDS): work package 7 final report engagement with inshore fisheries to promote and inform

[Extract from Executive Summary] This report documents Work Package 7 of the Scottish Inshore Fisheries Integrated Data Systems (SIFIDS) Project, which was designed to facilitate engagement with the key stakeholders including; inshore fishers, their representative bodies, Regional Inshore Fisheries Groups, Marine Scotland including Policy, Compliance and Science. The SIFIDS Project focused on 12 metre and under inshore fisheries vessels, of which around 1,500 are registered in Scotland including those that work part-time or seasonally. The facilitation team was set various targets for engagement based on the requirements of other work packages. The success of the overall project was dependent to a significant extent on securing voluntary engagement and input from working fishers. Previous experience has shown that having a dedicated project facilitation team is an extremely effective model for establishing the necessary trust to encourage industry-participation in projects such as this. The WP7 facilitation team comprised three individuals who have significant marine and fisheries related experience and wide-ranging skills in communications and stakeholder engagement. They worked together flexibly on a part-time basis, ensuring staffing cover over extended hours where required to match fishers’ availability and geographical coverage over Scotland.

Volunteer satisfaction in sports clubs: A multilevel analysis in 10 European countries

Regular voluntary engagement is a basic resource for sports clubs that may also promote social cohesion and active citizenship. The satisfaction of volunteers is an imperative factor in this engagement, and the purpose of this article is to explore individual and organizational determinants of volunteer satisfaction in sports clubs. Theoretically, our study builds on the actor-theory concepts where volunteer satisfaction depends on subjective evaluations of expectations and experiences in a sports club (‘logic of situation’), so that positive evaluations lead to higher satisfaction and, hopefully, retention of volunteers. This research uses a sample of 8131 volunteers from 642 sports clubs in 10 European countries, and is the first analysis to combine determinants at the level of the club and the volunteer (multilevel). Results show that the most important determinants of satisfaction are the conditions of volunteering (recognition, support, leadership and material incentives) and the workload of volunteers. Surprisingly, club characteristics, size or having paid staff are not significant determinants of volunteer satisfaction. The results of this analysis can assist more effective volunteer management in sports clubs that are facing challenges of individualization and professionalization.