What drives employees to participate in corporate volunteering programs?

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to examine how some of the key aspects of employee motivation and their perception of volunteering programs impact their participation in corporate volunteering. Specifically, this study argues that employee’s self-oriented motives to significantly influence employee participation than other-oriented motives. Similarly, this study also hypothesized that the corporate volunteering program characteristics to significantly relate to employee participation in corporate volunteering. Design/methodology/approach – The data were collected from 461 employee volunteers representing various industries across four different locations in India. A self-reported method was used to collect the data by administering the questionnaires. Findings – The structural equation modeling results indicate that other-oriented motives (altruistic) and characteristics of corporate volunteering programs to significantly predict employee participation in corporate volunteering and self-oriented motives did not show significance in predicting employee participation. Research limitations/implications – Results suggest that employee participation in volunteering is a function of not merely employee motivation but also how the volunteering programs are conceptualized and implemented. Originality/value – This research study moves beyond mere role of employee motives analysis and considered the role of characteristics of corporate volunteering programs to impact employee volunteering behavior. Further, it highlights there is a differential impact of self-and other-oriented motives in predicting employee participation.