Voluntary organizations as well as churches rely heavily on Christian volunteers, yet research on their motivation delivers conflicting answers and limited guidance. This paper applies a comprehensive (2,485 records screened) scoping review-based approach mapping 79 empirical studies (1989–2026) on Christian volunteer motivation across church and civil society projects. Using the UN Volunteers 2020 framework, we analyze (i) study designs, theoretical lenses, instruments, (ii) volunteer populations, and (iii) project settings. We identify three structural barriers to cumulative knowledge: heterogeneous and often implicit motivation concepts; an instrument–phenomenon mismatch that sidelines religious motives (notably through uncritical reliance on the Volunteer Functions Inventory); and systematic underreporting of key participant and context variables. These gaps account for much of the contradictory evidence and restrict its practical use. We outline concrete reporting and measurement standards to integrate religious motives into mainstream volunteering research and to improve evidence-informed management of Christian volunteers.

Understanding chicken cognition is essential for improving welfare in production systems, as it reveals how animals perceive and respond to their environment. Barren housing can compromise welfare, including negative affective states and cognitive deficits, but previous research mostly focused on effects of barren environments on young animals. Here, we investigated whether hens moved to battery cages once adults show lower cognitive performance than those kept cage-free. Because stable inter-individual differences (personality traits) can modulate how animals respond to environmental changes, we also explored whether personality modulates this effect. Sixty hens were reared in enriched aviary pens; at 18 weeks, half were transferred to battery cages (456 cm² per hen) and the rest remained cage-free (5,333 cm² per hen) for 64 days before testing. Personality was assessed through four standardised tests, and spatial memory was evaluated with a modified hole-board task. Working memory (WM), general working memory (GWM), and reference memory (RM) were calculated from visit ratios. Behaviours after birds consumed all baited rewards were recorded to assess responses to reward omission (e.g. extinction learning). Battery hens outperformed cage-free hens in all memory metrics and were more active during the post-reward period, showing more empty-cup visits. While the enhanced memory performance of battery hens is likely driven by increased reward motivation and greater engagement with the task, our results also suggest these birds showed a deficit in extinction learning. Personality also influenced performance: more fearful hens had lower WM and GWM and were slower to find baited cups. Housing and personality jointly shaped cognition in laying hens, highlighting that enhanced performance under poor conditions may not indicate better welfare, but rather a shift in motivation for food rewards.

Traditional leadership theories often portray influence as stable traits or behaviors, yet complex organizations require leadership to be understood as an emergent, feedback-driven process that co-evolves with contextual demands and follower motivation. This study conceptualizes servant leadership as a nonlinear, adaptive process rather than a fixed style, integrating Complexity Leadership Theory with the Job Demands Resources model and Regulatory Focus Theory. Servant leadership is theorized as an enabling mechanism through which shifting job demands and resources are translated into employees’ promotion and prevention orientations, shaping person-job fit, satisfaction, intrinsic motivation, initiative, and experienced responsibility. Using a two-phase longitudinal design, Phase 1 tested simple and serial mediation with structural equation modeling, and Phase 2 employed a cross-lagged panel model to examine reciprocal feedback dynamics. Results support a four-path process in which servant leadership differentially activates promotion and prevention focus and participates in ongoing feedback loops.

Management practices in the nonprofit sector have been changing over the last decade. Many nonprofit organizations are now mimicking the management techniques of for-profit organizations. Referring to prevailing economic, psychological, and management theories, this paper deals with pay-for-performance plans and specifies reasons for their introduction into nonprofit organizations. The determinants of pay-for-performance effectiveness are analyzed with special emphasis on the motivational determinants. The results of the analysis are incorporated into a model of pay-for-performance effectiveness. Referring to theoretical reasoning as well as empirical studies, this paper analyzes how the motivational determinants of pay-for-performance effectiveness are coined in different types of nonprofit organizations. The paper ends with a discussion in which the author presents an alternative explanation for the introduction of pay-for-performance plans into nonprofit organizations and some suggestions for future research.

In the last twenty-five years there has been a significant alteration in the student experience in the UK. In the early 1980s it was rare for students either to fail to take exams or produce assignments on time or for them to fail to complete the degree they had begun. Now a significant proportion of students who start a programme of study withdraw before completion and this ‘attrition’ has become a particular problem for some universities and for the higher education funding bodies. This article reports the results of a project that conducted qualitative, depth interviews not focussed so much on finding reasons for having left, but rather on the experience and biography of those facing problems and thus likely to consider leaving or being forced to leave. A particular focus of this approach was to investigate a different dimension of the issue: student motivation for studying.

Charity sport activities provide a sense of contributing to the lives of others and offer participants an extra source of motivation. SL has been used in a variety of sports and recreational contexts to research dedication to leisure activities. However, no study has investigated SL in charity sports events. In this regard, a model integrating key variables from the studies of serious leisure, charity sport event participation motivation, experience value, and behavioral intentions was proposed and tested on the participants of charity sport events. It is anticipated that the findings of this study will help to understand the multidimensional aspects of charity sports event participation, which may increase the effectiveness of the organization of charity sports events. Besides, this research adds to the literature by providing empirical data analysis regarding charity sports events from an unexplored country (Turkey).

Informed by self-determination theory (SDT), this study explores older adults’ long-term community volunteering experiences and motivations in Shanghai. We took a qualitative research approach to conduct face-to-face, semi-structured, in-depth interviews with older adults who were long-term volunteers in Shanghai communities (N = 69). We performed thematic analysis and generated themes for their experiences and evolving motivations. Participants began volunteering because it was enjoyable and helped them adapt to life after retirement. As their volunteering progressed, participants’ motivations gradually evolved and they developed a fusion motivation––juewu, combining characteristics of intrinsic and extrinsic motivations––for their strong commitment to volunteering. Gradually, participants assimilated juewu into their volunteer identity, which encouraged them to lead community self-governance initiatives. This study sheds light on the evolving, nuanced, underlying motivational process that shapes older adults’ experiences of long-term community volunteering.

The examination of organizational features of voluntary associations and their effects on the experiences of volunteers traditionally received less attention than other topics. This paper aimed to examine how different features as social and task support, information and appreciation affect volunteers’ experiences in terms of job satisfaction, organizational commitment, and intention to remain. Moreover, potential moderating effects by motivations to volunteer in relation to the abovementioned relations were tested. Through the use of a self-report questionnaire, distributed among 162 Italian voluntary associations (final sample of 1,445 volunteers), structural equation modeling (SEM), and moderated-SEM were carried out to verify hypothesized associations and potential moderations. Job resources were associated with the three outcomes, moreover many moderating effects by the values/understanding and career motivations were found. The results were commented on the basis of the current literature, and some practical suggestions were drawn about voluntary associations’ management and volunteers’ recruitment and selection.

Although there is substantial literature demonstrating evidence of a positive association between volunteerism and well-being, this relationship is under-explored among specific types of volunteerism, including in child welfare roles. This cross-sectional quantitative study used a sample of 302 volunteers in the role of “Host Families” from Safe Families for Children to explore whether six dimensions of well-being are associated with volunteering in child welfare or any specific type of motivation. Results demonstrate mixed evidence of significant associations between volunteering, well-being, and motivation. However, the results show there is no apparent decrease in the well-being of the child welfare volunteers. Rather, they are healthy, happy, and satisfied with life despite the cultural belief that child welfare work is distressing. Additionally, this study offers reliable options for operationalizing well-being and motivation. This may promote improved opportunities for accurate comparisons between future studies investigating volunteerism.

The international debate of the shifting bases of philanthropy suggested by modernization theory has been ongoing since the beginning of the twenty-first century, yet empirical evidence remains lacking from the perspective of philanthropic motivation. The society and philanthropy of China have undergone tremendous transformation since the launch of Reform and Opening Up in 1978, providing an ideal context for testing the assumption of the shifting bases of philanthropy. Through investigating the motivation structure of collectivism and individualism behind individual giving in contemporary China, this study rejects the assumption drawing on the data from the China Labor-force Dynamics Survey (CLDS). This study helps deepen the understanding of culture’s roles during modernization. It also has important implications for how charitable giving can be effectively promoted both inside and outside of the context of China.

The present study aimed to explore underlying motivational factors of volunteerism at a special sporting event for persons with intellectual disabilities. The volunteer survey (n = 252) assessed sociodemographic characteristics, motives, satisfaction with life, psychological well-being, and affectivity of mainly intrinsically motivated volunteers versus traineeship attendees, doing a compulsory traineeship on occasion of the Innsbruck 2008 Winter Special Olympics. There was no significant variability in the motivation to volunteer scale (MVS) score between the groups. The inventory of approach and avoidance motivation (IAAM) data showed that primarily intrinsically motivated volunteers experienced higher self-gratification through their voluntary engagement. Regression analysis revealed that psychological well-being, satisfaction with life, and positive and negative affectivity was predicted by the IAAM and MVS. Individuals’ personal motives for volunteering appear to correlate with psychological well-being and affectivity and may influence prospective participation.

Volunteering in emergency situations can involve the risk of injury. Overcoming such risks may motivate some volunteers, but may also deter those who are risk-averse. This presents a challenge, as recruiting and engaging volunteers with different risk attitudes is important to ensure response capacity and a balanced organizational culture. This cross-sectional study uses data from online surveys of search-and-rescue (SAR) volunteers (n = 1,659) and the general population (n = 3,185) in Norway to examine whether trust moderates a negative relationship between risk aversion and motivation in high-risk volunteering. Results from OLS regressions show that SAR volunteers have higher levels of risk propensity (B = 0.25, p < 0.001), trust (B = 1.47, p < 0.001) and felt trust (B = 1.36, p < 0.001) than other volunteers. Risk-averse volunteers report lower motivation and participation, but trust mitigates much of the negative impact (interaction term B = −0.10, p < 0.01). These findings underline the importance of strong cultures of trust within SAR volunteer teams.

Keeping volunteers committed and engaged is one of the toughest challenges for NPOs. The aim of the present study is to investigate the individual and organizational factors that promote volunteer satisfaction and, vice versa, foster intentions to quit. Two hundred forty-seven volunteers operating in four different NPOs were asked to fill in a self-report questionnaire that aimed to explore their motivations to volunteer, their degree of satisfaction and their perception of the organizational climate in the NPO they worked with, in addition to providing details of the activities which they were involved in. Results showed that the organizational climate mediates the relationship between autonomous motivation and satisfaction, as well as that between external motivation and intentions to leave an organization.

Volunteers are integral to the delivery of health and social services in many countries. Volunteer motivation is the key phenomenon around which research into the psychology of volunteering behaviour has been based in the recent past. This study comprised interviews with 26 volunteers working with eight health and social care organizations in Ireland. The study aimed to describe and interpret reasons for initial and continued volunteering involvement. Four key themes were proposed on the basis of a thematic analysis: volunteer motives; personal connections to organizations and causes; benefits; and challenges arising from volunteering. These themes are analysed in light of social psychological theory to better understand why people volunteer and maintain their involvement in the face of competing demands. The findings suggest that benefits and challenges merit a higher profile in research into the volunteer process, and that bonds of perceived obligation motivate many volunteers to begin and continue their involvement in health and social care.