Are prosocial commitments changing? Episodic volunteering experiences at the Mantova Literature Festival

Journal title PSICOLOGIA DI COMUNITA’
Author/s Anna Maria Meneghini, Diego Romaioli, Paola Rossi, Daniele Bottura
Publishing Year 2017 Issue 2016/2 Language Italian
Pages 14 P. 32-45 File size 242 KB
DOI 10.3280/PSC2016-002004
DOI is like a bar code for intellectual property: to have more infomation click here

Below, you can see the article first page

If you want to buy this article in PDF format, you can do it, following the instructions to buy download credits

Article preview

FrancoAngeli is member of Publishers International Linking Association, Inc (PILA), a not-for-profit association which run the CrossRef service enabling links to and from online scholarly content.

Episodic Volunteering (EV) is an emerging form of volunteering that has recently increased in Italy, especially among young people. Little is still known about its potential consequences for volunteers, nonprofit organizations and the community. This study involved 538 volunteers who offered their services in the various events of the Festivaletteratura (Literature festival) in Mantova. We investigated the motivations of the participants in the festival to understand why they engage in EV. Moreover, the perceived advantages and disadvantages of EV, as compared to those of traditional forms of volunteering, were analyzed. The results stimulated some considerations on EV. These considerations, together with the perspectives of people who are involved in institutions related to voluntary organizations, are reported in the discussion.

Keywords: Episodic volunteering, motivations, representations, quali-quantitative methodology

Jel codes: I12, M14

  1. Ambrosini M. (2005). Scelte solidali. L’impegno per gli altri in tempi di soggettivismo. Bologna: il Mulino.
  2. Cnaan R.A., Handy F. (2005). Toward understanding of episodic volunteering. Vrijwillige Inzet Onderzocht (VIO, Netherlands), 2(1): 28-35.
  3. Handy F., Hustinx L., Kang C., Cnaan R.A., Brudney J.L., Haski-Leventhal D., Holmes K., Meijs L.C.P.M., Pessi A.B., Ranade B., Yamauchi N., Zrinscak S. (2009). A Cross-Cultural Examination of Student Volunteering: Is It All About Résumé Building? Nonprofit and Voluntary Sector Quarterly, 39(3): 498-523. DOI: 10.1177/089976400934435
  4. Haski-Leventhal D., Meijs L.C.P., Hustinx L. (2009). The Third-party Model: Enhancing Volunteering through Governments, Corporations and Educational Institutes. Journal of Social Policy, 39(1): 139-158. DOI: 10.1017/S0047279409990377
  5. Hustinx L. (2010). Institutionally Individualized Volunteering: Towards a Late Modern ReConstruction. Journal of Civic Society, 6(2): 165-179. DOI: 10.1080/17448689.2010.50638
  6. Macduff N. (1990). Episodic volunteers: Reality for the future. Voluntary Action leadership, Spring, 15-17.
  7. Macduff N. (2005). Societal changes and the rise of the episodic volunteer. In: Brudney J.F., ed., Emerging areas of volunteering, Athens GA: ARNOVA.
  8. Marta E., Guglielmetti C., Pozzi M. (2006). Volunteerism During Young Adulthood: An Italian Investigation into Motivational Patterns. Voluntas, 12: 221-232.
  9. Omoto A.M., Snyder M. (1995). Sustained helping without obligation: Motivation, longevity of service, and perceived attitude change among AIDS volunteers. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 68: 671-686. DOI: 10.1037/0022-3514.68.4.67
  10. Rotolo T., Wilson J. (2004). What Happened to the “Long Civic Generation”? Explaining Cohort Differences in Volunteers. Social Forces, 82(3): 1091-1121.
  11. Sarason S.B. (1974). The Psychological Sense of Community: Prospects for a Community Psychology. San Francisco: Jossey Bass.
  12. Smith K., Holmes K., Haski-Leventhal D., Cnaan R.A., Handy F., Brudney J.L. (2010). Motivations and Benefits of Student Volunteering: Comparing Regular, Occasional and Non-volunteers in Five Countries. The Canadian Journal of Nonprofit and Social Economy Research, 1(1): 65-81.
  13. Taylor T., Mallison C., Bloch K. (2007). “Looking for a Few Good Women”: Volunteerism as an Interaction in Two Organizations. Nonprofit and Voluntary Sector Quarterly, 37(3): 389-410. DOI: 10.1177/089976400731042

Anna Maria Meneghini, Diego Romaioli, Paola Rossi, Daniele Bottura, La forma dell’impegno prosociale sta cambiando? L’esperienza del volontariato episodico al Festivaletteratura di Mantova in "PSICOLOGIA DI COMUNITA’" 2/2016, pp 32-45, DOI: 10.3280/PSC2016-002004