Brakes and barriers of Corporate Volunteering

Abstract

Estudio de los determinantes de la participación de los empleados en las acciones de voluntariado corporativo, con vistas a incrementar la implicación. Estudio empírico cualitativo. Modelo de las motivaciones y determinantes de la participación. Metodología cualitativa: grupos de discusión.

The objective of this research is to study which are the determinants for the participation of employees in Corporate Volunteer actions -hereafter CV- that can become barriers and brakes, and which ones can mean negative consequences for the company. Ignorance of managers for these programs, about which are those brakes and its relevance, may be behind the low participation fees that companies have in their Corporate Volunteering Programs. For this purpose, we conducted a qualitative empirical study to define a model, based on the motivations and determinants of employee participation in corporate volunteer programs. The methodology that we use in order to advance the understanding of this field is common in the dynamics of so-called Discussion Groups or Focus Group (FG). We believe that this methodological approach fits well with the research question and objectives that guide us in this work, since it will allow the reconstruction of real social situations and to capture the interaction between different discourses. We trust the fact the model proposed really allows advance in knowledge of Corporate Volunteer field, as literature suggested, and we offer a conceptual framework to managers in order to develop CV programs that allows mitigating potential risks and increasing employee participation effectively. KEYWORDS: Corporate-sponsored volunteerism, employee volunteering