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The aim of this paper is twofold: to delineate the results of the focus groups regarding volunteers and their needs; and to compare the results with pertinent literature regarding volunteerism to determine whether the motivating factors and needs of volunteers still need to be addressed by public health and other professional practitioners.

Focus groups were conducted with public health volunteers and content analysis was conducted to identity central themes.

Several important themes related to motivation and training emerged from the focus groups. These findings are supported by the sociological, psychological, management and administrative literature on volunteerism.

While qualitative, these findings emphasize factors of which public health and emergency management officials need to be cognizant as they prepare, plan and work with volunteers.

In order to retain volunteers' public health and emergency management, volunteer programs need to address the social, interpersonal, and educational desires of volunteers.

The perceptions, values, interests and motivation of public health volunteers were directly elicited in order to identify factors that facilitate volunteer participation in public health and emergency responses.

The purpose of this paper is to study and compare knowledge and skills in basic care for the dependent elderly of health volunteers before and after the increase in ability program participation.

Quasi experimental research includes one group pretest-posttest design. The research was conducted from January to March 2018. The samples were 30 health volunteers in Nakorn Pathom Province selected by purposive sampling. They were all female, aged 20–50 years, with minimal education level of early secondary school and were current or former health volunteers. The increase ability program consisted of lecture and skill practice by demonstration and individual replay demonstration. The program duration was 30 h with 19 h of skill practice and 2 days of site visit to the dependent elderly’ homes. The tool for collecting data was a questionnaire for the evaluation of knowledge and skills in basic care for the dependent elderly. The data were analyzed by means, standard deviation and paired t-test.

After the increase in ability program participation, the health volunteers had very good level of knowledge in basic care for the dependent elderly with statistical significance (p<0.01) and had most correct skills in basic care for the dependent elderly with a score of 9 from 11 items.

Knowledge and skills in basic care for the dependent elderly of the health volunteers increased to a very good level after program participation. Thailand should provide periodic and continuous training program to increase health volunteers’ knowledge and skills in basic elderly care to provide care for the elderly with most benefits.

The purpose of this paper is to determine opportunities, resources, and capacity building supports that enable volunteer capacity to participate in localized health planning processes.

A case study methodology is employed in this study. A range of qualitative research methods including focus groups, individual interviews, observation and document analysis is used to gather detailed data about the experience of the health volunteers. They engage in an in‐depth analysis of this experience. A thematic analysis of volunteer accounts informs the explanation of the case and the study findings.

The development of partnerships between health systems and communities is advocated as a means of enhancing overall community capacity to address priority health concerns, and to reduce escalating health care costs and inequities. The process of building health partnerships is complex, requiring extensive assessment of both health system and community readiness. Health volunteers have many capacities well suited to collaborative activity; these are more likely to find expression when barriers are minimized and facilitative conditions are maximized. The study finds that dialogue is a key mechanism for assessing community and system readiness, and for building trust and mutual understanding in such health partnerships. This case study introduces facilitated dialogue as a mechanism for assessing volunteer readiness and timely capacity building resources and supports, in line with the developmental needs of volunteers. Assessing health system readiness involves consideration of health system goals and definitions of participation, and overall commitment to developing and resourcing this kind of system‐wide change where the outcomes are longer term in nature. This commitment entails training of health professionals in the relevant health promotion knowledge and skills. This extends to mobilizing, nurturing, and supporting volunteer capacity to work with the health system to make informed decisions about the health needs of their community.

A health system perspective on this question should be explored to identify other complex challenges associated with managing this kind of system‐wide change.

The paper provides detailed insights into the experience of health volunteers in a health planning context. These insights potentially inform concrete strategies for assessing community strengths and readiness, and for minimizing barriers to volunteer participation, particularly in a rural context.

The paper provides insights about how health system structure and environmental processes can be adapted to create an environment conducive to community participation.

Village health volunteers are community health volunteers in Thailand that have helped the government deliver public health services for many years, particularly during the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic. Though labeled as “volunteers,” the village health volunteers are recruited, trained and supervised in a manner similar to how a government agency recruits, trains and supervises its street-level bureaucrats (SLBs). This study examines the two factors that affect how these street-level quasi-bureaucrats use their professional discretion: transformational leadership and public service motivation (PSM). Transformational leadership means a leadership style that develops, shares and sustains a vision to elevate SLBs to higher levels of performance, while PSM is defined as an SLB’s predisposition to make a difference by working in the public sector with a sense of calling. This study attempts to analyze the mediating role of psychological empowerment in the relationship between transformational leadership, PSM and professional discretion.

The paper uses a three-wave survey-based quantitative method to avoid common method biases. This method provides evidence gathered from 105 subdistrict health promotion hospitals and 798 village health volunteers (VHVs) in five provinces in Thailand.

PSM and transformational leadership influence the village health volunteers' use of professional discretion indirectly through the psychological empowerment mechanisms that make them feel positive toward their village health volunteer role and responsibility. The authors' findings suggest that the hospital directors' transformational leadership induces the village health volunteers' use of professional discretion by making them feel competent to do their work and feel fulfilled and valuable about their work. Similarly, the village health volunteers' PSM leads them to use professional discretion by making them feel fulfilled and valuable and by convincing them of the social and community impact of their work.

While existing research focuses on VHVs' role in alleviating capacity constraints on the health care system, this study revealed an equally important role played by hospital directors. These directors' transformational leadership was instrumental in enhancing VHVs' psychological empowerment – particularly their perceptions of the meaning of their work and their competence – that ultimately enabled them to use professional discretion in their work. This study also highlighted the importance of VHVs' PSM, which leads to their use of professional discretion via the meaning and impact dimensions of psychological empowerment. Based on this study, PSM should also be incorporated into the community health volunteers' recruitment criteria. Also, public health agencies should consider including transformational leadership in the hospital directors' training programs and their promotion criteria.

As VHVs' high-PSM level was found to enhance their professional discretion, the process of recruiting ordinary citizens to serve as community health volunteers should incorporate assessment of the candidates' PSM. Also, the Ministry of Public Health should design and assign tasks that citizen volunteers, particularly VHVs, consider meaningful and at which they feel competent.

Aside from technical training, directors of the subdistrict health promotion hospitals should regularly receive soft skill training (i.e. leadership training) and transformational leadership characteristics should be included in the government criteria for promotion.

While past research has examined the impact of other leadership styles on psychological empowerment, this study took a further step by examining the mediating effects of psychological empowerment on the relationship between transformational leadership and professional discretion among VHVs. The authors analyzed the mechanism linking PSM to the VHVs' professional discretion. In addition, by examining the relative importance of different dimensions of psychological empowerment, this study offers a nuanced understanding of the psychological processes by which transformational leadership and PSM shape the SLBs' use of professional discretion in their work.

The purpose of this study was to investigate the provincial-level systems and mechanisms to develop health volunteers to improve the health of the immigrant workforce in Thailand.

This qualitative study obtained data from document research, in-depth interviews with 58 people involved at policy and provincial levels working to develop health volunteers to improve the health of the immigrant workforce. Data were collected from May–October 2017; then the content of the conceptual framework was analyzed, the research objectives were examined and summary and induction analysis interpreted data from documents, observations and interviews.

Thailand has four systems for developing health volunteers to improve the health of the immigrant workforce: recruitment, training and knowledge management, welfare and motivational and financial and other supportive resources. Development is driven through the mechanisms of the Provincial Public Health Office with Non Governmental Organizations (NGOs) and network partners. The health volunteer development exhibits two patterns: developing migrant workers to become migrant health volunteers and developing village health volunteers to perform health care for the immigrant workforce. All development patterns mainly rely upon the regular operating budget, which is often inadequate. Frequently, some provinces make attempts to seek other funding sources. In fact, health volunteer development is subjected to local authorities of the four provinces whose systems and mechanisms of development differ from one another.

The findings from this study could help develop health volunteers to significantly improve the health of the immigrant workforce in the Thai health service system.

This study aims to examine the systems and mechanisms at provincial level to develop health volunteers to improve health of the immigrant workforce in Ubon Ratchathani, Thailand.

This qualitative study collected data from document research and in-depth interviews with 22 concerned people who worked at policy and provincial levels to develop health volunteers to improve the health of immigrant workforce. Data were collected from May to July 2017. Then, content of the conceptual framework was analysed. The research objectives were examined and summary and induction analysis interpreted data from documents, observations and interviews.

Ubon Ratchathani has developed a Thai village health volunteer network to provide health care to immigrant workforce. This consisted of four systems and one supporting mechanism, namely, selection of health volunteer, knowledge management on primary health care, welfare management and moral enhancement and resource and budget support. Development is driven through the committee under the mechanisms of government agencies, i.e. the provincial public health office together with non-government organizations and network partners.

The findings from this study could help develop health volunteers to significantly improve the health of the immigrant workforce in the Thai health service system.

Sherry Clark, Development Officer, Mental Health at the National Centre for Volunteering, reports the findings from her recent survey amongst people with mental health issues who had taken up voluntary work. The survey found that 66% of the 120 respondents volunteered on a weekly basis, nearly 75% said that the organisation where they volunteered offered valuable support and 81% felt that volunteering had made a positive impact on their mental health.

The paper studies the simultaneous effect of formal and informal volunteering on self-perceived individual health across nine European countries while controlling, among other things, for socioeconomic characteristics and social and cultural participation.

This paper employs the 2006 wave of the EU-SILC dataset for estimating recursive trivariate probit models using instrumental variables.

The paper finds that although formal volunteering and informal volunteering are correlated with each other, they have different impacts on health. Formal volunteering is never correlated with higher self-perceived individual health except in the Netherlands. In contrast, informal volunteering is related to lower self-perceived individual health in Austria, Finland, France, the Netherlands, Spain, and Italy.

The first limitation concerns the absence of other measures of volunteering, such as volunteering hours that are not available in the employed dataset. The second limitation is that the dataset collection on social and cultural variables in EU-SILC is cross-sectional while the optimal dataset should be a panel data. The third limitation is that instrumental variables are observed in the same year of declaring self-perceived individual health while the optimal timing would be at least one year before.

Findings of the paper show that formal volunteering has no effect on self-perceived individual health while informal volunteering has negative consequences.

Volunteering is performed because of an individual decision and could be considered a consequence of how social responsibilities are distributed within countries. Our results show that informal volunteering has a negative effect on health; this is likely to depend on how people manage stress coming from performing this altruistic activity. It is likely that a more cautious distribution of social responsibilities could prevent the negative effects of informal volunteering on health.

The originality of the present paper is in simultaneously examining the impact of formal and informal volunteering on self-perceived individual health. Furthermore, most of the existing studies on formal volunteering and health focus on a single country; this paper compares nine European countries characterized by different social, cultural, economic, and institutional features. Finally, the paper addresses the issue of reverse causation.

The peer review history for this article is available at: https://publons.com/publon/10.1108/IJSE-11-2017-0548

This paper aims to propose a conceptual model of philanthropic behavior of volunteers in the health care sector.

This study is based on an extensive review of past research on philanthropic behavior. To conduct the literature review, keywords such as philanthropy, philanthropic behavior, giving, donating, competencies, volunteering and social network in health care were identified.

From the literature reviewed, three groups of antecedents of philanthropic behavior among health care volunteers (HCVs) were identified, viz., individual factors, social factors and organizational factors. This paper proposes social network as a mediating variable in linking the three groups of antecedents with philanthropic behavior. The paper offers a number of propositions which explain the proposed model of philanthropic behavior of HCVs.

Further research is suggested to test and validate the framework to provide empirical evidence. Upon model validation, the paper could offer practical interventions for human resource development (HRD) managers to assist philanthropic-based organization toward developing and managing philanthropic behavior of HCVs. The paper highlights the importance of social network to promote individuals to engage in philanthropic actions.

The paper yields a new approach in theorizing philanthropic behavior among HCVs by integrating the theory of planned behavior, social identity approach and organizational support theory. The proposed social network as a mediator could provide new insights to the HRD practitioners on developing philanthropic behavior among HCVs subject to model validation. The research contributes to literature in philanthropy, HRD and community development.

The digitalization has changed the volunteer paradigm, making young volunteers use technology in their volunteering activities. The current study sets out to identify and model the antecedents that determine intention to engage in digital health volunteering among Algerian physicians to give insights promoting the development of digital volunteering in different countries of the world.

To this end, the authors used a survey design to extend the technology acceptance model (TAM) with two construct (self-efficacy and perceived risk of COVID-19 infection). A convenience sample of 163 physicians; working in the private and public sectors in six provinces of Algeria was selected. The data were analyzed through a multiple linear regression.

The findings show that the perceived usefulness, ease of use, attitudes toward digital volunteering, level of self-efficacy and perceived risk of COVID-19 infection have a significant positive effect on physicians' intentions to engage in digital volunteering work in the context of health crises.

This study reveals that engaging in digital volunteering can be promoted during health crises as an effective strategy to provide support and assist public health institutions and emergency management.

To the best of the authors' knowledge, this is the first study from Africa that explores digital volunteer work, and the first study that extends the TAM to investigate digital volunteer intention among physicians.