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We study ceremonial adoption of voluntary standards, where participants adopt the standard in principle but do not change their practices. Ceremonial adoption can benefit individual participants, who may be able to reap the benefits of association with the standard at lower cost, but it can be problematic for overall levels of adoption. We conceive of ceremonial adoption as an interaction between strategic incentives of participants and social ties to their audiences, such that not all participants are likely to ceremonially adopt. Our setting is the Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) certification for sustainable construction. We study the conditions under which projects register for LEED certification, allowing them to claim affiliation with LEED, but then do not actually finish certification. While our data are correlational in nature, our results suggest that studying the competition for audience members (in our case, occupants) can provide greater understanding of certification behavior as well as overall levels of adoption. Our findings have implications for organizations that design and maintain voluntary standards and for organization theorists who wish to understand field-level change. Thus, we provide more evidence that strategy and organizational theory interact in important and often unexamined ways.

A charity’s core purpose is legally mandated and delivery thereof is not a corporate social responsibility (CSR) activity which, by definition, is voluntary in nature. Any CSR activity not required by law should be “incidental” and be an outcome of a core purpose/object and not a focus of activity. The purpose of this study, therefore, is to address the lack of research into voluntary CSR activities conducted by charities so that charities might have a clearer operating platform and do not involuntarily contravene legislation.

This was an exploratory investigation using purposive sampling of senior leaders in UK charities. This study uses a case study approach to identify pragmatic areas of concern and also identify practical actions.

The conventional hierarchical ordering of Carroll’s CSR pyramid (1991) for profit-focussed organisations were found to be inconsistent with those for charitable organisations which were: ethical, legal, economic and philanthropic/voluntary/incidental.

This was an exploratory study and would benefit from further investigation.

Corporate social responsibility actions undertaken by charities need to be carefully evaluated to ensure that they comply with the core charitable purpose or are incidental.

Many employees in charities are motivated by social justice; however, they need to be cautious that they do not exceed the core purpose of the charity.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, no research was identified which has addressed the fundamental issue of charities’ core purposes and the extent to which charities might legally undertake CSR activities.

This study aims to identify how the involvement of female university students in volunteer organisations is contributing to their self-empowerment in Bangladesh.

A cross-sectional study with a qualitative approach was conducted. A total of 20 in-depth interviews with female student volunteers, two focus group discussions with student members of the volunteer organisation and ten key informant interviews with academics, gender experts and high-level representatives of civil society organisations were conducted. The data were collected from eight purposively selected universities in Dhaka. The data were collected between 1 January 2023 and 23 March 2023.

The inter-organisational environment appears to be supportive and welcoming, despite the fact that some male colleagues belittle women with insulting comments. Female students are predominantly involved in public presentation activities and their advice is rarely considered. To reach a top position, they have to show more commitment than their male colleagues. Subjective prejudices discourage women from taking on positions of responsibility. Participation in voluntary organisations strengthens the self-confidence, critical thinking, networking and social capital of female students, making it easier for them to gain employment. These factors contribute to the empowerment of female students.

This study is an excellent empirical document that establishes a link between the empowerment of female students and their participation in voluntary activities. The recommendations of this study pave the way for future research in different countries on how volunteering helps young people, especially female students, to shape their future by taking on social responsibility alongside their academic activities.

The purpose of this study is to get an understanding regarding the clusters of middle management employees on the basis of their knowledge sharing behaviour. Designing knowledge sharing behaviors with a distinct focus for a specified group of employees can be an effective and productive one. As it is often argued that the cluster of employees labeled as “middle management” is the key player for knowledge sharing behaviors – a subject of this study that intends to contribute to management strategy to enhance organizational effectiveness and subsequently to its knowledge sharing phenomona.

Cluster analysis was adopted as key tool as a part of quantitative method to accumulate the data from 597 employees who are working within the middle management of service sector located in the union territory of India named Jammu and Kashmir.

Three distinct segments namely – “knowledge sharing adepts (KSA),” “knowledge sharing scrupulous (KSC)” and “knowledge sharing servitudes (KSE)” as the prime domains of knowledge sharing behavior are identified.

To draw a narrow focus, the study was limited to the service sector of a union territory in India, hence the findings may not be generalized. Furthermore, as knowledge sharing behavior of individuals is always evolved out of social and historical practices, findings of this cross-sectional study should ideally be needed to be updated time to time through further research.

Cluster dynamicism of knowledge sharing behavior based on the differentiated and specified group of employee functions distinctly which in turn increases the organizational productivity with a particular focus on the mid-management of the service sector – a key managerial implication of this study.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this research paper is the first of its kind in Jammu and Kashmir adding value to the international literature in the area of knowledge sharing behaviors of service sector.

There is extensive literature on the determinants of job tenure insecurity. However, very little is known about the individual drivers of labour market insecurity. Additionally, while a piece of literature shows that volunteering improves workers' income, no study considers volunteering as an activity which could help workers to feel more confident about their perception of labour market insecurity if they lost or resigned their jobs. Therefore, purpose of this paper is to study whether workers who volunteer are less likely to perceive labour market insecurity.

The paper employs data from the sixth European working conditions survey which provides a great deal of information on working conditions. For the empirical investigation, probit model as well as robustness analysis have been implemented.

Results show that employees who do voluntary activities have a greater likelihood of declaring perceived labour market insecurity, which is nearly 3 percentage points lower, than employees who do not volunteer. Findings suggest that governments need to improve the relationship between for-profit and non-profit sectors to encourage volunteering.

This is the first study which considers volunteering as an activity which could help workers to feel more confident about their perception of “labour market insecurity”. Most of the studies on “labour market insecurity” do not focus on the workers individual characteristics but mainly on the labour markets institutional characteristics and welfare regimes differences.

This paper aims to systematically review the field of non-financial reporting (NFR) in hybrid organizations, focusing on state-owned enterprises, third-sector organizations and public–private partnerships. This is a timely attempt to identify the state of the art in the literature and outline the future research agenda. The paper answers two research questions: RQ1. What can be learned about NFR in hybrid organizations from the existing literature? RQ2. What are the future avenues for research on the topic?

A systematic literature review method was applied in this paper to summarize evidence from extant literature on NFR in hybrid organizations. The Scopus and Web of Science Core Collection databases were used to locate 92 articles for the review.

Recent years have witnessed a sharp increase in the number of articles on the topic. Regarding the implications of NFR for hybrid characteristics, NFR has some potential to strengthen the influence of non-market (i.e. state, community and social) logics in hybrid organizations. However, this potential may be limited due to the effect of market logics and the tensions that arise between the multiple logics in hybrid organizations. Regarding the implications of hybrid characteristics for NFR, these characteristics can not only affect the extent, the quality, the likelihood and the institutionalization of NFR but also result in the development of new NFR frameworks. The review calls for more research on the implications of NFR for multiple institutional logics and the implications of these logics for NFR in hybrid organizations.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first literature review that mobilizes insights from hybridity research to analyze NFR literature on diverse hybrid organizations.

Non-profit organizations (NPO) contribute significantly to the welfare of citizens and communities. Engagement in volunteering is crucial for sustaining volunteer motivation and for the effective and efficient functioning of NPO, with significant implications for society at large. Yet, literature on volunteer engagement (VE) is limited to date. Grounded on service-dominant logic, self-congruity theory and self-determination theory, this study aims to understand what motivates VE and how it may evolve into a co-creation process valuable to NPO and its stakeholders.

Based on survey data collected from 450 volunteers, working with a diverse set of NPO, a comprehensive model of drivers and outcomes of VE was empirically tested using PLS-SEM, considering the mediating role of volunteers' congruence with the core values of the NPO.

The impact of volunteers' perceived autonomy, competence and relatedness on VE and its subsequent role in volunteers' loyalty and extra-role engagement behaviors (i.e. co-development, influencing and mobilizing behaviors) were validated. Moreover, the study validates value congruence as an internalizing mediating mechanism in the engagement process, a role that has been implied but not empirically tested.

The study contributes to the engagement and volunteering literature, which despite an unprecedented parallel have developed almost independently, with limited reference to one another. As the nomological network of VE is still underexplored, the study extends the engagement literature to the volunteering sector, validating the key (but underexplored) role of self-determination needs and value congruence in driving VE and value co-creation behaviors. The study further adds to engagement research while addressing other actors' engagement beyond the customer–brand dyad. While adopting a seldom explored marketing perspective of VE, this study provides NPO valuable insights on how to manage and engage volunteers.

This paper explores how INGOs communicate their activities and achievements. In doing so, the study seeks to increase our understanding of INGOs' accountability practices.

This paper uses thematic analysis to analyse 90 ‘leaders’ letters' (the letters that many charities include at the beginning of their Annual Reports and Accounts), published by 39 INGOs between 2015 and 2018.

This paper argues that within the Annual Report letters under consideration, INGOs' accountability practices focus on quantitative, process-driven, output reporting. In doing so, it is the actions and agency of INGOs that are primarily emphasised. INGO constituents are largely excluded from representation. Donors are presented only as contributors of financial capital. Drawing on field theory, the paper argues that this representational practice means INGO constituents are almost irrelevant to INGOs' representational and accountability communication practices.

This paper is indebted to previous important work and, building on such scholarship, seeks to contribute to the ongoing conversation about INGO accountability. While reinforcing some prior knowledge, the findings here also differ in the understanding of how donors are portrayed. The paper extends previous analyses by using field theory to show that the INGO field as considered here is a space in which representations of accountability are based on organisational and transactional factors, and does not value the humanity of INGOs' constituents. This connects to operations of power, between donors, INGOs, and constituents, and reinforces inequitable power within the development system.

The paper examines the key driving factors behind the rapid and uneven growth of social enterprises in China based on Kerlin’s Macro-Institutional Social Enterprise (MISE) model of social enterprise development, with an emphasis on testing key local institutional factors.

The study adopts the quantitative method approach. The hypotheses have been tested based on a cross-regional empirical analysis with two national datasets on China.

This study shows that among the state, market and civil society, local government support in terms of favorable policies is the sole determinant factor driving China’s social enterprise growth. On the other hand, the market is irrelevant and local civil society impedes social enterprise growth. This demonstrates that the current growth model is the result of government intervention.

The datasets have a limited sample size. We suggest that future studies may collect a larger sample size with more comprehensive information. We think this study will encourage more comparative qualitative studies at the local level to reveal the underlying mechanisms of growth.

Since government policy is the determinant factor, the quality and quantity of government-backed incubation programs and platforms would matter the most for social enterprise growth. Our study also helps social entrepreneurs understand what factors matter when they try to develop social enterprises in China. They are advised to work on aspects of gaining legal legitimacy and political support in order to grow the sector.

This conclusion suggests that professionals and practitioners should review the implications of the current growth of social enterprises in China, in terms of their sustainability, given their institutional isolation from other sectors.

Current studies have yet to thoroughly explore the role of meso- and micro-institutional factors in social enterprise development, especially in different contexts. With reference to Kerlin’s framework and the tri-sector model, this paper advances the understanding of social enterprise growth in China.

This study aims to assess the alignment of South Korea’s government-certified social enterprises (GCSEs) with prevailing social enterprise (SE) models, notably the entrepreneurial nonprofit, social cooperative and social business models delineated in the “Emergence of Social Enterprises in Europe” (Defourny and Nyssens, 2012, 2017a, 2017b) and the “principle of interest” frameworks (Defourny et al., 2021). Thereby, it seeks to situate these enterprises within recognized frameworks and elucidate their hybrid identities.

Analyzing panel data from 2016 to 2020 for 259 GCSEs, this study uses tslearn for k-means clustering with dynamic time warping to assess their developmental trajectories and alignment with established SE models, which echoes the approach of Defourny et al. (2021). We probe the “fluid” identities of semi-public sector SEs, integrating Gordon’s (2013) notion that they tend to blend various SE traditions as opposed to existing in isolation.

Results indicate that GCSEs do align with prevalent SE frameworks. Furthermore, they represent a spectrum of SE models, suggesting the versatility of the public sector in fostering diverse types of SEs.

The concept of a semi-public sector SE model has been relatively uncharted, even though it holds significance for research on SE typologies and public sector entrepreneurship literature. This study bridges this gap by presenting empirical evidence of semi-public SEs and delineating the potential paths these enterprises might take as they amalgamate various SE traditions.