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In the context of a care crisis in Germany, care work done by volunteers is increasingly being semi-formalized by the state and used in professional care work contexts to relieve families and professionals. However, voluntary care has not yet been adequately studied from a care-specific perspective. This study examines in what way voluntary care can be considered decent care from a care-ethical and empirical perspective.

Considering findings of a qualitative interview study, the study examines the special features of voluntary care, addresses its socio-political expansion, and asks about the decency of voluntary care in elder care and social work.

Care work done by volunteers is a special kind of care work, which has advantages but also disadvantages regarding care-ethical requirements of decent care. The study examines under which conditions voluntary care violates these requirements and how this can be countered in socio-political terms.

Voluntary care is an under-researched phenomenon despite its increasing socio-political importance. While its state-led expansion can informalize and deprofessionalize care work at the expense of users, professionals, and volunteers, its analysis can help to illuminate the preconditions for decent care.

Purpose – To analyze the emergence of new organizational forms in the Danish welfare sector.

Design/methodology/approach – Drawing on Niklas Luhmann and Gunther Teubner, the research analyzes governmental documents, policy programs, action plans, and strategic documents.

Findings – A partnering structure has emerged with a new politics of voluntarism, complex forms of integration and new imaginary distinctions between voluntariness and public care. This can usefully be conceptualized as aspects of the stabilization of a “third-order system.” The research identified a number of different managerial strategies for involvement in the system.

Practical and social implications – Social welfare has become a mix of public and civil society values and norms, and extensive resources have been invested from both governmental and nongovernmental sides to build up shared competences for the new forms of partnering-based organization. However, to act according to the new principles of partnering, at the strategic and managerial level, the voluntary organizations have to behave in a schizophrenic manner – as both individual organizations and cooperational partners within the system.

Research implications – The concept of “third-order system” is especially useful in analyzing mixed forms of management in the welfare sector.

Originality – Different forms of radical organizational analysis are combined to develop a notion of “third-order system” in the welfare sector.

In recent years, there has been a growing trend of individuals willingly opting for employment positions that do not fully use their education, skills and abilities, a phenomenon known as voluntary overqualification. This study aims to investigate the factors that influence and the formation mechanism of this emerging phenomenon. Drawing upon social cognition theory, this study explores the relationship between work values and voluntary overqualification while also examining the mediating role of the future work self and the moderating role of perceived marketability.

This study used a longitudinal approach, collecting data through questionnaires administered at multiple time points. The sample consisted of 607 employees from various departments of five Chinese companies. Regression analysis using the PROCESS macro in SPSS was used to test the research hypotheses.

The results indicate a positive relationship between employees’ work values and voluntary overqualification. Furthermore, this relationship is mediated by the future work self. Additionally, perceived marketability plays a moderating intermediary role in the whole model.

This study contributes to the overqualification literature by introducing a novel type of overqualification and unveiling the mechanism by which work values influence voluntary overqualification. The findings provide insights for understanding and managing employees who are voluntarily overqualified.

Greater contribution of voluntary simplicity to sustainability may extend beyond the scope of consumption behavior. This paper aims to argue that work behavior is also important and it explores how and why personal consumption of the voluntary simplifiers relates to the way they work.

This qualitative study uses in-depth interviews to explore the consumption–work experience relationship and driving values of voluntary simplifiers. Thailand is the chosen context, as it represents an emerging economy aiming to converge economic growth and sufficiency.

The findings demonstrate that, driven mainly by contentment and integrity, simple living complements leisurely, meaningful and, most intriguingly, ethical work. In return, such work behavior provides enough earnings and fulfills the beginners, as well as the progressive and extensive simplifiers.

The consumption–work relationship model of the voluntary simplifiers provides an alternative starting point for further research and practice to tackle overconsumption, inequality, inequity and corruption – the critical challenges of sustainability.

This research takes a more complete approach to study the voluntary simplifiers. The empirical results demonstrate the greater scope of voluntary simplicity literature beyond sustainable consumption and work–life balance. Based on the consumption–work relationship driven mainly by contentment and integrity, this paper proposes meaningful and ethical work as the promising contribution of voluntary simplicity to sustainability.

Examines the huge voluntary sector contribution and shows that vast numbers of the population involve themselves in voluntary work at some time or another. Estimates that the value of their contributions could be as high as £40 billion. This huge sum is generated by dedicated people who nevertheless are for the most part not managed or badly managed, are a constantly shifting group and are not subject to the normal disciplines of business. Sets out how human resource management, as adopted by industry, can be adapted sensitively for the volunteer work‐force, despite the fact that normal levels of management ‐ control and direction ‐ are either unusable or so weak that they can be accepted or ignored, according to mood and conditions.

We present here research on the impact of three levels of social structure – large-scale, intermediate, and proximate – on commitment to three types of role-related relationships: family, work, and voluntary associational. This research is carried out using data from a sample survey of Whites, Blacks, and Latinos drawn from a five-county area of southern California. The central problem of this paper is to explicate the social structural sources of commitment to social network relationships. Our interest in this problem arises out of earlier work on Identity Theory.

Successful stimulation of employee engagement in pro-environmental behavior (PEB) at work can reduce organizational environmental footprint and boost its green performance. The aim of this paper is to investigate the individual factors that may promote such behavior at work, offering a complex model with mediating relationships not studied before.

In this paper data was collected through a survey of 331 bank employees from different banks in Kazakhstan and Ecuador. Structural equation modeling was used to test the relationships between the different constructs.

The results identified that environmental values and attitudes mediate the relationship between (1) personal environmental awareness and (2) environmental concern and employees' voluntary PEB at work. Harmonious environmental passion (HEP) mediates the relationship between environmental values and attitudes and employees' voluntary PEB at work.

This study presents important organizational policymaking implications with regard to organizational greening. The importance of environmental awareness is underlined, guiding managers to offer environmental education and training to the employees with the aim of improving environmental knowledge that may lead to employees' voluntary PEB at work. Also, managers should work on enhancing HEP.

Prior literature on this topic is still scarce. This research presents important contributions by discussing how individual antecedents may act as stimuli of employees' voluntary PEB at work in the context of the banking sector in two emerging countries that are often neglected by prior literature.

In economic theory, the relationship between working/earning decisions and consumption/lifestyle decisions has been conceptualised in an almost entirely unidirectional manner: income from work taken as a given governs consumption and so lifestyle. This involves a narrowly inaccurate view of the consumption–work interaction. The purpose of this paper is to argue that this economist’s way of thinking about consumption and work needs to be replaced by a conception in which not only does realised income determine one’s consumption possibilities but also the desired level of consumption is itself a choice and a key determinant of how and how much one decides to work.

The paper is designed as a conceptual contribution in which the above insight is linked to the extensive literature on sustainability.

When consumption is no longer thought of as determined by a given income constraint, it becomes possible to consider how people by modifying their consumption aspirations may be led not only to work less or differently but also to live and consume in a more sustainable manner. As a result of lesser pressure to work ever more, they may also be led to an ethical reappraisal of the way they work.

The conceptualisation suggested is rich in implications for future research, for example, on links between consumerism and corruption; and on the impact of more ethical work choices on well-being. There is an implicit critique of much of HRM theory and practice which tends to instrumentalise work. The implications of artificial intelligence for future work are noted and, in this context, are surprisingly positive. The macro level implication of the need to move away from gross domestic product to more appropriate measures of socio-economic performance and well-being such as Social Progress Index (SPI) are noted.

The link between this widened conceptualisation of the consumption–work decision and the notion of voluntary simplicity is explored in detail and the latter is shown to apply also to the types of work/job chosen. This in turn is shown to have implications for management (especially HR) practice and for government policies both at micro and macro levels.

This carries clear implications for work-life balance in people’s daily lives; and by choosing more ethical ways of working or types of job, there may be a significant pro-social impact.

This paper points to a widening of the notion of voluntary simplicity beyond merely consumption choices to apply also to work choices. In the discussion of moral philosophical underpinning of voluntary simplicity, the link is made with Buddhist wisdom of the Middle Way and sufficiency economy and with the Golden Mean of Stoicism.

This paper reports a study comparing perceptions, attitudes and job outcomes of participants whilst attending pre‐employment government training. Carried out so that tutors may gain a better understanding of client need in the Greater Manchester area 1999/2000, the focus of discussion was based on Jobclub and Work Based Training as voluntary training and Jobplan and New Deal 18‐24, which are mandatory. The qualitative study sought to explore and address whether gender, age, health, previous qualification or course content had any bearing on results. Study found that respondents on Jobclub and Work Based Training perceived their courses in a mostly positive light and attitudes were favourable. Consequently these clients gained more jobs than mandatory referrals. New Deal trainees were the least positive and gained fewer jobs. These noted attitudes will serve to provide guidance for tutors when developing the structure and content of future training schemes.

Benevolent leadership is a leadership style in which leaders show consideration for their employees' work and life. Empirical studies have shown inconsistent relationships between benevolent leadership and employees' voluntary behaviors. Therefore, this study examined benevolent leadership's mediating (gratitude) and moderating (trust) mechanisms.

Overall, 792 questionnaires were collected from Executive Master of Business Administration (EMBA) and continuing education students at a public university in Taiwan. The research model was tested using confirmatory factor analysis and the PROCESS module.

Benevolent leadership influenced three voluntary behaviors of employees directly and indirectly through enhanced gratitude. Emotional trust moderated the relationship between work care and employee gratitude such that the positive relationship was stronger for employees with higher emotional trust levels.

Benevolent leadership is an effective leadership style that cares about employees' work and lives, enhancing their gratitude and engagement in voluntary behaviors.

The mediating effect of gratitude and the moderating effect of trust provide a possible explanation for the inconsistent relationships between benevolent leadership and voluntary behaviors.