This paper explores the way that associations of migrants in Spain (AMS) in the 2010 decade integrate into the Network Society by analyzing how they use information and communication technologies (ICTs), while looking at the potential implications of those technologies for fostering their social capital. To what extent are AMS using ICTs? To what degree is the use of those technologies improving their social capital? Original research of eighty-five associations of the largest migrant communities in Spain, i.e., Romanian, Moroccan, Ecuadorian, Colombian and Bolivian, in twenty-three municipalities in five Spanish regions, is presented here. The analysis focuses on the factors that influence the use of ICTs by AMS, such as the representatives’ technological skills, and on the relation that this use may have on their social capital, such as the construction of collaborative digital ecosystems that may positively enhance their ties with the host society.

This cross-national comparative study examines how social role and social capital are associated with gender differences in volunteering in four regions of East Asia–China, Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan. Using the 2012 East Asia Social Survey, we find that women in East Asia, particularly in South Korea, are less likely to volunteer than men. Additionally, women with children are less likely to volunteer than men with children, especially when their secular and religious group participations are not considered, which is consistent with the social role theory. Social capital indicators, including trust, neighborhood support, informal network, secular group participation, and religious group participation, significantly increase the likelihood of volunteering. More importantly, the results indicate that secular group participation moderates gender differences in volunteering. Women who participate in secular groups are more likely to volunteer than men in East Asia. The theoretical and practical implications of the study are discussed.

We examine whether, and under which conditions, volunteering contributes to migrant integration. We identify two main goals of workfare volunteering—empowerment and employability—which build on two distinct images of the ideal citizen: the empowered citizen and the worker-citizen. Life story interviews were held with 46 first- and second-generation migrant women from Turkey, Morocco and Suriname living in the Netherlands. We found that volunteering contributes to employability and empowerment. However, for two mutually reinforcing reasons it eventually disempowers. Firstly, volunteering hardly ever results in paid employment because employers do not recognize volunteering as real work experience. Secondly, the focus on paid employment as ultimate form of integration misrecognizes migrant women as active citizens, which often results in disempowerment. Our findings show that the double policy goals of workfare volunteering require different conditions, and as such striving for both simultaneously often results in failing to achieve the set goals.

Although government-organized volunteering is common in China, the Chinese government has also sought to encourage the development of grassroots volunteer service organizations (VSOs) given the tremendous social service burden and the complexity of social governance. Motivated by the lack of systematic studies on volunteering in China, this study explores predictors of volunteering in urban China using data from the 2013 Survey on Philanthropic Behaviors of Urban Citizens in China. The findings indicate that generalized trust, membership in the Chinese Communist Party and type of work unit are significantly associated with the government-organized volunteering. Similar to Western countries, education, religiosity and social capital variables all help in explaining grassroots VSO-organized volunteering. Interestingly, the association between grassroots VSO-organized volunteering and trust in the central government with regard to both participation probability and time devoted to volunteering is significantly positive, whereas the association between grassroots VSO-organized volunteering and trust in local government, for both participation probability and time devoted to volunteering, is significantly negative.

The objective of this study is to develop and test a conceptual model exploring the structural relationship between significant values and variables in volunteer management and corporate sponsorship in order to seek a potential link for corporate engagement in the support of volunteers for the development of volunteer management and retention strategies. We collected data from a sample of 470 volunteers who participated in the 28th Southeast Asian Games held in Singapore in 2015. We conducted a structural equation modeling to test the hypotheses of the conceptual model. The results show that person-task and person-organization fit enhance both volunteer retention and application value of employer branding through the serial mediation effect of empowerment and social capital. The findings imply that providing volunteers with opportunities for social capital experiences (e.g., trusty networks, social development, and cooperation; developing new relationships) can be efficient to ensure the sustainable volunteer management.

European ex-Communist countries have been widely considered to possess little associational life. The main explanation for this observation has been the lack of organizational vivacity in the past, either during the Communist regime or before it. More recently, however, some researchers, and especially those involved with area studies, have warned such a conclusion might be hasty and incorrect. The associational history of Bulgaria—a case that has not been much studied until now—provides additional support in favor of the argument that pre-Communist associational life in the region has been abundant. The evidence provided in this paper comes from an original compilation of more than 100 organizations classified according to contemporary standards and from narratives on the most popular and populous organizations in the country since the nineteenth century.

Participation in Civil Society Organizations (CSO) draws on and enriches social, cultural, and human capital. Social impacts of such participation as active citizenship are systemic and ‘ripple’ far beyond the immediate program outputs and outcomes. CSOs and the third sector as a whole must demonstrate and gage the difference they make in the social life of the broader community. This research offers a new approach to conceptualize CSO social impacts through an empirically derived model that accounts for the impacts of active citizenship for individuals, organizations, and the broader community. A conceptual model of systemic social impact is presented as it was developed through an exploratory study of a large Australian CSO using an abductive methodology combining focus groups and a survey. Considering the potential of the model that could account for impacts beyond program outputs and outcomes, we propose several propositions for future testing the conceptual model.

In the literature on a possible decline of participation levels, several factors are invoked as alleged causes for this trend. Most prominent among these are generational replacement, the spread of television, rising geographic mobility, increasing time pressure, marital instability, and the decline of religious affiliations. In Bowling Alone, Robert Putnam (Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American Community, Simon and Schuster, New York, 2000) lends credibility to the claim that these factors are at least related to the decline of participation levels in the United States, and might even be regarded as an underlying cause. In this paper, the author assesses whether these variables also have a bearing on the participation level of the Belgian population. The analysis of a Belgian survey (N = 1341) shows that for most of the invoked causes, the relation is not significant, although the decline in religious affiliation does seem a likely candidate for further research. The paper closes with some suggestions for future research on civic engagement.

When communities are struck by natural disasters, human service organizations play an important role in supplementing governmental aids and catering to immediate humanitarian needs. Social capital is one of many factors affecting resource mobilization directed toward human service organizations as a proxy for local philanthropy. This study analyzed the effect of social capital on local philanthropy in communities affected by natural disasters and compared it to the effect of corporate philanthropy. In addition, this study examined how the relationships among social capital, corporate philanthropy, and local philanthropy were moderated by racial diversity to answer a long-standing argument regarding the effect of racial diversity on philanthropy. To this end, a panel dataset covering three given years and 3121 US counties was analyzed using GEE models. The results suggest that social capital does not always facilitate local philanthropy and its influence on local philanthropy is catalyzed by racial diversity. Also, corporate philanthropy positively influences resource mobilization toward human service organizations, more noticeably in communities affected by natural disasters.

This paper explores the impact of social capital—measured by social trust and social networks—on individual charitable giving to religious and secular organizations. Using United States data from the national sample of the 2000 Social Capital Community Benchmark Survey, we find that social trust, bridging social network, and civic engagement increase the amount of giving to both religious and secular causes. In contrast, organizational activism only affects secular giving. Volunteering activity, and human and financial capital indicators positively affect both religious and secular giving. Finally, those who are happy about their lives and those who are religious give more to religious causes, but these factors do not affect secular giving. We find evidence of important differences in the determinants of religious and secular giving, suggesting the need to distinguish these two types of charitable giving in future work.

Current scientific research and recent policy initiatives reveal an intense interest in the effect of social capital on a broad range of socioeconomic outcomes both at the individual level (e.g., civic attitudes) and the societal level (e.g., democratic or economic performance). Despite persistent argumentation in this debate that voluntary associations are of crucial importance in this process, empirical research usually reveals but a weak relation between membership and democratic (or civic) attitudes. In this paper, we follow recent arguments that various types of associations may play different roles. Specifically, we empirically distinguish between bridging and bonding associations based on the socioeconomic diversity within an association. Using a dataset on association membership in Flanders, we find empirical support for the view that individuals’ values and attitudes indeed differ across members in (predominantly) bridging or bonding associations.

It has been shown that, in a context of economic crisis, cooperatives remain more resilient and flexible than other forms of entrepreneurship. The current study investigates the possible explanations for the varying dimension of cooperatives sector in different countries. To this end, focusing on the institutional environment, this work introduces a variable not commonly found in studies on entrepreneurial activity, political activism. We present an empirical analysis based on a structural equation model (SEM-PLS) applied to a database on 52 countries. The model leads us to draw the conclusion that there exists a direct and indirect relationship between political activism and the size of cooperative sector.

It is widely believed that civic associations are capable to produce social capital, here understood as an individual asset resulting from relations of mutual support and assistance. Although hardly anybody denies that socializing is widespread in many civic associations, it still remains to be shown that this socializing provides a genuine commitment to support. This paper explores the relationship between involvement in civic organizations and social support. The data analysed come from a nation-wide survey “Organized Sport and Social Capital—Revisited” (OSSCAR) representing the adult population in Germany. Findings show that participation in civic associations is associated with higher levels of social support. This effect is stronger for active participants and weaker for passive members. Path analyses further indicate that this effect is mediated by a person’s sociability orientations as well as her commitment to prosocial values. These findings help providing a more nuanced understanding of mechanisms of social capital formation in civic associations.

This research focuses on understanding how giving circle (GC) member identities are associated with the identities of funding recipients. It examines whether GC members are more likely than non-members to give to people who are like them (bonding social capital) and/or to people who are not like them (bridging social capital). We draw on data from a survey of GC members and a comparison control group of non-GC members. Findings show GC members and those not in GCs are both more likely to give to a shared identity group—related to race, gender, and gender identity—leading to bonding social capital. However, GC members are more likely than those not in GCs to give to groups that do not share their identity, suggesting GCs also encourage bridging social capital. We assert both bonding and bridging social capital might lead to the democratization of philanthropy by expanding giving to historically marginalized groups.

Asian immigrants accounted for one-eighth of the total U.S. population in 2009. With Asian immigrants having higher levels of education and income than average Americans, their potential contribution to American philanthropy will be even more significant. This study examines the volunteering patterns of Korean immigrants, one of the fastest growing segments of the Asian immigrant population in the United States. This study explains Korean immigrants’ volunteering within ethnic and mainstream (American) organizations using the concepts of bonding and bridging social capital. The bivariate probit regression results suggest that ethnic volunteering and mainstream volunteering are generally the substitutes for each other. The findings nevertheless suggest that providing Asian immigrants’ with English education and continuing education opportunities may boost their volunteering to mainstream nonprofit organizations without discouraging their volunteering for ethnic organizations.

The means, motives, and opportunity of cooperation must be present if organizations are to establish mutual ties. Public benefit and conflict oriented organizations are hypothesized to have stronger motives for cooperation than member benefit and consensus oriented groups, and organizations with broad activity scope are likely to face more opportunities of cooperation than specialized organizations. These hypotheses are strengthened by results from regression analyses. The article further shows a historical decline in both the motives and opportunities for such cooperation in the case of Norway through processes of depoliticization, individualization, and specialization. Thus, here, the preconditions for cooperation within organizational society are gradually deteriorating. Such developments are likely to weaken the interconnectedness of voluntary organizations and the potential micro, meso, and macro benefits of such ties.

There is broad agreement that citizen participation is critical for successful democracy. Recently, scholars have linked such political participation with the notion of social capital—community-level resources, such as trust, norms, and networks, that foster collective action. Much uncertainty remains regarding the sources of social capital, however. Here we examine two different features of community life that are believed to nurture social capital, and political participation in turn: public venues where relative strangers can meet anonymously, socialize, and share information and opinions (i.e., venues for informal interaction); and venues for organized exchange between familiars, such as voluntary organizations and social clubs. Using quantitative data from America’s largest cities at the end of the 19th century, we examine the relationship between both supposed sources of social capital and respective rates of voter participation. We find little support for the role of informal interaction in fostering an active and engaged citizenry. We do, however, find evidence that citizen participation was related to some types of associationalism (or organized exchange). In particular, associations that fostered high levels of mutual interdependence among members seemed the most strongly linked to higher levels of political participation.

This study examines the role of trust and intermediation functions in microfinance and microenterprise development. Fifteen Self-help Groups (SHGs) were selected from three different locations in India for Focus Group Discussions (FGDs) and in-depth personal discussions. The peer trust was found higher than the intermediation trust during the microfinance group formation as well as group operations. The level of intermediation trust was higher than the peer trust during microenterprise development. The entry level trust was cognitive in nature, and transformed to ‘affective peer trust’ and ‘affective intermediation trust’ at the operational level. Trust was found to be the causality of social capital in SHGs. Intermediation trust was higher for early adopters of entrepreneurship than that of the late adopters. In case of microentrepreneur, the cognitive intermediation trust was transformed to affective intermediation trust with the passage of time.

Scholarship on volunteering has paid insufficient attention to how experiences of volunteering in the past affect current and future participation. The importance of this relationship is emphasized by the introduction of public policies across the globe focusing on national service programmes and community service in schools with the underlying intention of inducing ongoing pro-social behavior. Using the UK longitudinal data, this article analyzes the prevalence of persistent individual volunteering behavior over the life-course, and most importantly, the extent to which past volunteering has a causal influence on current and future participation. Strong evidence of this relationship is provided, suggesting that volunteer-stimulating policy measures—such as the UK government’s National Citizen Service initiative for all young people between 16 and 17 years of age—will have a more profound effect because they do not only affect current volunteering activities but are also likely to induce a permanent change in favor of volunteering.