The supply side of volunteering in Austrian hospice services: determinants of sustainable voluntary engagement

Aim Voluntary engagement is a complex social phenomenon that covers work performed without monetary compensation thus creating, on one hand, benefits for volunteers and, on the other hand, social output that would otherwise require paid resources. In this paper, we focus on the role of motives and motive fulfilment and empirically examine their influence on the voluntary engagement in hospice services. Subject and methods This empirical analysis is based on a survey of 223 volunteers of the Austrian Hospice Services. The questionnaire takes findings of economic and psychological literature into account, which enable us to achieve a profound knowledge of the determinants of a sustainable voluntary labour supply. Results Our results show that voluntary labour supply is crucially determined by motives and motive fulfilment. While altruistic motivation lengthens tenure, the fulfilment of altruistic motives negatively influences tenure. Volunteers that are egoistically motivated generally show a shorter duration of employment, whereas if their egoistic motives are fulfilled their tenure increases. Conclusions Our results create an understanding of voluntary labour supply in Austrian hospice services. These findings are helpful for the human resource management in hospices since they provide relevant information for the recruitment but also the retention of the volunteer workforce.