Abstract

SILVA, Grasiane Cristina da; KEMP, Valéria Heloisa; CARVALHO-FREITAS, Maria Nivalda  and  BRIGHENTI, Carla Regina Guimarães. Meaning of volunteer business. Rev. Psicol., Organ. Trab. [online]. 2015, vol.15, n.2, pp. 157-169. ISSN 1984-6657.  http://dx.doi.org/10.17652/rpot/2015.2.275.

This research takes as its object of study the meaning of corporate volunteerism, based on the theoretical concept of the meaning of work as a subjective and social cognition, as it provides subjective components and socially shared aspects associated with socio-historical conditions (Borges & Tamayo, 2001). Its main objective was to identify the meaning attributed to volunteer work by the participants of a corporate volunteerism program in the scenario of a multinational organization. The research was conducted with 67 volunteers from four units of an Italian multinational company in the auto parts industry who were working on a social project. We adopted quantitative research methods, in which the presentation and analysis involved the use of statistical techniques such as correspondence analysis, descriptive analysis, analysis of Spearman's rho correlation coefficient and the Chi-Square Test of Independence; and qualitative research methods, through semi-structured interviews and content analysis. The results indicate that the centrality of volunteering is comparable to leisure and religion. On the other hand, the meanings of work range from a more instrumental perspective, related to the rewards in being part of the volunteer activity, to a more altruistic perspective of participation. Further research related to the meaning of volunteering should be done in order to better understand this emergent question in organizations

Keywords : Volunteerism; social responsibility; meaning of work; meaning of volunteer work.

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