The Multi-Functionality of Professional and Business Associations in a Transitional Context: Empirical Evidence from Russia

In the literature it is generally assumed that activities of voluntary membership based associations operating in stable institutional environments are multi-faceted, contributing simultaneously to societal, economic and political spheres. This article, drawing on the concept of functions of non-profit organizations investigates, whether the multi-functional character of associations holds true in the context of transitional Russia. The paper examines the relative importance of the advocacy, community building and service delivery functions, fulfilled by different types of associations. The original empirical data from exploratory interviews with 15 leading experts on associational activities was triangulated by a confirmatory survey of 215 associations across Russia. The results confirm that the absolute majority of the examined associations are multifunctional. Advocacy is considered to be the most important function for all types of associations. The findings suggest that business associations and intermediary unions are more active in policy advocacy directed toward the government, while liberal professional societies are more engaged in public advocacy addressing society at large. This study highlights importance of domestic associations for countries in transition as an institutional infrastructure of organized civil society, democratic development and market economy

Ergebnisse einer repräsentativen Bevölkerungsbefragung zum Spendenverhalten in Österreich: Auswertungen zu Absetzbarkeit von Spenden, Determinanten des Spendenverhaltens, Langzeitvergleich 1996 - 2008, Spenden im internationalen Vergleich, Spenden an ausgewählte Organisationen

Die vorliegende Studie wurde im Auftrag des Österreichischen Instituts für Spendenwesen (ÖIS) durchgeführt, das seit 1996 in regelmäßigen Abständen von vier Jahren derartige empirische Untersuchungen veranlasst. Die Finanzierung der Spendenstudie 2008 erfolgte über die Austrian Development Agency (ADA) und über Beiträge von Spendenorganisationen. Ziel der Studie ist es, einen Überblick über das Spendenverhalten in Österreich zu geben und über den Vergleich mit den Ergebnissen der Studien der vergangenen Jahre Aussagen über die Entwicklung des Spendenwesens zu treffen. Von besonderem Interesse sind dabei die Spendenbeteiligung der Bevölkerung sowie die Höhe der gespendeten Beträge - und jeweils deren Zusammenhang mit soziodemografischen Merkmalen. Einen weiteren Schwerpunkt in der diesjährigen Studie bilden Auswertungen zur steuerlichen Absetzbarkeit von Spenden (...). (executive summary

Students' Community Service: Self-Selection and the Effects of Participation

Numerous studies demonstrate the effectiveness of university-based community service programs on students' personal, social, ethical, and academic domains. These effects depend on both, the characteristics of students enrolled and the characteristics of the programs, for instance whether they are voluntary or mandatory. Our study investigates whether effects of voluntary service programs are indeed caused by the service experience or by prior self-selection. Using data from a pre-post quasi-experimental design conducted at a public university in Europe and taking students' socioeconomic background into account, our findings on self-efficacy, generalized trust, empathic concern, and attributions for poverty show that there are no participation effects. Instead, students who join in community service differ significantly from nonparticipants with regard to almost all investigated domains a priori, indicating strong self-selection. Our results underline the importance of structured group reflection, most notably with regard to attitude-related topics

The relation between income and donations as a proportion of income revisited: literature review and empirical application

Previous research addressing the relation between income and donations as a proportion of income has revealed predominantly inconsistent results. In this article, we argue that this can partly be explained by the great variance of methodological approaches. Providing a literature review covering 26 studies, we systematically identify how methodological issues such as data, variables, and methods have affected former findings. In addition, we apply different methodological approaches to Austrian income tax data (n= 20,000), demonstrating how different methods lead to a variation in results. Overall, we show that existing studies are hardly comparable as their designs vary strongly. We point out that it is particularly important to use samples with sufficient cases of all income groups and methods that adequately account for the non-linear relation between the two variables, not restricting it to a U-shape. Our findings enable a better understanding and interpretation of diverging findings in philanthropic research

Examining the Association of Welfare State Expenditure, Non-profit Regimes and Charitable Giving

This paper explores cross-country variations in charitable giving and investigates the association of welfare state policies with private philanthropy. Hypotheses are drawn from crowding-out theory and considerations about the influence of a country's mixed economy of welfare. We add to the on-going discussion concerning the crowding-out hypothesis with empirical evidence by looking at specific charitable subsectors people donate to across countries. Using Eurobarometer survey data that include 23 countries, we find no evidence for a crowding-out effect, but rather a crosswise crowding-in effect of private donations. Moreover, giving behaviour differs between non-profit regimes

Civil Society and Its Institutional Context in CEE

Although civil societies in Central and Eastern Europe are often portrayed as similar, united by a shared communist past, they have developed along increasingly divergent trajectories over the past three decades. This article investigates the current state of civil society in the region and the role the institutional context plays in it. Drawing on historical institutionalism and the process of European integration, we classify the 14 countries under investigation into three distinct groups and analyze data from a survey of more than 350 local civil society experts. We find that, together with domestic governments, international donors and the EU are perceived as the most influential institutional actors for civil society organizations. Their respective influences, however, depend largely on a country's stage in the EU accession process. Overall, the study provides a differentiated mapping of civil society in this region and a better understanding of how the institutional context relates to a Country's civil society

Do Government Expenditures Shift Private Philanthropic Donations to Particular Fields of Welfare? Evidence from Cross-country Data

Do government expenditures shift private philanthropic donations to particular fields of welfare? We examine this association in the first cross-country study to correlate government expenditures with the level of individual private donations to different fields of welfare using the Individual International Philanthropy Database (IIPD, 2016; Ncountry = 19; Nindividual = 126,923). The results of the descriptive and multilevel analyses support the idea of crosswise crowding-in; in countries where government expenditures in health and social protection are higher, more donors give to support the environment, international aid, and the arts. The level of giving to different sectors, however, is not associated with government expenditures. The results reject the crowding-out hypothesis and provide a nuanced picture of the relationship between government funding and philanthropic giving across different fields of social welfare

Transferring Update Behavior from Smartphones to Smart Consumer Devices

Automatic updates are becoming increasingly common, which minimizes the amount of update decisions that users have to make. Rapidly deployed important updates have a major impact on security. However, automatic updates also reduce the users' opportunities to build useful mental models which makes decision-making harder on other consumer devices without automatic updates. Users generally transfer their understanding from domains that they know well (i.e., smartphones) to others. We investigate how well this transfer process works with respect to updates and if users with automatic updates fare worse than those with manual updates. We conducted a formative field study (N = 5$) to observe users' update settings on smartphones and examine reasons for their (de-)activation. Based on the results, we conducted an online survey (N = 91) to compare how users perceive update notifications for smartphones and smart consumer devices. One of our main findings is that update decisions based on expected changes do not apply well to these devices since participants do not expect meaningful and visual changes. We suggest naming updates for such devices 'maintenance' to move users' expectations from 'new features' to 'ensuring future functionality'