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Palgrave Macmillan

Leisure and the Motive to Volunteer: Theories of Serious, Casual, and Project-Based Leisure

  • Book
  • © 2015

Overview

Authors:
  1. Robert A. Stebbins

    1. University of Calgary, Canada

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Table of contents (8 chapters)

  1. Front Matter

    Pages i-vi
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  2. Introduction

    • Robert A. Stebbins
    Pages 1-5

  3. Volunteering: What Is It?

    • Robert A. Stebbins
    Pages 6-15

  4. Definitions of Volunteering

    • Robert A. Stebbins
    Pages 16-22

  5. Career (Serious Leisure) Volunteering

    • Robert A. Stebbins
    Pages 23-34

  6. A Review of Research

    • Robert A. Stebbins
    Pages 35-56

  7. Two Notable Research Gaps

    • Robert A. Stebbins
    Pages 57-62

  8. Organized Study of Career Volunteering

    • Robert A. Stebbins
    Pages 63-64

  9. Conclusions

    • Robert A. Stebbins
    Pages 65-68

  10. Back Matter

    Pages 69-82
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Keywords

About this book

Volunteering and its nonprofit organizations have commonly been analyzed in economic terms, with volunteering being referred to as "unpaid (productive) work". This economic definition has been around far longer than that of volunteering conceived of as leisure, which is discussed as the volitional definition. By means of a lengthy literature review, this book sets out the theoretical and empirical contributions of the serious leisure perspective to understanding volunteer motivation. This second approach began more than 40 years ago. It answers the key motivational question of why people engage in unpaid productive work, laborious or not. Since in this conception payment in cash or in kind is not an incentive to perform such work, what encourages people to volunteer? The serious leisure perspective, unlike mainstream economics, can shed considerable light on this question.

Authors and Affiliations

  • University of Calgary, Canada

    Robert A. Stebbins

About the author

Robert A. Stebbins is Professor Emeritus at the University of Calgary, Canada. His research and theoretic interests lie in work, leisure, and volunteering. His most recent books include Careers in Serious Leisure (Palgrave, 2014) and The Idea of Leisure (2012).

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