Volunteers’ Religiosity and Intention to Stay: The Mediating Role of Motivation

The purpose of this paper is to examine the role of religiosity as an antecedent of volunteers’ intention to stay with the organization, and the mediating role of both volunteers’ motivation and attitude towards the organization in such a relationship. Using a bootstrapped mediation analysis, the paper tests the proposed hypotheses on a sample of 379 individuals who act as volunteers for non-profit organizations (NPOs) in Italy. The study contributes to the literature on NPOs by stressing the role of antecedents and micro-dynamisms affecting volunteers’ motivation and, in turn, their intention to stay with the organization. The results support the role of religiosity as a significant predictor of volunteer intentions, and the mediating role of motivation and attitude on this relationship. Our findings indicate that volunteers who are driven by their religious values are likely to develop a stronger motivation to volunteering and a positive attitude towards NPOs activities and consequently a stronger willingness to stay with the organization.