Volunteering and future-conscious work ethic among university students. Results of a quantitative study conducted in Central and Eastern Europe
Hajnalka Fényes – Gabriella Pusztai
Abstract
This study explores the possible relationship between volunteering and future-conscious work ethic among higher education students. Even though volunteering is unpaid, it requires a professional work ethic characterized by commitment, consistency, and reliability, as it operates through mutual agreement involving ethical and, in some cases, legal obligations. The relationship between future consciousness and work ethic has been examined in the works of classical theorists such as Max Weber and Pierre Bourdieu; however, its connection to volunteering remains an underexplored topic both in Hungarian and international studies. In this paper, we introduce the concept of future-conscious work ethic, which captures the action-related component of future orientation. Our research questions investigate whether students with volunteering experience demonstrate higher levels of future-conscious work ethic and which motivations for volunteering are associated with this construct. The data is derived from a large-scale survey (N=1336) conducted in seven Hungarian-language higher education institutions across five Central and Eastern European countries. Future-conscious work ethic constitutes the dependent variable of our analyses, and it is measured through a principal component consisting of eight items adapted from existing scales. Students' volunteering activities and volunteering motivations serve as explanatory variables in our regression analyses, alongside additional control variables. The results of both bivariate and multivariate regression analyses indicate that volunteering positively impacts future-conscious work ethic. At the same time, the direction of this relationship remains ambiguous according to the literature, as it is also possible that students characterized by stronger future-conscious work ethic are more likely to engage in volunteering activities. Another noteworthy finding is that helping others as a volunteering motivation demonstrates a stronger positive relationship with future-conscious work ethic than career-oriented volunteering motivations. The significance of our findings lies in the demonstration that future-conscious work ethic is associated not only with individual aspirations, but also with forms of community engagement and social participation.
Keywords: future-conscious work ethic, higher education students, volunteering, motivations, quantitative analysis,Central and Eastern Europe