Suffering and pleasure in business volunteer’ work

Abstract

Corporate volunteer programs have been highly regarded by firms as a social responsibility option. Their very existence is a factor considered in social responsibility assesment tools (the Ethos Institute’s, for example) or in social balance models (like the Ibase’s). In her study, the author attempted to identify how this sort of work and its implications are perceived by enterprise volunteers involved in an organizational environment driven by new demands (which meanings arise from this practice). Among the meanings identified, it stands out volunteering as life experience and as a way to be valued by firms; individual gains both of an affective and Professional nature have been observed. However, the decision to volunteer itself revealed the perception of the influence exerted by more subtle control strategies on employees, patterns of traditional power relations reproduced in volunteer actions, as well as some degree of anguish in volunteer work.