This thesis consists of three essays on the determinants of and returns to volunteering. The first essay, ‘volunteer opportunities and volunteering’ examines the relationship between physical access to charitable organizations and volunteering. Formal volunteer activities usually take place within a charitable or non-profit organization. While the physical presence of these organizations is required for citizens who want to contribute to their communities, the availability of charitable organizations (number and type) varies from neighbourhood to neighbourhood. Until now, no one has examined the role played by charity proximity on volunteer decisions. In this paper I use information on the location of registered charities in Canada (from the CRA T3010 registered charity returns) merged with survey information on volunteering (from General Social Surveys conducted by Statistics Canada) to examine how physical access affects volunteer behaviour. Careful attention is paid to the possibility that the measure of access might be endogenous: organizations and individuals may respond to the same unobservable factors when deciding where to locate. Various strategies including an instrumental variables procedure are undertaken to deal with this possibility. My results suggest that access does matter for the decision to volunteer as well as for the amount of time devoted to volunteering. My estimates imply that increasing the number of charitable organizations within a one-kilometre buffer around an individual’s place of residence by 6% (the growth rate of the number charities in Canada (between 2003 to 2009), increases the predicted probability of volunteering by 5%. The second essay, ‘the returns to working for free’ examines the relationship between volunteering and income. Previous studies have shown volunteering to be associated with an earnings premium, but many of these studies fail to take into account the possible endogeneity between volunteering and income. Using data from the General Social Surveys (2003, 2005, 2008, 2010 and 2013), I investigate the causal relationship between volunteering and income. I employ a novel instrument, a measure of access to charitable organizations around an individual’s place of residence, along with more conventional ones, like membership or participation in different groups or organizations, to examine this relationship and try to understand how volunteering might affect earned income. Identifying the effect of volunteering of the different subgroups affected by the different instruments provides a (surprisingly) large range of estimates. For example estimates in the upper range found in the literature (53%) are found for individuals who are induced to volunteer because of their membership or participation in sport or recreational organizations, no returns are found for those induced to volunteer because of their membership or participation in school or civic groups, negative returns (22%) are found for those induced to volunteer because of their membership or participation in religious affiliated groups and very large (47%), but imprecise estimates are found for those induced to volunteer because of proximity to charitable organizations. The third essay, ‘doing good, feeling good: causal evidence from Canadian volunteers’ examines the relationships between volunteering and health, and volunteering and life satisfaction. A literature suggests that volunteers are healthier and happier than their non-volunteering counterparts. But this ‘observation’ is fraught with problems of endogeneity. Some papers have addressed the endogeneity problem with an instrumental variable technique; mostly relying on measures of ‘religiosity’ as instruments. However, no studies of such nature have been conducted in Canada. Using data from the General Social Surveys, I again employ the measure of physical access to charitable organizations within a three-kilometer radius of an individual’s place of residence as the main identifying instrument to examine the causal relationship between volunteering, health and life satisfaction for individuals aged 15 years old and over. Employing a conditional mixed process (CMP) to estimate the model, I conclude that volunteering is a significant predictor of health, and it has a statistically significant effect on life satisfaction for female and middle-aged individuals.

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<p>This dissertation analyses the issues concerning strategies for improving the working and living conditions of migrant farmworkers in the United States and Canada. By comparing the tripartite and sharecropping models in commercial agriculture, it is demonstrated that unionisation and three-way collective bargaining are efficient and proven techniques for increasing workplace standards for migrant farmworkers. The tripartitc model separates agriculture into three discernable actors: food corporations, growers and farmworkers. While some agricultural sectors are dominated by corporate entities which combine both production and processing operations, other sectors such as cucumbers and tomatoes are characterised by large processing corporations which are supplied by commercial growers. Without the presence of food corporations in collective bargaining, many growers are unable to provide for better working conditions for migrant farmworkers. The Farm Labor Organizing Committee (FLOC) has significantly established the only tripartite labour relations framework in North American agriculture. FLOC has used commercial boycotts for more than two decades, in order to pressure food corporations to participate in collective bargaining with migrant farmworkers. The union is presently conducting a national boycott of the Mt. Olive Pickle Company in North Carolina, a campaign which aims to bring the company to the bargaining table and to put an end to the sharecropping model in the state's cucumber industry.</p> / Master of Arts (MA)

<p>Resource extraction projects in the North are governed by negotiated agreements developed between industry, the state and Aboriginal governments and institutions. This thesis examines the role played by women in the Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) and Impact Benefit Agreement (IBA) processes leading up to Voisey’s Bay mine in northern Labrador and whether women’s involvement in resource governance improves the participation and retention of women in non-traditional jobs at the mine. Using a qualitative methodology of semi-structured interviews and thematic analysis, this thesis found that the participation of Aboriginal women was unable to significantly improve the work experiences of women at the mine. The concerns of Aboriginal women were identified by analyzing submissions made to the EIA panel by women’s groups. These concerns were then compared with the perceptions of work by women who worked in either construction or the operations phase of the mine. The confidentiality of IBA negotiations and documents are offered as one reason that Aboriginal women did not have the concerns they raised during the EIA process mitigated. The unfinished IBA was referred to by VBNC, and accepted by the panel, as a way to mitigate women’s concerns despite confidentiality preventing the contents of the IBA from ever being known. While women received prioritization in the IBA, Aboriginal women demanded quotas and targets for the training and hiring of women for the construction and operations phase. The thesis ends with a discussion of ways to alleviate the conflict between IBA and EIA processes.</p> / Master of Arts (MA)

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Recent empirical studies have looked that the relationship between narcissism and different aspects of organizations. However, little research exists on narcissism in group work and its relationship with productivity and group effectiveness. The purpose of this study was to investigate the relationship between narcissism, self-perceptions and other perceptions of competence and contribution in a team performance setting. Data were collected from college-aged students (N = 52) at a state university. Results indicate that a narcissistic view of authority is correlated the group's perception of leadership and with time spent talking during the group task. Furthermore, narcissistic vanity was positively correlated with higher group respect and personal error on the in-lab task.

abstract / Public Administration / Master / Master of Public Administration

published_or_final_version / Literary and Cultural Studies / Master / Master of Arts

Thesis (M.A.)--Boston University

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