Attracting Volunteers in Highly Multicultural Societies: A Marketing Challenge

Volunteer managers face a typical marketing problem: how to identify the right consumers (in this case, volunteers), attract them, and keep them loyal. In multicultural societies this challenge is amplified because of the different groups originating from countries that can vary significantly in terms of the extent of volunteering and reasons for being involved. The consequence of this heterogeneity is limited success of generic marketing campaigns. Using the theory of planned behavior, we investigate differences between Australian residents from different cultural backgrounds in their volunteering behavior. Groups differed in attitude, social norm, and perceived behavioral control, suggesting the need for customized marketing strategies. Theoretically, results provide evidence that volunteers in multicultural societies cannot be viewed as one homogeneous mass. Practically, results offer insight into the factors influencing the behavior of each cultural group, and can inform customized campaigns to tap into the large base of volunteers from different backgrounds.     

Does Cultural Background Affect Volunteering Behavior?

The purpose of this qualitative investigation is to help nonprofit organizations which rely heavily on the support of volunteers increase the effectiveness of their marketing by accounting for differences in cultural background among community members. It was conducted in the multi‐cultural Australian context and included 79 participants from different cultural backgrounds. Findings indicate that as a whole, cultural groups differ significantly with respect to their attitudes, social norm and perceived behavioral control over volunteering. Nonprofit organizations are unlikely to be successful in attracting volunteers from a range of different cultural backgrounds unless they account for heterogeneity among volunteers and customize marketing messages. To the authors' knowledge this is the first study that investigates differences in attitude, social norm and perceived behavioral control regarding an important social marketing issue: changing the volunteering behavior of individuals in a multi‐cultural society.     

Consumer Debt Relief in South Africa—Should the Insolvency System Provide for NINA Debtors? Lessons from New Zealand

South African natural person insolvency law has remained largely creditor‐orientated despite the international trend to assist over‐indebted debtors. Furthermore, although the South African system provides for a number of debt relief procedures, the entry requirements are of such a nature that most debtors are effectively excluded from any form of relief and therefore bound to their desperate situations. The majority of these excluded debtors fall within the no income and no assets (the so‐called No Income No Asset (NINA) debtors) category‐the main feature of this article. In the South African insolvency system, a person can therefore be ‘too poor to go bankrupt’. With reference to international principles and a thorough comparative study of the New Zealand system, the South African system is analysed, and some recommendations are made in order to provide a more accessible, effective and nondiscriminate system with specific focus on the plight of the NINA debtor. This is done by keeping the complex South African debt and poverty situation in mind as it is acknowledged that any reform should take cognisance of the unique socio‐economic and cultural background. It is recognised that providing relief to the NINA category debtors will have an impact on the economy. However, it is submitted that the exclusion of this group will be even more expensive as it creates an obstacle for these debtors to enter the formal sector and economy, thereby discouraging broader economic growth. Copyright © 2013 INSOL International and John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Determinants of local housing growth in a multi-jurisdictional region,along with a test for nonmarket zoning

In the State of New Jersey, two rural preservation tools are paramount: (1) Zoning that sets a floor on the size of residential lots; and (2) the outright acquisition of open space or its development rights by government and nonprofit entities. The present study explores the effects of these two policies on the number of building permits issued across 83 municipalities in northern New Jersey. The empirical work is based on a widely-used urban development model that uses both monocentric and polycentric factors to allocate growth across a set of suburban communities. The study also develops a growth-based test for binding minimum-lot-size zoning, leveraging the fact that the 83 communities are in a single housing market and must serve the distribution of home and lot-size demand collectively, not individually. The study finds strong evidence of excess large-lot zoning, leading to the suppression of short-term housing growth in communities that specialize in this particular “product.” No firm evidence is found that residential development is attracted to the amenities that flow from either large-lot zoning or open space set asides.     

ENDOGENOUS PROCYCLICAL LIQUIDITY,CAPITAL REALLOCATION,AND q

Capital reallocation is procyclical and an economic boom has a cleansing effect by shifting the distribution of firms from low quality to high quality. We explain these facts by modeling search frictions for used capital in the business cycle. The article characterizes the stochastic equilibrium analytically to prove that the liquidity and the price of reallocated capital are procyclical endogenously. We calibrate the model and construct proxies in the data for the unemployment rate of capital and the time on the market. These two variables have a strong positive relationship in both the model and the data.