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What Motivates Jobseekers to Prefer to Work for Non-profits Versus the Governmental Sector? Evidence from India

Lookup NU author(s): Dr Saurabh BhattacharyaORCiD, Professor Matthew GortonORCiD

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This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (CC BY 4.0).

Abstract

Non-profits require highly motivated and professional employees to fulfill their potential to contribute to community development and well-being. But what motivates jobseekers to seek employment in non-profits over governmental organizations, and what makes non-profits more attractive than governmental organizations? Leveraging positive religious and spiritual development and self-determination theories, we theorize that spiritual and religious individuals are more likely to prefer working for non-profits over governmental organizations. This preference occurs because religious and spiritual individuals have stronger traits of self-sacrifice and compassion that motivate them to take a job that offers more non-material incentives than material incentives, leading to a preference for non-profits over governmental organizations. The serial mediation model identifies how compassion and self-sacrifice mediate the effects of spiritual intelligence and religiosity on job motivation; while job motivation mediates the effect of self-sacrifice and compassion on career preference and sector attractiveness. We validate our serial mediation-based conceptual framework based on responses from 306 job seekers in India. The results support our hypotheses, where individuals high on spirituality and religiosity prefer working in non-profits over governmental sector, owing to higher compassion, and self-sacrificing tendencies.

Publication metadata

Author(s): Agnihotri A, Bhattacharya S, Gorton M

Publication type: Article

Publication status: Published

Journal: Voluntas: International Journal of Voluntary and Nonprofit Organizations

Year: 2025

Volume: 36

Issue: 6

Pages: 917-936

Print publication date: 01/12/2025

Online publication date: 16/09/2025

Acceptance date: 22/08/2025

Date deposited: 04/10/2025

ISSN (print): 0957-8765

ISSN (electronic): 1573-7888

Publisher: Springer New York LLC

URL: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11266-025-00774-8

DOI: 10.1007/s11266-025-00774-8

Data Access Statement: Due to the nature of the research and ethical reasons, supporting data is unavailable.

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