Christopher Garcia, Ghaith Rabadi and Femida Handy
Every year volunteers play a crucial role in disaster responses around the world. Volunteer management is known to be more complex than managing a paid workforce, and this is only…
Abstract
Purpose
Every year volunteers play a crucial role in disaster responses around the world. Volunteer management is known to be more complex than managing a paid workforce, and this is only made worse by the uncertainty of rapidly changing conditions of crisis scenarios. The purpose of this paper is to address the critical problem of assigning tasks to volunteers and other renewable and non-renewable resources simultaneously, particularly under high-load conditions. These conditions are described by a significant mismatch between available volunteer resources and demands or by frequent changes in requirements.
Design/methodology/approach
Through a combination of literature reviews and interviews with managers from several major volunteer organizations, six key characteristics of crisis volunteer resource allocation problems are identified. These characteristics are then used to develop a general mixed integer programming framework for modeling these problems. Rather than relying on probabilistic resource or demand characterizations, this framework addresses the constantly changing conditions inherent to this class of problems through a dynamic resource reallocation-based approach that minimizes the undesirable impacts of changes while meeting the desired and changing objectives. The viability of this approach for solving problems of realistic size and scale is demonstrated through a large set of computational experiments.
Findings
Using a common commercial solver, optimal solutions to the allocation and reallocation problems were consistently obtained in short timespans for a wide variety of problems that have realistic sizes and characteristics.
Originality/value
The proposed approach has not been previously addressed in the literature and represents a computationally tractable method to allocate volunteer, renewable and non-renewable resources to tasks in highly volatile crisis scenarios without requiring probabilistic resource or demand characterizations.
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There appears to be a puzzle associated with the observation that individuals both donate and volunteer to charity. If the purpose of a giving individual is to maximize the effect…
Abstract
Purpose
There appears to be a puzzle associated with the observation that individuals both donate and volunteer to charity. If the purpose of a giving individual is to maximize the effect of his/her donation, then he/she should give as effectively as possible. This implies that an individual should donate either time or money but not both. Yet, simultaneous volunteering and donating money is extremely common. Indeed, it may be viewed as the rule rather than the exception. This paper aims to offer a solution to this puzzle.
Design/methodology/approach
This theoretical paper models giving behavior by individuals and takes into account the disutility of volunteer and income related work.
Findings
By modeling the difference between an individual's volunteer and income‐related work, it can be understood why individuals' giving behavior of donating money and volunteering.
Research limitations/implications
Future research should test these findings empirically.
Originality/value
Theoretical contribution to our understanding of giving behavior as to why individuals donate money and time even if is not economically efficient to do both.
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Femida Handy and Joyce Gleason
The paper seeks to address conceptually the issue of monetary valuations of environmental intangibles.
Abstract
Purpose
The paper seeks to address conceptually the issue of monetary valuations of environmental intangibles.
Design/methodology/approach
The paper offers an innovative approach based on the rent‐seeking behaviour of individuals, as seen in lobbying for environmental goods. As an alternative to the contingent valuation method, which relies largely on willingness‐to‐pay disclosures in hypothetical situations, this approach depends on actual payments made by individuals in real situations. If individuals are willing to spend scarce resources to obtain an environmental good, then the total expenditures incurred provide an estimate of the value of that environmental good.
Findings
The estimates provide a lower bound of value of certain environmental goods. The rent‐seeking approach gives a different and more direct way to determine the value of environmental public goods.
Originality/value
The paper considers the free‐rider problem and other issues arising from the voluntary nature of public good rent‐seeking activity.
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Keywords
Ram A. Cnaan, Ganesh Bhat, Lucas C.P.M. Meijs and Femida Handy
This article aims to examine the history, mechanisms, interconnectedness and effectiveness of the jasmine-growing enterprise in coastal Karnataka. This article investigates the…
Abstract
Purpose
This article aims to examine the history, mechanisms, interconnectedness and effectiveness of the jasmine-growing enterprise in coastal Karnataka. This article investigates the formation and ongoing successful operation of a community enterprise that is locally originated and administered. The case of the jasmine flower growers in coastal Karnataka is a case of small-scale growers who for 75 years have operated a long-standing local community-based enterprise. Using trust, repeated interactions and efficient mechanisms of pricing and distribution, this enterprise has prevented poverty among its participants for three generations.
Design/methodology/approach
This article provides a descriptive analysis of the enterprise as well as results from an empirical study of 700 growers. The article used cluster analysis of local villages to represent the 7,000 participating households.
Findings
Studying local growers who are the producers of the flowers and who are living off of it, this article found a high level of satisfaction and trust towards those running the enterprise. For many people in the region, this ongoing enterprise is the difference between poverty and hunger and living well.
Research limitations/implications
The article is based on one local community that is lucky to have a desired resource (one type of jasmine flower) coveted by many users.
Practical implications
Combined, this article provides an account of a unique and successful sustainable enterprise, initiated and run at the grassroots level, which serves as a model for future economic development. In addition, it lists the features that are most relevant for the ongoing success of the enterprise and suggests how a new social and economic development project can learn from this enterprise.
Originality/value
This is an amazing enterprise that was not studied before and can be a role model for many adaptations.
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Itay Greenspan and Femida Handy
Purpose – The goal of this chapter is to understand the role of nonprofit voluntary health organizations (VHOs) in the lives of Canadian women coping with breast…
Abstract
Purpose – The goal of this chapter is to understand the role of nonprofit voluntary health organizations (VHOs) in the lives of Canadian women coping with breast cancer.
Methodology – Through qualitative interviews with breast cancer survivors and records of VHOs active in this field, we assess the level and nature of their interactions and impact on women's quality of life.
Findings – Our findings suggest that at the micro-level, VHOs are venues for women to receive auxiliary services such as information, counseling, and support that complement the mainstream health care provision. While VHO services empower women as health care consumers, we show that they also serve as venues for women to reciprocate by volunteering. This process of reciprocity helps women cope with their own healing and allows them to be not only consumers but also producers of health services.
Research limitations – The non-random nature and the small sample size make our findings not easily generalizable to the larger population of breast cancer survivors; rather they are indicative of the experiences of Canadian women in one large urban metropolitan area.
Value of the chapter – We demonstrate the role of VHOs as venues of health consumerism as well as places for consumers to become involved in the production of services by volunteering.
Several policy alternatives exist to protect environmental quality. Environmental nonprofits advocating for better environmental quality must often choose what policies to…
Abstract
Several policy alternatives exist to protect environmental quality. Environmental nonprofits advocating for better environmental quality must often choose what policies to advocate and support. This article argues that environmental nonprofits will do best by designing strategies of advocacy contingent on the net costs to the stakeholders and paying attention to the crowding‐out effects of monetary incentives. It investigates the advocacy policies of 50 environmental organizations in Canada. The findings of this survey show that although reduction of net costs is espoused, market‐based policies are not generally advocated, while a greater emphasis is put on regulatory approaches combined with moral suasion through the dissemination of information and educational programs.