In the context of professional societies and trade associations, social role theory hypothesizes that women’s and men’s volunteer roles will also reflect gendered choices that persist even after controlling for parenting, professional experience, education, race, country of residence, and other potentially mitigating factors. Our sample includes 12,722 members of 23 diverse US-based international professional societies who participated in a survey of volunteer behavior in 2007. Using probit regression analysis, we find that gender continues to influence volunteer behaviors within professional settings. Instead of a pattern of male and female preferences for certain roles, we find that women are consistently less likely than men to engage in most volunteer activities common to professional association life. However, this gender disparity is partly neutralized when women are older and fully employed. Overall, social role theory provides a significant but incomplete perspective for understanding the volunteer behavior of professional society members.

Based on 44 qualitative interviews with transnationally mobile people engaged in 28 different associations in Switzerland, this article tries to understand the motives behind the choice to volunteer, i.e. to actively and regularly engage in associations. These interviews reveal the great importance of associations in fostering inclusion in both the new living place and the place of origin. They further reveal that mobile people, no matter where they come from or why they are on the move, turn to associations for similar motives. In order of importance, they turn to associations to secure material advantages, to find ways of defining their identity in a manner that is both coherent and compatible with the host society and to socialize with people who are thought of as trustworthy.

European ex-Communist countries have been widely considered to possess little associational life. The main explanation for this observation has been the lack of organizational vivacity in the past, either during the Communist regime or before it. More recently, however, some researchers, and especially those involved with area studies, have warned such a conclusion might be hasty and incorrect. The associational history of Bulgaria—a case that has not been much studied until now—provides additional support in favor of the argument that pre-Communist associational life in the region has been abundant. The evidence provided in this paper comes from an original compilation of more than 100 organizations classified according to contemporary standards and from narratives on the most popular and populous organizations in the country since the nineteenth century.

The French nonprofit sector has been in existence since July 1, 1901 when the legal form of associations was created. Since then, as a consequence of legal,fiscal, and cultural restrictions, it has developed characteristics that are markedly different to those of other nonprofit sectors. This paper focuses on one such characteristic that makes the French nonprofit sector virtually unique, that is the restrictions imposed on social entrepreneurism. It was not until July 17, 2001 that a new organizational form called Sociétés Coopératives d’Intérêt Collectif (SCIC) was created specifically to address this anomaly. This paper discusses the context within which this organizational form was created, and the potential advantages that it offers in respect to facilitating the development of social enterprises. The paper also explains why a specific organizational form was required and why it was placed outside the nonprofit sector. It concludes by identifying potential problems concerning organizational effectiveness in delivering socially beneficial services and the difficulties that may arise as a consequence of SCIC’s unique governance structure.

The implementation of policies that have sought to involve immigrant associations in the development of their countries of origin, under the name of co-development, was a novelty in Spain during the last decade. This new model of development cooperation carried out by the migrants themselves has not only generated new opportunities for its associations, but also significant risks, especially in the field of decentralized cooperation driven by autonomous communities. In this article, we present the specific case of the Valencian Community, where the co-development reached a considerable degree of implementation between 2006 and 2012. Through the analysis of Valencian co-development policies, it is possible to see how immigrant associations have actually occupied a secondary place in the new cooperation schemes against the NGO Development, while many have abandoned their protest to focus on projects and proposals for welfare activities.

The importance of associations in contemporary democratic societies is out of the question. Still, there is a need for a new approach that considers them as a specific and singular organization type, different from business firms and government agencies. There is also a need to evaluate their performance. Based on case studies and diverse theoretical insights, this article lays out some criteria for assessing the effects on associational performance of cohesion, decision-making and relation to environment.

The notion that civil society and democracy go hand in hand has been a cornerstone of modernization theory. The formation of civil society, so the argument went, contributed to the democratization of society and provided the backbone of democracy. If one follows such an interpretation of modernization and of modern society, monarchic systems should be void of civil society. And yet, the case of Germany shows that civil society developed and even flourished within a monarchic society. The Kingdom of Prussia in 1865 was the home to an extensive network of civil society organizations that included associations, endowments, and foundations. These organizations provided services in the fields of education, social welfare, and supported all kinds of cultural institutions. These organizations were essential for the functioning of Prussia’s public institutions. Donors who created these institutions had a voice in the shaping of monarchic society, and the visions of donors often coincided with the visions put forward by monarchical rulers. The number of Prussians involved in giving, the number of organizations created, and the amount of money given were truly astonishing. Between 2 and 3% of Prussia’s population was involved in civil society organizations. The funds provided by these organizations accounted for 20–30% of public-school funding. And the number of organizations created a tight network that spanned across the entire country. Nineteenth-century monarchic Prussia was not void of civil society as it should have been if American social scientists are correct. Instead, Prussia provided the home to a vibrant civil society. Civil society emerges when societies move from an agrarian and organized system of social hierarchies to an industrial, and traditional social hierarchies destroying system. The destruction of established social hierarchies, the creation and accumulation of wealth, and the emergence of social inequality provided powerful incentives for the formation of civil society. Since this economic modernization and transformation occurred not only within democratic societies such as the USA but also within monarchic societies such as Prussia, civil society developed in both types of political system

Civil society organizations in Lebanon have a long history, pre-dating even the existence of the Lebanese state itself, which has directly shaped their major phases of development since its creation. Based on the social origins theory and using the framework developed by Marchetti and Tocci (Peace Secur Former Pac Rev Peace Secur Glob Chang 21:201–217, 2009), this paper analyses the relationships that have developed between the state and civil society organizations in Lebanon. The main argument presented in this paper is that the scope of work of civil society organizations, in addition to their freedom of action, is directly linked to the social, political and economic development of the state. The main conclusion of this paper is that a new social contract should be forged between associations and the state in Lebanon, one that would allow them to carry out their functions properly.

Employee commitment to an organization is accepted as an important concept in organization psychology. Yet commitment to a project on which an employee might be working is largely unknown. Additional complications arise when the project makes use of volunteers who donate their time for reasons other than pecuniary reward. The relationships between volunteers, organizations, and projects represent a gap in the field of organizational commitment knowledge. This paper identifies from literature the values that inform and influence volunteer commitment levels. Known antecedents of commitment are developed to present a model which encapsulates the variables that should be recognized as influencing volunteer commitment levels within a project context. The paper proposes a conceptual model of volunteer commitment to a project using three categories of commitment: emotional, purposeful and contextual, and concludes that the next phase of the study will test this model and develop a tool that will enable the measurement of volunteer commitment in a project context.

This article examines the role of associations as protest and riot brokers during the Badeni crisis of 1897 in Habsburg Austria. Drawing on concepts from political science, it demonstrates how these collective actors acted as crucial intermediaries between political leaders and local communities. Through meetings and rallies, associations facilitated the translation of parliamentary conflicts into street politics, while at the same time enabling demonstrations to escalate into violent riots. The article shows how civil society organizations deployed narratives to legitimize street politics and provided emotional framing and organizational capacity that individual activists often lacked. In doing so, associations expanded political participation in Habsburg Austria by bringing broader strata of society into the political arena, while simultaneously destabilizing it by fostering exclusionary violence. By conceptualizing associations as both protest and riot brokers, the article reinterprets the Badeni crisis not simply as evidence of national hatred but as a manifestation of mass political mobilization in a rapidly modernizing society.

Fe2+-catalyzed transformation of poorly crystalline ferrihydrite into highly crystalline forms is critical in the biogeochemical cycles of Fe, nutrients, and trace elements. The co-existence of ferrihydrite and kaolinite is widespread in soils of tropical and subtropical regions. In this investigation, three associations of ferrihydrite–kaolinite with ratios of 10, 30, and 50% (10% Fhy–Kln, 30% Fhy–Kln, and 50% Fhy–Kln) were examined to study the impact of the initial Fe2+ concentration and pH on Fe2+-catalyzed transformation under anoxic conditions. The findings reveal that the ferrihydrite in the 10% Fhy–Kln associations has the smallest particle size and the largest number of surface hydroxyl groups. At 0.5 mM Fe2+ and pH 7.5, ferrihydrite underwent transformation into lepidocrocite, with the presence of kaolinite promoting the formation of goethite. Moreover, the presence of kaolinite influenced the morphology of the resulting transformation products. A decrease in pH hindered the transformation of ferrihydrite, while an increase in Fe2+ concentration resulted in the formation of magnetite. The impact of kaolinite in the association system on the transformations of ferrihydrite occurs primarily through alteration of the properties of ferrihydrite during its formation process.

Twenty-nine exotic common bean germplasms and three elite cultivars were examined for phenotypic diversity in two bean-producing environments (Kanpur and Shimla) across three winter seasons and one rainy season. The estimate of genetic variability parameters revealed that the exotic bean germplasm has enough diversity for all the evaluated features. The highest genotypic and phenotypic coefficients of variation were found in seed yield, followed by 100-seed weight, pods per plant and pod length. Furthermore, seed yield was the most heritable and genetically advanced quantitative feature, followed by 100-seed weight, pod length and pods per plant. According to a trait association study, the days to maturity of phenological traits have a strong positive correlation with the days to initial flowering and the days to 50% flowering. Pods per plant and seeds per pod most strongly influence increased grain yield. The first two principal components accounted for 63.3% of the variation and demonstrated significant diversity among exotic bean lines for the traits studied, according to the principal component analysis. According to the hierarchical clustering analysis, 29 accessions and three cultivars were divided into three groups. Cluster I contains early flowering and maturing accessions, while cluster III contains high pods per plant and an increased grain yield of germplasms. The fundamental source of phenological fluctuations in both environmental circumstances is temperature. This study found four genetically divergent and stable performance accessions, including EC932021, EC932189 (earliness), and EC931452, EC931971 (high grain yield), which may aid in the establishment of a bean breeding programme.

The present study assessed dietary diversity and anthropometric status of children attending early development centres in South Africa. In the Vhembe District of Limpopo province, South Africa, 273 children were conveniently chosen from 8 randomly selected early childhood development centres for a cross-sectional study. Data were gathered via a questionnaire administered by the interviewer in June 2021. Height, body weight and mid-upper arm circumference were measured to assess anthropometric status. A 24-h dietary recall was obtained to provide information on dietary diversity. The prevalence of underweight, wasting and stunting was 9, 4 and 26 %, respectively. More than half of the children had a low dietary diversity score, according to the Food and Agriculture Organization scoring system for children. Grains, roots, tubers, dairy products, other fruits and vegetables, and flesh-based foods were the highest consumed food groups. The lowest consumption was for eggs, vitamin A-rich fruits and vegetables, legumes and nuts. Height for age and weight for age were significantly associated with dietary diversity score, but not weight for height. Children who did not meet the reference value of greater than 4 for dietary diversity had a significant risk of being underweight (AOR 0⋅25, 95 % CI 0⋅08, 0⋅75) and stunted (AOR 0⋅32, 95 % CI 0⋅14, 0⋅74). The nutritional status of the children was impacted by a lack of adequate dietary diversity. Young children in rural areas need to receive a wide range of food to promote greater diversification of diets in order to diminish the risk of undernutrition.