Does NGOs’ Commercialization Affect Volunteer Work? The Crowding out or Crowding in Effect

Abstract

The aim of this article is to identify whether the commercialization of NGOs has an influence on the crowding out or crowding in effect of volunteer work, and to indicate the factors affecting volunteers’ regular involvement in NGO activity. The conducted research confirmed the hypothesis that the commercialization of Polish NGOs is associated with the crowding in effect of volunteer work. The authors prove that the direction of knowledge transfer can be important in engaging volunteers to work in NGOs. The model demonstrates that the likelihood of the NGO crowding in effect increases with frequent internal training, and decreases rapidly with participation in conferences, which work as external knowledge transfer.