Social responsibility and subjective well-being of volunteers for COVID-19: The mediating role of job involvement

AIM: Our study aimed to investigate the effect of social responsibility on the subjective well-being of volunteers for COVID-19 and to examine the mediating role of job involvement in this relationship. BACKGROUND: Nowadays, more and more people join volunteer service activities. As we all know, volunteer work contributes to society without any return. Volunteers often have a strong sense of social responsibility and reap subjective well-being in their dedication. Although research shows that social responsibility will drive them to participate in volunteer work actively, it is less clear whether job involvement will impact their subjective well-being. METHODS: The data were collected in the precaution zone in Shanghai, China, from April to May 2022. A sample of 302 volunteers for COVID-19 completed the social responsibility scale, subjective well-being scale and job involvement scale in the form of an electronic questionnaire on their mobile phones. A structural equation model was adopted to verify the research hypotheses. RESULTS: Social responsibility was significantly and positively related to volunteers’ subjective well-being and job involvement (p < 0.05). Job involvement fully mediates the relationship between volunteers’ social responsibility and subjective well-being. CONCLUSION: Social responsibility is critical to predicting volunteers’ subjective well-being. Job involvement plays an intervening mechanism in explaining how social responsibility promotes volunteers’ subjective well-being.