Generation Z and student volunteering: A national culture perspective

Introduction. Volunteering in the modern world is one of the basic resources for solving society’s problems, an activity that helps students in different countries to build personal and professional competencies. The limited research that makes it possible to analyse the cross-cultural elements of student volunteering has led to a scientific interest in the problem of matching the cultural context and volunteer activities of students from universities in India, Russia and Croatia. The new research perspective covered the perception of volunteering, the behaviour of Generation Z, to which the students of the three countries under consideration belong, as well as the significance of the peculiarities of national culture for the volunteering activity of university youth.The aim of this study is to assess the national cultural context and the level of its significance for the perception of volunteering, motivation and the experience of volunteering of students of management specialties at universities in India, Russia and Croatia.Methodology and research methods. Comparative sociological research is implemented based on the theory of generations, Hofstede’s theory of cultural dimensions and the cultural factors of the macro level defined by him. The study involved students from regional universities in three countries: India, Russia and Croatia. The main method for collecting primary data was questionnaire survey. The questionnaire consisted of several blocks of questions, which allowed assessing the subjective perception of volunteering by students, their personal experience and motivation for volunteering, demographic characteristics of the respondents. The total sample was 943 people; the average age of the respondents was 21 years. Students participated anonymously on a voluntary basis, without any incentives. A one-way analysis of variance, the Leuven test, was used to analyse the data. The collected data was processed using the IBM SPSS Statistics 23.0 program.Results and scientific novelty. The results of the study showed that, in general, Generation Z actually has certain specific characteristics regarding volunteering and volunteering, while these characteristics do not depend on the national culture of a particular state. On the basis of the respondents’ answers, the factors influencing students’ volunteering were identified. Thus, the results of the study proved that the motivation of students for volunteering in the present and in the future does not differ significantly in the compared countries. The study results also did not demonstrate differences in the importance of utilitarian and altruistic motives for volunteering students from different countries. It was found that university students in India are more motivated to volunteer due to utilitarian motives; they are more likely to volunteer in comparison with students from Russia and Croatia. The level of uncertainty avoidance by students, personal benefits from volunteering, and their perception of the value of volunteering in general were measured. The authors provide an overview of the development of volunteering in the three compared countries, defining the social and cultural context in them.Practical significance. The conducted research in the context of popularisation of volunteering as a direction of practice-oriented education at universities in different countries enriches the field of knowledge about student volunteering and its cross-cultural elements.The results of this work can be useful both for universities in the implementation of the “third mission” for the development of the local community, and for all those involved in the promotion of volunteer activities and recruitment volunteering both locally, nationally and internationally with the aim of more engaging Generation Z in the volunteer movement.


Introduction
Volunteering represents a strong foundation of the sustainable economic, environmental and social development because it has a tremendous potential to respond to the needs, problems and challenges the world is facing. It is usually perceived as a social and communal activity that enhances social capital, promote the importance of common good, create the sense of belonging and helps in delivering services that otherwise would have been more expensive or underprovided [1]. It is increasingly recognised as a significant resource for overcoming development challenges because volunteers are at the forefront of every major conflict, natural disaster and other acute shock 1 . Volunteerism is seen as powerful mean for building social solidarity, readdressing social injustice and changing public policies in a way that it should consider the quality of life for every human being.
Although there are numerous studies on volunteering and on crosscultural elements of volunteering [2,3,4] the majority of the existing studies are limited to one country, industry or organisation [5]. Only a few studies have compared and analysed the issue on different countries as national culture representatives [6,7,8,9,10,11]. However, most of these cross-cultural studies are concentrated on the developed western countries.
The aim of this paper is to analyse the national culture context and its relevance to students' volunteering for three countries: Croatia, India and Russia. According to Hofstede [12], culture is reflected in the meanings people attach to various aspects of life; their way of looking at the world and their role in it. The three countries differ in many issues concerning volunteering, starting with the term: while in Croatia the term "volunteering" is known and well accepted and understood, in India the term is social work and in Russia no specific word is used to denote volunteers [11]. Looking at countries' history and current social, economic and political environment, it can easily be concluded that they have different national cultures. We apply the Hofstede model of national culture dimensions to test the cultural context relevance to students' volunteering in the three countries. However, contemporary students belong to Generation Z, a cohort born around 2000, whose character and mindset are said to be different from earlier generations (Millennials, Generation X, Generation Y) [13]. It seems reasonable to analyse Generation Z perceptions and behaviour related to volunteering and the importance of national culture in this context. The paper consists of five sections. In the first, introduction section, we define the importance of volunteering, the aim and context of our research. Second part gives the overview of the most important studies related to the research topic and hypothesis development. In the third part we analyse the state of the art of volunteering in the three countries. The fourth part is dedicated to research. We describe methodological issues and all the research phases. Fifth part of the paper gives research results, analysis and discussion with respect to our hypothesis, while the last part is conclusion, with identified research limitations and indications and suggestions for further research.

Literature overview and hypothesis development
Most studies find only weak correlations between volunteering and sociodemographic characteristics such as age, income, education and social class and conclude that volunteering cannot be explained by these attributes. Dekker and Halman propose looking at values in order to have volunteering better ex-Generation Z and student volunteering: A national culture perspective plained [14]. They state that the voluntary work people are engaged in depends to a considerable extent on values, not only on personal, but also on collective levels. Since values are an important part of culture, they are also important in determining levels of volunteering in the society. Previous studies have confirmed that country context significantly affects students' intensity of volunteering. The country effects are attributable not only to volunteering, but to the broader social and cultural origins of the nonprofit sector in different countries [7]. According to Randle and Dolnicar, cultural groups do differ in their attitude, social norm and perceived behavioural control towards the act of volunteering [3]. Their overview of volunteering studies indicates that ethnic groups do differ in their level of participation in volunteering activities, although findings are inconclusive and there is still much disagreement as to which ethnic and cultural groups are more likely to volunteer. Wymer states that social influences that are part of national culture provide incentives or disincentives for individual volunteering behaviour by supporting, failing to support or discouraging volunteering behaviour [15]. The most important and comprehensive recent study on national culture and cross-cultural volunteering is by Luria et al. [16]. It analyses Hofstede's cultural dimensions with respect to prosocial behaviour that also includes volunteering in 66 countries. This study found individualistic and lower power distance societies to be positively related to prosocial behaviour in general, but not with respect to volunteering as one part of prosocial behaviour. On the other side, uncertainty avoidance and long-term orientation were negatively related to prosocial behaviour, while masculinity was not related to it. In the context of economic and social development, youth volunteering is particularly important. It enables young people to develop their capacities, build their confidence and enhance their employability [17]. It is an important alternative to paid jobs since it provides experience, knowledge and skills that add value for young people in the labour market and can influence their career development [18,19]. Previous study on youth volunteering in Croatia indicated that employers perceive volunteering experience to help developing soft skills that are often not in focus in formal education [20]. In this context, we can recognise utilitarian and altruistic motivation to volunteer, which we use in this study. Therefore, youth volunteering is important in micro, but also in macro context, since it contributes to social capital building which is a key component of economic and social development.
As literature review indicates, socio-economic and cultural context are major determinants of volunteering and different forms in which it occurs. Our research is therefore based on cultural differences between Croatia, India and Russia, as they are identified in the Hofstede model of national culture dimensions [21]. In the following part, we describe the Hofstede's national culture dimensions from the volunteering perspective and develop hypothesis.
Hofstede model 1 of national culture differences between Croatia, India and Russia is shown in Graph 1.

Graph 1. National culture: differences between Croatia, India and Russia
Since the aim of the study is to identify the impact of national culture, only dimensions that differ for more than 10 points are considered significant and used for further analysis.
Power distance as a dimension of national culture indicates if inequalities and power differentials in the society are accepted or not. According to Luria et al. [16], there are only a few studies that analyse this issue [22,23,24], and they are mostly looking at relation of power distance and charitable giving. Their other study has proven that countries with high levels of power distance are no different in volunteering characteristics than countries with low power distance, but they differ in donating behaviour and in helping strangers [25]. However, their more recent study on religiosity and volunteering [16] found a direct relationship between power distance and volunteering related to helping people in need. Winterich and Zhang study found that higher power distance in society leads to lower perceived responsibility to help others and lower likelihood to engage in volunteering [26].
Since the power distance is significantly higher in Russia than in India and Croatia, we hypothesise the following:

Generation Z and student volunteering:
A national culture perspective H1: Russian students have significantly less positive perception of volunteering value in their country than Croatian and Indian students.
Individualism is a dimension that shows the degree of independence between society members. Hofstede puts it as "whether people's self-image is defined in terms of "I" or "We" [11]. According to the model results, India is significantly more individualistic society than Croatia (18 points difference). Collectivistic societies are characterised by strong bonds and feeling of responsibility between society members. This includes helping not only close and extended family members, but also all the needy recognised within the society. Since collectivism is associated with active involvement in maximising the well-being of society, such societies are expected to have higher levels of volunteering. In contrast, less collective societies may not be as concerned about group well-being and are thus less likely to volunteer [27]. However, while volunteering may appear to have a link with collective action, countries with higher individualism scores such as Canada, US and UK also have high levels of volunteering [28]. Although scientific results of analysis of collectivistic and individualistic societies' differences in terms of volunteering levels are conflicting, Kemmelmeier [22] and Finkelstein [29] found that differences in this cultural dimension can explain motivation to volunteer. Since Indian society is significantly more individualistic than Croatian and Russian, out of these explanations we draw our second hypothesis: H2: Indian students are significantly stronger motivated to volunteer by utilitarian motives and Croatian and Russian students are significantly stronger motivated by altruistic motives.
Masculinity as a dimension of national culture is significantly more characteristic of India than Croatia (16 points difference) and Russia (20 points difference). Masculine societies are driven by competition, achievement and success, with success being defined by the winner / best in field -a value system that starts in school and continues throughout organisational life [21]. Masculinism is typically associated with characteristics such are: objectivity, outgoing, action-oriented, analytical, rationalist [30]. Their focus is on success, competition and performance. On the other hand, dominant values in feminine societies are caring for others and quality of life. Typical characteristics of feminism culture are: emotionally oriented, dependency, cooperation, responsiveness and intuition. As stated by study of Karniol [31], individuals with higher caring scores, which is a typical characteristic of femininity, volunteered for more hours than did those with lower caring scores. After this analysis and differences presented in the Hofstede model that indicates that Croatia and Russia are more feminine societies while India is a masculine one, in the context of volunteering, our third hypothesis is developed as:

H3: A higher proportion of Croatian and Russian students are actively involved in or intend to volunteer than Indian students.
Uncertainty avoidance indicates the extent to which the members of a culture feel threatened by ambiguous or unknown situations and have created beliefs and institutions that try to avoid these [21]. It is the highest in Russia and much higher in Croatia than in India, meaning that "there is an emotional need for rules, time is money, people have an inner urge to be busy and work hard, precision and punctuality are the norm, innovation may be resisted, security is an important element in individual motivation [21]. Since volunteering is often a "no-rule" activity, it is unpaid and often not highly secure activity (in case of working with socially marginalised and sensitive groups -alcoholics, offenders, delinquents or people who suffered from violence), we draw our fourth hypothesis: H4: Indian students have significantly more positive attitude toward volunteering then Russian and Croatian students, and Croatian students have significantly more positive attitudes toward volunteering than Russian students.
Long-term orientation describes how every society has to maintain some links with its own past while dealing with the challenges of the present and future [21]. All three countries, according to the results, are perceived as pragmatic (long-term oriented) and with a belief that truth depends on situation, context and time. However, India and Croatia, with similar results are more prone to maintain time-honored traditions and norms than Russia (30 points difference between India and Russia and 23 points difference between Croatia and Russia). According to Luria [16], people in long-term oriented societies expect to have more interactions with others in the future and are more inclined to help others. Relating above mentioned explanations to students' (youth) volunteering in terms of future social interactions, we develop the following hypothesis: H5: Indian and Croatian students perceive personal benefits from volunteering significantly more important than Russian students.
Indulgence is defined as the extent to which people try to control their desires and impulses, based on the way they were raised [21]. According to the same author, cultures can be described as indulgent if people have relatively weak control of their desires and impulses (low score) and restrained if people have relatively strong control of their desires and impulses (high score). Although all three countries are considered to be restrained countries (all three countries' scores are bellow 50) the difference between Croatia and Russia, since it is larger than 10 points, i.e. it is 13, will be taken into consideration. Therefore, we draw our sixth hypothesis: H6: A higher proportion of Croatian students perceive volunteering as indulging activity connected with leisure time and the gratification of their desires than Russian students.

Generation Z and student volunteering:
A national culture perspective

Volunteering -state of the art in Croatia, India and Russia
According to data from UNV Report 1 , all three countries are well developed in terms of socio-economic and political framework relevant for volunteeringall three have implemented policies and legislation measures that regulate its functioning. However, the volunteering practice is somewhat different. Table 1 shows the data on number of volunteers in formal and informal activities in relation to the total 15+ population. These data indicate that Croatia and Russia have about the same share in population engaged in volunteering (4,15% and 4,18% respectively), while in India the share is significantly lower (0,68%). If we analyse the relation of formal and informal volunteering, although in all three countries, as in the majority of the world there is more informal than formal volunteering, the difference between the two is significantly different in three countries: the smallest difference is in India, where there is about 1.5 times more informal volunteering than formal. The difference in Croatia is almost four times more, and in Russia over eight times more people are involved in informal than in formal volunteering. It might indicate that the volunteering infrastructure in India is significantly more developed than in Croatia and Russia.

Overview of volunteering in India
According to UNDP report on youth volunteering in India [17], in 2009 there were about 3.3 million non-government organisations in India offering different possibilities for volunteering.
India has a tradition of volunteerism. Although there is no precise data, volunteer participation in India is estimated to be high. Historically, Indian citizens actively participated in the service to society and religion. The philanthropic ways, providing helping hand and commitment towards religious aspects are embedded within the Indian society. As stated in the UNDP report mentioned above, volunteerism has also played a significant role in the growth of social reform movements in India. In Indian culture, the values of charity, 'shramdaan' (giving of effort / labour) have been placed on a high pedestal and manifest in various ways based on religious or humanitarian beliefs, feelings of community, kinship and reciprocity. Although these take on different forms based on socio-economic, cultural and regional backgrounds, the spirit of volunteerism is intrinsically woven into the fabric of our society and communities.
Within the context of youth volunteerism, the National Youth Policy, 2014 of the Government of India states that "Youth must be encouraged to participate in community service and development activities, especially in the most backward regions. The youth of India must have a strong sense of moral responsibility towards their fellow citizens, especially those that are less fortunate than themselves. Youth of the country must be encouraged to fulfill their duties as citizens and thus create an environment in which all citizens enjoy the rights guaranteed in our Constitution" 1 .

Overview of volunteering in Russia
As in many post-communist countries, volunteering in Russia is a relatively new phenomenon. There was no volunteering in the Soviet Union, but all soviet people had to do socially useful work collectively with their colleagues, friendswith the people that they had been working or studying with. At least once a year, all Soviet citizens were required to 'volunteer' as one of Lenin's subbotnikiiunpaid work to improve the quality and appearance of an individual's immediate environment. Also, it was assumed that everyone would volunteer in his or her (state organised) sports club, (state organised) trade union and local community organisation. This cultural legacy of forced participation has resulted in lack of enthusiasm for public participation in formal organisations [32]. Similar findings can be found in other studies stating that soviet cultural antecedents in the operating environment have had a restrictive effect on individual's willingness to volunteer or make charitable donations [33].
The volunteering began to appear with the expansion of democratic ideas which became more popular in the country after 1991 year. However, the nonprofit sector in Russia has not been able to promote volunteering and increase volunteerism. The volunteer work in Russian Federation had been unorganised during long period of time. Russians more often help each other without any organisations and projects. The level of public identification of volunteering remained extremely low until the last decade.

Generation Z and student volunteering:
A national culture perspective In Russia, volunteer movement has been rapidly developing over the past 10 years. Volunteers' public movement has received governmental support and has been actively developing since 2015. The Federal Expert Council on Volunteering Development appeared in 2016. Agency for Strategic Initiatives developed the national strategic initiative called "Regional Volunteering Development", which resulted in the development of governmental support for volunteering standard in the regions and republics of Russia. The president of Russia declared 2018 to be the Year of the Volunteer. National action plan for the development of the volunteer movement has been developed. The change in the socio-political situation in Russia and in other countries has contributed to the fact that in recent years, it is the government and public servants who expend more effort to support volunteering at different levels: normative; organisational; methodical; informational. 7.4 billion rubles will be allocated to support and develop volunteering for the Social Activity federal project in period 2019 to 2024 1 . At the federal level, measures of governmental support for volunteering are included in three national projects, Education, Culture, and Urban Development. The infrastructure of volunteering is developing actively. A network of hybrid non-profit organisations (resource volunteer centers) has been created to develop volunteering in different Russian regions. Volunteering becomes more and more popular among children and youth.

Overview of volunteering in Croatia
Volunteering in Croatia began to develop along with the development of civil society, particularly in early 1990s when, due to many political and social leavenings, Croatian citizens started to be increasingly dependent on various forms of assistance. The official definition of volunteerism was defined by the Act on Volunteering adopted in 2007 as the first such Act on volunteering in Croatia and region. The Act was amended in 2013 with the importance of recognition and evaluation of competences, skills and experience gained by volunteering, as well with the changes related to long-term and short-term volunteering (EC Youth Policies in Croatia Report, 2017) 2 .
Since all organisers of volunteer activities have obligation to submit an Annual Report on Services Performed or Activities of Volunteer Organisers, there are some official data on volunteering. However, it is assumed that the numbers are higher given that there are organisations that do not report their volunteering activities. Still, according to the reports collected by Ministry of Demography, Family, Youth and Social Policy in Croatia in 2018, the number of submitted reports on the volunteer activities has increased by 28% compared to the previous year. This increase can be expressed by the following numbers: 62 699 volunteers, 3 253 667 volunteer hours and around 2.157.960 Euro (almost 16 million HRK) of volunteering costs. The same report states that women are more likely to be volunteers than men (more than 60%), the largest share of volunteering is carried out in associations (84%) and only 37% of young people aged 18 -30 have volunteered in 2018. This last data suggests a relatively weak presence of volunteer activities among young people.
In addition to relevant measures and regulatory framework, there are several institutions in Croatia, which represent very important actors in developing policies and promotional activities for the development of volunteering -four Regional Volunteer Centers and a National Committee for the Development of Volunteerism. Regional Centers are non-profit organisations, whose main objective is the promotion and development of volunteer activities at local, regional and national level. Regional Volunteer Centers collaborate through Croatian Volunteer Centers Network with the aim of collaborating with decision-makers in the field of volunteering. National Committee for the Development of Volunteerism is an advisory body of the Government of the Republic of Croatia that implements measures and activities aimed to promoting volunteering. National Committee for the Development of Volunteerism, under the Act on Volunteering, proposes measures to improve the position of volunteers in society and in cooperation with the relevant bodies, proposes regulations on volunteer benefits, initiates the adoption or modification of policies regulating volunteering, issues the Ethics Code of Volunteers, undertakes other activities for the development of volunteering and performs other measures and activities determined in the Act on Volunteering (EC Youth policies in Croatia, 2017).

Research
As the literature review has indicated, culture is an important determinant of volunteering. The Hofstede country scores on national culture were chosen due to the fact that they have been shown to be stable over time and are viewed as relative and a means to compare cultural values across societies, rather than as absolute values [34].
Since the aim of the study is to identify the impact of national culture, only dimensions that differ for more than 10 points are considered significant and used for further analysis. Power distance dimension in this context is similar between India and Croatia, but in Russia it is significantly higher than in Generation Z and student volunteering: A national culture perspective other two countries. Individualism/collectivism dimension differs significantly between India and Croatia, but not in other combinations. Indian national culture is significantly more masculine than Croatian and Russian. The largest difference between the three countries is in the dimension of uncertainty avoidance (40 points between India and Croatia, 55 points between India and Russia, and 15 points between Croatia and Russia). Long-term orientation dimension is significantly more expressed in Russian national culture than in India and Croatia. Indulgence dimension differs significantly between Croatia and Russia. Due to the similarities the following dimensions were excluded for the further study (power distance between India and Croatia, individualism and masculinity between Croatia and Russia, long-term orientation between India and Croatia and indulgence between India and Croatia and India and Russia).

Research methodology, design and sample
The methodological approach was based on primary data collection, using questionnaires as the main method of data collection. The aim of the research was to test the cultural context relevance to students' volunteering in Croatia, India and Russia. To test the hypotheses, based on the Hofstede model of national culture dimensions, the authors of this paper conducted a survey among their university students. The survey was administrated as a paper-pencil questionnaire to total of 943 students at three universities in large, non-capital towns in the three countries. As this study is international, the questionnaire had to be translated and adapted to each country's language. The questionnaire was processed using IBM SPSS Statistics 23.0.
The average age of the respondents was 21. Students were participating anonymously and voluntarily, with no incentives. The number of respondents reduces possible bias; however, the research was conducted on a convenient sample and, as noted above, was limited to one university per country. The same questionnaire was conducted in all three countries, without special changes and modifications related to cultural differences. The questionnaire consisted of three sets of questions: students' perception on the volunteering in their country, personal experience and motivation to volunteer, and demographics. Cronbach's alpha ranks from ,602 to ,733 which implies the adequate reliability of all measurement constructs.
As shown in Table 2, from the total number of respondents, 52% of them volunteer. The highest ratio of responding students volunteers can be found in India (72%), while Croatia and Russia have about similar proportion of volunteers (43,2% vs. 46,1%). In all three countries, more respondents are female and most respondents have average and above average monthly income. Research results and analysis H1: In Russia, in comparison to India and Croatia, students have significantly less positive perception of volunteering value in their country than Croatian and Indian students.
Indicators in this instrument have been measured by means of 5-point Likert scales. Statistically significant difference has been observed in only two out of eight items. First differential item is the student's perception about the positive impact of volunteering on personal development. Croatian students have the most positive perception about the impact volunteering can have on personal development (F 2, 938 =10,068, p<0,05). However, when comparing Indian and Russian students, results show that Indian students have more negative perception about the impact of volunteering on personal development than Russian students do. Second differential item is student's perception on the promotion of volunteering. There is a statistically significant difference on the perception of a promotion of volunteering in a native country. Croatian students, more than Russian and Indian students feel that there is lack of promotion of volunteering in their native country (F 2,940 =40,933, p<0,05). By considering the power distance between all three countries, when concluding about the student's perception on volunteering, this research demonstrated that students Generation Z and student volunteering: A national culture perspective in the countries with high levels of power distance are not particularly different in perception of volunteering value than those in countries with low power distance. So, since the significance of the Levene's test is greater than 0,05 for only 2 of the total 8 items in the dimension of perception of volunteering in the native country, H1 is partially accepted. H2: Indian students are significantly stronger motivated by utilitarian motives and Croatian students are significantly stronger motivated by altruistic motives.
Given the selected population of respondents, it was assumed that one of the reasons for motivating students would be to develop personal competences, gain experience and improve their CV which can be considered as utilitarian motives. On the other hand, motives like contributions to quality of life improvement in the community, helping known and unknown people in need and similar, are considered to be altruistic motives. Groenlund findings [28] indicate that there are differences in motivation between countries which represent different cultural values. As can be seen in Graph 2, in our case, students' motivations do not different significantly regardless of the country they are coming from. For both Croatian and Indian students altruistic motivation is stronger than utilitarian, which is contrary to Groenlund [28], who found that students belonging to individualist cultures have a higher motivation in resume building, i.e. utilitarian motives. Table 3 shows the rank of the single motivators for volunteering among students. Although the Hofstede model has shown India as more individualistic society than Croatia and difference in importance of utilitarian and altruistic motives for volunteering were expected, the results in this research did not show that difference. Table 3 The ranking of motives for volunteering To both Croatian and Indian students developing personal competences and feeling good seem to be more important than helping others. Thus, our second hypothesis has to be rejected. This finding confirms previous conflicting scientific results about collectivistic and individualistic societies' differences in terms of volunteering motivation.

Graph 2. Motivation for volunteering
However, when looking at every item individually it can be seen that Indian students are indeed more motivated to volunteer by utilitarian motives. Croatian students, on the other hand, find the motive to help anyone in need more important than the motive to feel good.
H3: A higher proportion of Croatian and Russian students are being actively involved in or intending to volunteer than Indian students.
As seen in the Graph 3, students from all three countries volunteer rarely. The reason for such frequency of volunteering can be probably found in their study obligations and the lack of time for extracurricular activities. Although the smallest ratio of students, who volunteer permanently, comes from India; the Graph 3 shows that Indian students volunteer more often than Croatian and Russian students. And while Croatia has the largest proportion of students with the intention to volunteer in the future, it is interesting to see that there are more Indian than Russian students with such intention (Graph 4).

Generation Z and student volunteering:
A national culture perspective Graph 3. Frequency of volunteering

Graph 4. Intention to volunteer
Obtained results should be perceived in context the difference in number of students with volunteering experience. Regardless of the presumption, arising from the Hofstede model about the difference between masculine and feminine societies, the difference in terms of volunteering is not visible. Therefore, the third hypothesis which states that higher proportion of Croatian and Russian students being actively involved or intending to volunteer is rejected. However, if we look at secondary data based on 15+ population (Table 1), we notice the different situation: while in Croatia and Russia which are more feminine societies (Croatian score for masculinity is 40 and Russian 36) about 4,2% of total 15+ population is engaged in either formal or informal volunteering, in India, which is a more masculine society (masculinity score is 56), this ratio is only about 0,7%. This indicates that Generation Z indeed has some specific characteristics with respect to volunteering, regardless of national culture characteristics.
Statistical testing for H4, H5 and H6 was conducted by a One-way ANOVA. The indicators for all three hypotheses were measured using a 5-point Likert scale. The Hofstede model indicates that the uncertainty avoidance is highest in Russia and lowest in India. Although volunteering is perceived as an unsecure activity our assumption that this will lead to less positive attitudes about volunteering in Russia was proven inaccurate. At the significance level of the Levene test of 5% probability no statistically significant difference was found (for each statement p <0,005). Therefore, the hypothesis 4 which states that Indian students have significantly more positive attitude toward volunteering then Russian and Croatian students, and Croatian students have significantly more positive attitudes toward volunteering than Russian students is rejected.
The Hofstede model perceives all three countries as pragmatic (long-term oriented), although India and Croatia are more prone to maintain time-honored traditions and norms than Russia. However, this research has confirmed that the difference is not so obvious in relation to volunteering since there was no statistically significant difference (at the significance level of the Levene test of 5% probability p <0,005 for each item). Therefore, the hypothesis 5, which states that Indian and Croatian students perceived personal benefits from volunteering significantly more important than Russian students, is also rejected.
Both Croatia and Russia can be described as restrained cultures with people having relatively strong control of their desires and impulses although, according to the Hofstede model, indulgence dimension differs significantly between Croatia and Russia. However, this difference is not so obvious and visible in this research. At the significance level of the Levene test of 5% probability p <0,005 for each item which proves that there is no statistically significant difference between Russia and Croatia in perceiving volunteering as indulging activity connected with leisure time and the gratification of their desires. Therefore, the hypothesis 6 is also rejected.

Discussion
Very contrary to our expectations, although according to the Hofstede model of national culture, Croatia, India and Russia significantly differ in all dimension of national culture except indulgence; our study results show no difference in the population of students with regard to volunteering. The only partially accepted hypothesis is H1, where statistically significant difference on the perception of a promotion of volunteering in a native country and perception about the positive impact of volunteering on personal development were found.

Generation Z and student volunteering:
A national culture perspective As Rochester has pointed out, different values systems co-exist in plural societies, and provide different foundations for volunteering within a certain country [35]. Looking for explanation of such results, our focus was on Generation Z, the students' population in our study, specifics. The idea came from the notion that individual's intent to participate in volunteering is strongly associated with age groups and cohorts because people belonging to the same age categories and social groups are usually found to have similar motivations for volunteering [36]. "Generation Z" represents teenagers born in the mid-1990's through 2002. Tuglan study described Generation Z as young individuals, who yearn for a satisfying and fulfilling professional life, who are reserved, and more modest when exhibiting their thoughts [37]. They are often called "i-Generation", which refers to frequent use of the internet and its high interaction within the virtual place. Finch characterised Generation Z as being practical, pragmatic and possessing future-oriented tendencies as well as riskaverse [38]. They are also highly enthusiastic about learning new skills and want to invest their time and efforts in preparation for future careers [39].
Wurpel describes Generation Z as "color-blind", emphasising their sensibility to diverse cultures and individual differences, as well as their willingness to embrace diversity [40]. In our case it can be understood as their lower subordination to national culture characteristics. Berry found Generation Z to be extremely altruistic, caring deeply about environment and global humanitarian issues [41]. Moreover, Laura states that Generation Z is a "truly global online generation, sharing similar views, ideology and goals" [42]. Achievement of success and social recognition, knowing that they are a valuable part of the society is very important to them. Another study [43] confirms that characteristics of young Russian volunteers correspond to global trends in terms of motivation and behaviour. Therefore, it does not come as a surprise that the value, career, learning and self-esteem have been recognised as four main global motives for Generation Z to engage in volunteering activities [44]. In the context of volunteering, these notions provide several implications on how to stimulate and motivate Generation Z to be more actively involved in volunteering, regardless of national culture specifics.
In the process of capitalising on Generation Z desire to help, universities as the most dynamic and frequent places of students stay, can play a crucial role in several aspects: • creating an improved image of volunteering as valuable social engagement of young people (especially by communicating with Generation Z through social media), • educating about volunteering and its contribution to social, economic and personal development, • creating opportunities to volunteer at universities by developing different models of volunteering programmes, • building networks with local nonprofit organisations and other important stakeholders, and • recognising student volunteering activities as a supplement and special contribution within individual courses and/or as a diploma supplement.
By encouraging volunteering, universities emphasise the practical side of learning, which affects the development of various knowledge and skills, increases employment opportunities and removes barriers to the psychological and social development of young people. Moreover, it helps universities in fulfilling their "third mission" -being an active agent in social development of the local community. Since the Generation Z values, attitudes and general characteristics are very similar, international cooperation of universities might also contribute to Generation Z "global" feelings.

Conclusion
Several cross-national studies on volunteering have used cultural characteristics in order to explain differences between countries. This study addresses macro-level cultural factors as identified by Hofstede [21] with the aim of explaining differences in students' volunteering behaviour, perceptions, and motivations. Most of the hypothesis that tried to confirm significant differences between national culture reflections on volunteering were not confirmed. Hence, it can be concluded that students in all three countries are not particularly different in their perception of volunteering, their motives for volunteering and their behaviour. Since respondents in this study belong to Generation Z, the generation that globally share more common values and have characteristics that do not know geographical borders and cultural division, the results are not that surprising. Generation Z is a digital generation with no limits for communication and sharing information and mostly driven by trends defined by social media. Their continuous exposure to information is making them aware of all the problems the world is facing and all the possibilities for resolving those problems. They will volunteer if they see, they can make a change and leave a trace and this information is important for anyone involved in promoting volunteering and recruiting volunteers, on local, national and international level.
Cross-cultural studies are always challenging. Even though our study focused on only three countries, we are aware that there are several limitations in it. The first one is the sampling -although we focused only on students (Generation Z), a sample from only one university per country might not be representative, especially in large countries like India and Russia. Consequently,

Generation Z and student volunteering:
A national culture perspective our results are only indicative. Secondly, in determination of national culture differences we used the ready-made secondary data from Hofstede. It would be interesting to include research on national culture into the existing questionnaire. This could confirm the statement of changing national culture characteristics approaching with Generation Z.