Our research aims to evaluate the impact of teachers’ behavior on the intention of master students from two generations (Generation Z and Millennials) to participate in volunteering activities. We also aim to assess the factors that influence master students’ motivation toward volunteering activities, how intention mediates the relationship between teachers’ behavior and master students’ motivation, and between the perceived behavioral control of master students and their motivation to be involved in volunteer activities. We collected data online from 412 master students and used structural equation modeling with partial least squares (PLS-SEM) to analyze the data. We found that perceived behavioral control strongly impacts master students’ intention and that age moderates the relationship between intention and motivation. We used the Functional Attitude Theory to support our findings, and we found differences between generations (i.e., teachers’ behavior does not influence Generation Z master students’ intention to volunteer, and teacher’s behavior does not influence the motivational behavior of Millennials master students’ volunteers). Our study has theoretical and practical implications, providing insights for reconfiguring the relationship between teachers and master students. It considers the increasing complexity of factors influencing master students’ volunteering activities. Future research will focus on the mediating role of artificial intelligence in communication between teachers and master students and the advantages of volunteering activities. © The Author(s) 2025. This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) which permits any use, reproduction and distribution of the work without further permission provided the original work is attributed as specified on the SAGE and Open Access pages (https://us.sagepub.com/en-us/nam/open-access-at-sage).
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