“Don't you want to stay?” The impact of training and recognition as human resource practices on volunteer turnover

Managing volunteers is a difficult undertaking. This study draws on human resource (HR) management theory and literature to investigate the effect of two HR practices—training and recognition—on volunteer turnover. We use longitudinal administrative data collected by an Indiana nonprofit organization, which contains individual volunteer characteristics, organizational HR practices, and information on actual turnover behavior. We found that recognizing volunteer contributions with awards predicted volunteer retention in the following year. Training did not have a direct effect on volunteer turnover, but interacted with gender; men who received training were more likely to stay than women. The study contributes to the literature on HR management in the volunteer context, adds to the emerging literature on awards as incentives for volunteers, and addresses the common method bias by using longitudinal data.     

More is less? The volunteer stewardship framework and models

Scholars have devoted substantial attention to developing conditional models of volunteer administration and management, but no consensus surrounds the criteria underlying the different models or the rationale. The literature reveals a welter of possibilities but no clear choice. This study conceives the primary managerial challenges as securing access to and guiding volunteer energy into productive volunteering, and the volunteer administrator as the central actor in this process. Based on how volunteers are accessed and guided in their roles, we develop the Volunteer Stewardship Framework, which distinguishes volunteer administration according to two key dimensions: organizational access to volunteer energy (private resource vs. common pool) and guidance of volunteers (unitary vs. shared). Results of a survey of volunteer administration practitioners in the Netherlands show that respondents working under the four models emanating from the Framework recognize different elements of volunteer administration as “Very Important.”     

Retaining Critical Human Capital: Volunteer Firefighters in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania

Effective delivery of services for the public good involves a multiplicity of organizations and actors, including those from the public, nonprofit, and private sectors. In some cases, service delivery is accomplished using programs that directly engage volunteers, including key public services like community-based and nonprofit volunteer fire departments. Volunteers in fire departments—often highly engaged volunteers with specialized training—provide vital services for a substantial portion of the United States, allowing local governments to realize considerable cost savings. Thus, issues of volunteer retention are a critical challenge for fire departments. Existing research has addressed issues of retention in a variety of settings; we argue that the challenging and particular context of fire departments is worthy of focused research. This article is an exploratory study of the predictors of voluntary firefighter retention in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. We use data from a web-based survey of volunteer firefighters to examine the factors that influence volunteer retention, focusing specifically on volunteer management practices and broader job-related concepts. Results indicate that volunteer training, performance management, job satisfaction, and organizational commitment influence both short- and mid-term intent to remain, indicating that management practices and programs, as well as other contextual factors that shape satisfaction and commitment, are important in retaining volunteers.     

What is Old is New Again: Achieving Effectiveness with Volunteer Programs in Kazakhstan

Abstact This study based on Kazakhstan nonprofit organizations (NPOs) is the first to address the important issue of the relationship between volunteer management and volunteer program effectiveness in an international setting. Our inquiry is informed by findings of US scholars that show that the adoption of a recommended set of volunteer management practices is related to the level of effectiveness achieved with volunteer involvement in NPOs. The paper advances a path model to explain volunteer program effectiveness, with volunteer management practices the crucial intermediate variable. Based on data collected in a survey of Almaty (Kazakhstan) NPOs in 2004, the empirical analysis yields considerable support for a path model that focuses on both the adoption of these practices and the attainment of program effectiveness. Given the heterogeneity of NPOs, not every organization can be expected to benefit from the adoption of the recommended practices. Nevertheless, results suggest that they offer one workable means for successfully integrating volunteers.     

Organizational Factors Affecting Volunteers: A Literature Review on Volunteer Coordination

While volunteer literature presents diverse insights into the motives, personal dispositions, and sociodemographic characteristics of volunteers, researches comparatively seldom focus on the incentives and organizational context affecting volunteers. This review aims to shed light on the organizational factors affecting volunteers collectively and to discuss the coordination of volunteers. Systematic research of the literature revealed 386 publications that are relevant to volunteer coordination. Their abstracts were analyzed in a process of open and selective coding, which led to the identification of three main clusters. This literature review produced the following propositions: it is argued that the practices and instruments of volunteer management (Cluster 1), and, even more strongly, the organizational attitudes towards volunteers as well as the organizations’ embedded values (Cluster 2), co-determined by social processes (integration and production of meaning), are crucial factors affecting volunteers. The review also deals with structural features that limit the action space of volunteers and volunteer coordination (Cluster 3). It concludes by discussing the limitations present in the current volunteer research and provides implications for future research endeavors. Thus, this piece of work presents a holistic view on volunteer coordination and theory building by carefully synthesizing information about the organizational context of volunteering from different disciplines and research traditions, resulting in different intervention logics, and by integrating these data in an analytical framework.     

Reporting Volunteer Labour at the Organizational Level: A Study of Canadian Nonprofits

Volunteer contributions in the production of services are an important resource internationally. However, few countries include volunteer contributions in their national accounts, even though many encourage their populations to engage in volunteering. At the organizational level, many nonprofit organizations using volunteers often limit their input to a footnote in annual reports acknowledging their contribution; few estimate their value in financial terms. As a result, their financial accounts lack information upon which to base decisions affecting the organizations and the communities they serve. Additional information is required to assess the impact of volunteers in individual nonprofits as well as the sector as a whole. This study focuses on Canada, one of the few countries that include volunteers in the national accounts, to examine to what extent nonprofit organizations estimate a financial value for these contributions and include this in their financial statements. This paper reports the results of an online survey of 661 nonprofits from across Canada. In order to understand why some organizations keep records for volunteer contributions and quantify them, two sets of explanatory factors are explored: organizational characteristics and the attitude of the executive director. We find larger organizations were more likely to engage in record keeping and estimating volunteer value, as were organizations with a relatively large group of volunteers and volunteer programs. The attitude of the executive director is important in determining which organizations engage in these practices.     

Transformational Leadership and Volunteer Firefighter Engagement

This study explores the relationship between transformational leadership and volunteer firefighter engagement. Using responses from 213 volunteer firefighters, structural equation modeling reveals a positive relationship between transformational leadership and volunteer engagement, which is mediated by both group identification and perceived social impact. In addition, higher volunteer engagement is positively related to a firefighter's intention to continue volunteering and to recruit others. Taken together, the results indicate that transformational leaders achieve positive volunteer outcomes by strengthening the organizational ties of volunteers and by connecting volunteers with the prosocial impact of their work. Theoretical implications for transformational leadership research in volunteer settings as well as practical recommendations for a sustainable volunteer management are provided.     

Enhancing Volunteer Engagement to Achieve Desirable Outcomes: What Can Non-profit Employers Do?

Engagement is a positive psychological state that is linked with a range of beneficial individual and organizational outcomes. However, the factors associated with volunteer engagement have rarely been examined. Data from 1064 volunteers of a wildlife charity in the United Kingdom revealed that both task- and emotion-oriented organizational support were positively related to volunteer engagement, and volunteer engagement was positively related to volunteer happiness and perceived social worth and negatively related to intent to leave the voluntary organization. Consistent with theory, engagement acted as a mediator between these factors. The implications for future research and the relevance of the findings for voluntary organizations are discussed.     

Linking Autonomy-Supportive Leadership to Volunteer Satisfaction: A Self-Determination Theory Perspective

This study examines the development of volunteer satisfaction within the framework of self-determination theory (SDT). Therewith, autonomy-supportive leadership—as an influential part of the organizational context—is studied as an antecedent of volunteer satisfaction. The hypothesized model suggests that the link between autonomy-supportive leadership and volunteer satisfaction is serially mediated by general need satisfaction and autonomous motivation. Volunteers (N = 113) working closely together with their supervisors completed a paper-based questionnaire. As predicted, both general need satisfaction and autonomous motivation serially mediated the link between autonomy-supportive leadership and volunteer satisfaction. The results indicate that autonomy-supportive leadership is an important factor of the organizational context, increasing both volunteers’ autonomous motivation and satisfaction. Practical implications for volunteering organizations, as well as implications for further research, are discussed.     

Organizational Resources and the Gender Gap in Congregational Lay Leadership

The purpose of this study is to examine how organizational resources affect the gender gap within lay (volunteer) leadership in religious congregations. Using institutional theory as a framework, this study situates congregations within a larger field of organizations competing for legitimacy. Congregations with higher levels of resources—such as wealthier members, better-educated members, or larger memberships—are more likely to be connected to the core of the field and therefore more likely to have gender egalitarian practices in order to signal their legitimacy. Therefore, I hypothesize that women in resource-rich congregations will have greater access to volunteer leadership positions than women in congregations that are resource deficient. I analyze 70,942 individuals in 344 religious congregations from the 2001 U.S. Congregational Life Survey using multilevel modeling. I show that religious congregations with more members, better-educated attenders, and wealthier attenders have smaller gender gaps in volunteer leadership positions. Congregational resources can mitigate the gender gap in lay leadership, and women within resource-rich organizations have greater access to positions of authority.     

Volunteer Engagement: Exploring the Distinction Between Job and Organizational Engagement

Retaining engaged volunteers is crucial to many non-profit organizations. However, research on volunteer engagement is limited, and the distinction between job and organizational engagement in volunteers remains to be investigated. In this paper, we examine both organizational- and job-level engagement, and specifically, whether perceived organizational support would enhance volunteer engagement and associated attitudes. We surveyed 221 volunteers, and asked them about their perceptions of organizational support; their engagement with their volunteer job and the organization they volunteer for; satisfaction; commitment; and turnover intentions. Both organizational and job engagements had significant relationships with the attitudinal variables. However, we found that organizational rather than job engagement mediated the relationship between organizational support and volunteer satisfaction and commitment. While organizational engagement correlated with turnover intentions, neither job nor organizational engagement mediated the relationship between support and the intent to leave. Our findings advance the research on volunteer engagement, and highlight the importance of organizational engagement for this important, but too often overlooked, workforce.     

The Frustration Factor: Volunteer Perspectives of Frustration in a Sport Setting

Volunteers are an integral part of the labor pool in the sports industry and organizations benefit from the extensive contributions that volunteer workers make to the daily operations of organizations and the overall management of events. Sport organizations have tended to utilize mainstream human resource management practices that focus on paid workers ignoring the differences in motivation and satisfaction factors that differentiate the sports volunteer worker along with the sports industry. This study explores the lived experience of long-term sport volunteers with regard to training and work preparedness, recognition and status, well-being, and belonging. The study employs an ethnographic research strategy in an authentic environment that would allow the researchers to untangle and understand the multiple realities that construct the volunteer experience. A holistic view of the dynamic interdependencies of all components of the volunteer community emerges yielding a new typology, the Frustration Factor.     

How do International Volunteering Characteristics Influence Outcomes? Perspectives from Partner Organizations

This study examines how different types of international volunteering influence common program outcomes such as building organizational capacity, developing international relationships, and performing manual labor. Survey responses were collected from 288 development-oriented volunteer partner organizations operating in 68 countries. Data on the duration of volunteer service, the volunteers’ skill levels, and other variables were used to develop a rough typology of international volunteering. Binary logistic regression models then assessed differences in outcomes across five volunteering types. Findings suggest that future research needs to be more precise about how the nuances and complexity of diverse forms of international volunteering influence outcomes.     

The Emergent Organization: Improvisation and Order in Gulf Coast Disaster Relief

This article employs the interactionist concept of emergence to explore volunteer behavior in organizational settings after natural disasters. Through a several‐year ethnographic study of volunteer relief groups in the Post‐hurricane Gulf Coast, I examine how emergent social groups navigate situations where interactional norms, practices, and procedures are ambiguous, unclear, or in continual flux. Grassroots volunteer groups improvised organizational decision‐making and leadership structures to develop timely and appropriate responses to the post‐disaster environment. In particular, I focus on two distinct groups of volunteers whose response to these emergent interactional structures: improvisers embraced the ambiguity of group norms as an opportunity to innovate and express their creativity, whereas ritualists rejected the lack of structure and order characterized by the volunteer organizations.     

Building a better workplace for teen volunteers through inclusive behaviors

Facing a decline in the number of hours donated to nonprofit organizations, volunteer coordinators must strive to determine the most effective strategies for retaining volunteers. Relationship management theory provides a framework to gauge the well‐being of an organization's relationship with its stakeholders. Through surveys administered to 317 teenage volunteers at three library systems, this study found that of four factors—trust, commitment, satisfaction, and control mutuality—trust had the strongest ability to predict intent to continue volunteering. Further analysis revealed that trust could be enhanced by including teenagers in work groups throughout the organization, seeking their input on organizational decisions, and ensuring they receive formal and informal organizational communications.     

Adding the Organizational Perspective: How Organizations Shape Service Work Abroad

International volunteering is an increasingly popular form of service work, but the scholarship on international volunteering has done little to unpack the assertion that organizations shape the international volunteering experience. We demonstrate the utility of taking an organizational perspective by reporting on an ethnographic investigation of an international voluntary service episode in Southern India. In doing so, we attend to all of the parties common to international volunteering—the coordinating international volunteer service organization, the host NGOs, and the volunteers—and pay particular attention to the organizational dynamics that influence the service rendered. We find that the different actors in the service relationship understood successful international development efforts in different ways, which frustrated the productivity of the relationships in question. These mismatched goals were partly the legacy of a partnership-formation process that followed a cultural–historical logic rather than an instrumental one. The consequences were dissatisfaction on the part of volunteers and mixed benefits for the organizations with which they were matched. We suggest that these findings have relevance to other international volunteering sites.     

Social Constructs and Human Service: Managerial Sensemaking of Volunteer Motivation

Managers of volunteers in human service interpret their job and experiences through a cognitive construct grounded in past interactions and experiences. This construct—sensemaking—then guides the managers' perceptions of subsequent interactions with peers, volunteers, and supervisors. Volunteers similarly make sense of their surroundings through cognitive constructions grounded in their own experiences. Unfortunately, managers and volunteers do not always make sense of their surroundings in the same way. Research has demonstrated that supervisors and paid employees may not necessarily agree in their perceptions of such issues as, for example, employee motivation. Such differences can lead to disagreements about the meaning of behaviors and the design of reward systems, eventually compromising organizational performance. In this study, sensemaking of volunteer motivation was assessed from the manager's perspective and compared with a previous study of volunteers themselves. Differences in understanding such a primary question as why volunteers are present can reasonably be expected to have an impact on organizational effectiveness. Interestingly, the predicted outcome of a different sensemaking schema was not supported in either the understanding of motivation or in the relative importance assigned to altruism. Additional attributes of volunteer managers were also considered to determine if sensemaking is driven by environmental factors such as exposure to volunteers, tenure as a volunteer manager, or social roles associated with gender constructs. These additional attributes were not found to significantly affect the process of attribution of altruistic motives.     

Volunteer Motivation and Organizational Climate: Factors that Promote Satisfaction and Sustained Volunteerism in NPOs

Keeping volunteers committed and engaged is one of the toughest challenges for NPOs. The aim of the present study is to investigate the individual and organizational factors that promote volunteer satisfaction and, vice versa, foster intentions to quit. Two hundred forty-seven volunteers operating in four different NPOs were asked to fill in a self-report questionnaire that aimed to explore their motivations to volunteer, their degree of satisfaction and their perception of the organizational climate in the NPO they worked with, in addition to providing details of the activities which they were involved in. Results showed that the organizational climate mediates the relationship between autonomous motivation and satisfaction, as well as that between external motivation and intentions to leave an organization.     

How Do Volunteer’s Experiences of Organizational Facilitators Influence Their Satisfaction and Loyalty: An Example of Hospital Volunteers

The volunteer experience in organizational context has received far less scrutiny. Studies have indicated specific organizational settings, such as schedule flexibility, orientation and training, empowerment, social interaction, reflection, and rewards, and each has certain influences on their satisfaction and intention of remain. But we do not know their combined impact as organizational facilitators. This study focused on a sample of hospital volunteering, which occupies the largest service hours of volunteering work in Taiwan. We explored the experience of organizational facilitators that affect the satisfaction and loyalty of the volunteers from 868 valid questionnaires in a metropolitan hospital. The results showed that volunteers with more experiences on social interaction, reflections, and rewards, were more satisfied. In term of loyalty, volunteers with higher satisfaction showed higher willing to remain, recommend, accept services, and donate. Furthermore, because of flexible schedules and preferable rewards, the volunteers were more willing to remain; because of more training, higher social interaction, reflections, and rewards, the volunteers were more willing to recommend volunteering and accept services. Additionally, less flexible schedules, better empowerment, and more reflections as well as rewards influenced volunteers to be more motivated to donate. Implications of organizational efforts toward the hospital volunteer management are discussed.

     

Structures,Challenges, and Successes of Volunteer Programs Co‐managed by Nonprofit and Public Organizations

This article presents a mixed‐methods, multicase study and comparison of volunteer programs in US national parks that have evolved, in response to growth and fiscal pressures, to be co‐managed by national park staff and their nonprofit support partners. Findings detail why and how the expanded partnerships were formed; how they operate; challenges they face; ways in which they adhere to, stretch, and depart from theories of nonprofit management, collaboration, and program institutionalization; and the significant—even exponential—volunteer program growth that resulted in each case. These nonprofit?public volunteer program partnerships—at Acadia, Arches and ­Canyonlands, Cuyahoga Valley, Golden Gate, the National Mall, and Yosemite national park sites—employ many standard forms of interorganizational relations, even though in these cases the nonprofits give money to the government organization instead of the reverse. Their volunteer program and management structures also share similar elements because of coercive, normative, and mimetic pressures. At the same time, each volunteer program partnership is a distinct blend of collaboration and management practices because of the unique natural features, climate, needs, adjacent populations, and personalities of leaders at each site. The cases employ innovative strategies to substantially increase the number of staff who lead volunteer programs. Recommendations are offered for nonprofit management research and practice, and findings are instructive for organizations that utilize volunteers either as a single entity or as part of a collaboration.