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.     

Bittersweet and Paradoxical

The American Red Cross is the most active nonprofit organization involved in disaster planning and response in the United States. The organization deployed nearly 50,000 volunteers to provide essential support to victims of some 125,000 domestic disasters, including home fires, hurricanes, wildfires, and floods, in a recent two‐year period. This study asks how American Red Cross disaster response volunteer experiences function to cultivate satisfaction and, at the other end of the spectrum, the kind of dissatisfaction that leads people to quit; it pays particular attention to ways in which volunteer management shapes dissatisfaction and fatigue because of implications for volunteer retention. Paradoxically, the Red Cross facilitates the highly satisfying act of helping victims, but volunteers feel dissatisfied when management practices get in the way of helping. The study suggests voluntary organizations that rely on skilled, long‐term volunteers to deliver services should evaluate and strengthen their communication strategies, recognition practices, and support systems for volunteers in distress.     

Problems recruiting volunteers: Nature versus nurture

In a national study of public charities in the United States, we find that some organizations experience little difficulty recruiting volunteers while others report substantial problems. We study which organizations are more likely to report recruitment problems, separating the underlying forces for those problems into two camps. One, which we label “nature,” represents organizational conditions that cannot readily be overcome by a management response. The other, which we label “nurture,” represents organizational conditions that volunteer resource managers and other members of the top management team can directly influence as they seek to make their organization more inviting to prospective volunteers. We find some support for both camps, concluding that managers must be prepared to work with both immutable and malleable conditions when devising strategies for recruiting volunteers whose schedule and skills fit the organization's needs.     

Distributive Justice for Volunteers

Volunteer organizations continue to suffer from turnover; the current volunteer rate is the lowest since 2002. Distributive justice, satisfaction, and extrinsic outcome importance were examined as influences of volunteer intention to quit. Survey results from 294 volunteers revealed that those who perceived less than fair distribution of extrinsic outcomes experienced heightened intention to quit compared to those who perceived fair distribution. Overall satisfaction partially mediated this relationship. We explored the potential moderating role of volunteers’ assessment of the importance of extrinsic outcomes on the overall mediated relationship.     

为了男女平等理想

Gender equality is closely related to the customs and social development of a country. Given the different cultures between East and West, gender issues vary from one nation to another. The advancement of gender equality, whether in developed or developing countries, also differs from one nation to another.     

Virtual Volunteering: Online Volunteers Providing Assistance to Human Service Agencies

SUMMARY

A growing number of agencies involve volunteers via home or work computers and the Internet. The Virtual Volunteering Project [http://www.serviceleader.org/vv/] has researched and worked with more than 100 organizations involving online volunteers to document the benefits of online service for agencies, volunteers and audiences served, and to disseminate ways agencies can incorporate virtual volunteering into their organizations. This paper describes the Virtual Volunteering Project and summarizes data from a variety of sources that highlight the activities of agencies and volunteers engaged in virtual volunteering and the factors associated with success in virtual volunteering programs.     

In Search of Resiliency in Families

Abstract

This study explores the process of relationship development in marriages that foster personal and relationship growth. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with twelve individuals/six couples in marriages that promote individual and relationship growth. Grounded theory methodology was employed and “Empowering Connections” emerged as the core theme. Empowering connections are characterised by a process of growth captured by the following categories: “Connecting Emotionally,” “Loving Respectfully,” “Expanding One's Self,” and “Experiencing Empowering Connections.” The results of the study contribute to the understanding of marriage and provide insight to premarital couples, people who want to improve their marriage, and to therapists working with couples.     

In Search of Social Structure*

Frederick L. Bates' career has been characterized by a single quest, the creation of an internally consistent theoretical model through which sociologists can conceptualize and analyze social structure from the simplest group structures to complex networks of groups and organizations. The basic elements of this model of social structure are examined and the model's theoretical foundations, assumptions and applications are discussed. Included are perspectives on structural modeling, self- referential systems theory and the concepts of social structure, social organization, culture, norms, and society as a non-system.     

In Search of a Useable Past

The "voice of the people," the root meaning of public opinion,is an old idea. Early political thinkers struggled to definethe proper role of public opinion in government. The confluenceof developments in commercial opinion polling and social psychologicalstudies of attitudes in the 1930s gave the concept new meaning.An historical perspective is helpful in understanding how publicopinion research has progressed; it also allows us to identifyonce vital but now neglected issues. A concern with professionalstandards in opinion research links modern researchers withthe moral imperative contained in the earliest idea of publicopinion.     

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.”     

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.     

Uncharted Waters: Exploring the Relationship between Strategy Processes and Management Control Systems in the Nonprofit Sector

The way in which strategy and management control combine has been the subject of much research attention, but rarely, within a nonprofit context. This is surprising, not only because of the considerable social and economic impact of this sector, but also in view of the apparent trend toward sectoral convergence in many structural and processual respects, including strategic behaviors and approaches to control. In this article, we explore the extent to which the relationship between management control and strategy, as found in for‐profit organizations, may prevail within a nonprofit context. Based on questionnaire responses from 182 Australian nonprofit organizations, we find that this relationship in nonprofit organizations is similar to that in for‐profit organizations, thereby lending support to the “convergence” argument. We reflect on the reasons for these similarities and advance an agenda for further research in this area.     

Episodic Volunteering at a Religious Megaevent

In preparation for Pope Francis's visit to Philadelphia and the 2015 World Meeting of Families, organizers looked for thousands of volunteers to help carry out these events. This is common for many one‐time and episodic events, such as large sporting events (from marathons to Special Olympics), arts and cultural events (such as festivals and concerts), and fundraising events. After the pope's visit, volunteers were asked to respond to a questionnaire about their experiences and the volunteer management of the event; 2,408 responded (34.4 percent). Data on motivation, who volunteered, recruitment, training, assignment, supervision, communication, satisfaction, and suggestions for improvement were elicited. We focused on episodic volunteering at a religious event and on a broad spectrum of issues pertaining to management of episodic volunteers. Our findings add to the knowledge regarding volunteer management and also add to conceptual understanding of the distinction between ongoing and episodic volunteers.     

The Search for Religious Beliefs In Sufferings

Suffering is a negative word personally.People avoid agony while they look for happiness.Nevertheless,miseries cannot vanish thoroughly as we are alive in the world.Sufferings bring us direct trauma in terms of mind and body.This is a dilemma humankind experience since immemorial.Therefore,we seek relief from spiritual aspect.There are two kind of religious beliefs I would like to explain,that are Christianity and Buddhism.     

The Emerging Consciousness of Japanese Voluntarism

Abstract  This paper examines Japanese voluntarism from a historical perspective, through which it can be seen that it is not volunteerism and volunteer activity per se which is emerging in contemporary Japanese society, but instead an emerging consciousness of volunteerism and an associated emerging terminology of volunteerism. This emerging consciousness is in part a function of social evolution, and in part due to an administrative generated movement to generate a volunteer spirit in Japan, the borantiu-katsudo movement. This emerging consciousness has on the one hand benefitted existing categories of volunteerism by increasing their visibility and expanding their dimensional character and relevance. On the other hand, this emerging consciousness has also generated some unforeseen forms of contemporary volunteerism.     

“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.