“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.     

Volunteer Performance in the Light of Organizational Success: A Systematic Literature Review

Volunteers are crucial to the functioning of nonprofit organizations. Thus, researchers in various disciplines investigate volunteer performance, broadly defined as the value of individual volunteers’ activities for the accomplishment of organizational goals. Yet a comprehensive overview is still missing. To structure this fragmented literature, the systematic review presented herein covers the antecedents and dimensions of individual volunteer performance in the light of organizational success discussed in 75 academic articles. With an integrated framework of volunteer performance, derived from theoretical considerations of organizational success and the ability–motivation–opportunity framework, this article suggests a systematic classification of current scientific knowledge about the antecedents and dimensions of volunteer performance. In turn, this review offers two instructive research avenues helping to develop a holistic picture of the antecedents and dimensions of individual volunteer performance.     

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.     

The Social Economy Sector and the Welfare State in France: Toward a Takeover of the Market?

Employee commitment to an organization is accepted as an important concept in organization psychology. Yet commitment to a project on which an employee might be working is largely unknown. Additional complications arise when the project makes use of volunteers who donate their time for reasons other than pecuniary reward. The relationships between volunteers, organizations, and projects represent a gap in the field of organizational commitment knowledge. This paper identifies from literature the values that inform and influence volunteer commitment levels. Known antecedents of commitment are developed to present a model which encapsulates the variables that should be recognized as influencing volunteer commitment levels within a project context. The paper proposes a conceptual model of volunteer commitment to a project using three categories of commitment: emotional, purposeful and contextual, and concludes that the next phase of the study will test this model and develop a tool that will enable the measurement of volunteer commitment in a project context.     

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.     

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.     

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.”     

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.     

The Interactive Effects of Job Resources and Motivations to Volunteer Among a Sample of Italian Volunteers

The examination of organizational features of voluntary associations and their effects on the experiences of volunteers traditionally received less attention than other topics. This paper aimed to examine how different features as social and task support, information and appreciation affect volunteers’ experiences in terms of job satisfaction, organizational commitment, and intention to remain. Moreover, potential moderating effects by motivations to volunteer in relation to the abovementioned relations were tested. Through the use of a self-report questionnaire, distributed among 162 Italian voluntary associations (final sample of 1,445 volunteers), structural equation modeling (SEM), and moderated-SEM were carried out to verify hypothesized associations and potential moderations. Job resources were associated with the three outcomes, moreover many moderating effects by the values/understanding and career motivations were found. The results were commented on the basis of the current literature, and some practical suggestions were drawn about voluntary associations’ management and volunteers’ recruitment and selection.     

Attitude Differences Between Paid Workers and Volunteers

This study addresses the extension of research on paid employees to volunteer workers. Pearce (1978, 1993b) has postulated that job attitudes are substantially different between volunteers and paid employees, based on her work studying fourteen organizations employing either entirely volunteer workgroups or entirely paid workgroups. Another interpretation of her data would be that the organizational culture of such workgroups is different, not the individual job attitudes.     

Participation in formal and informal volunteering: Implications for volunteer recruitment

This study examines factors influencing “formal” volunteering (that is, to an organization) and “informal” volunteering (that is, volunteering carried out individually outside of an organizational context) and the relationship between these two activities. We hypothesize that formal and informal volunteering activities are positively interrelated but that they are shaped by different types of personal resources: involvement in social networks increases the likelihood of both types of volunteering, but human capital increases the likelihood of formal volunteering rather than informal. The bivariate probit regression results emanating from the Independent Sector's “Giving and Volunteering in the United States, 2001” survey are generally supportive of the hypotheses. The findings suggest that nonprofit and public organizations that involve volunteers consider the pool of informal volunteers as a fertile ground for recruitment and find ways to better utilize older Americans in formal volunteering. The results also suggest that volunteer recruitment through organizational membership may be an effective strategy.     

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.     

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.     

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.

     

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.     

Economic analysis of volunteers’ motivations—A cross-country study

While some core theories on volunteer labor supply decisions can be found in the economic literature, little efforts were made so far to operationalize these models and verify their implications in an empirical context. This paper aims at narrowing the research gap between the theoretical economic literature on volunteer motivations and the empirically observed motivations for volunteer labor supply. A common indicator ‘voluntary contributions by others’ linking the theories of public goods, private consumption and investment has been identified and examined on the basis of structural equation modeling and regression analysis. Using representative micro data collected for volunteers in Bangladesh, Ghana, Poland and South Korea, the paper finds that this indicator significantly influences an individual's motivation. Particularly, observed findings are in accordance with theoretical predictions.     

Volunteer Reliability in Nonprofit Organizations: A Theoretical Model

The reliability of volunteers is a major concern for many nonprofit organizations. To address this problem in more detail, we develop a theoretical model of volunteer reliability based on psychological contract theory. By taking this perspective as a starting point, we explore how individual volunteer characteristics, organizational factors, and sociological developments shape the exchange of inducements and contributions between volunteers and nonprofit organizations. We discuss how these factors can create tensions in the psychological contract and determine the extent to which volunteers behave reliably. As such, we develop a theoretical framework for addressing the reliability problem in volunteer management.     

In Search of Strategy

The canon of volunteer administration contends that adoption of specified practices separates effective from ineffective programs. Alternatively, structural contingency and strategic human resource management theories suggest that managers make adoption decisions based on how organizational circumstances dictate the applicability or efficacy of particular practices. We test propositions that universalistic adoption of “best practices,” contingent adoption of practices, and configurational adoption of bundles of practices are associated with program outcomes of recruitment ease, retention of volunteers, and the net benefits that volunteers bring to organizational operations. With all sets of tests garnering limited empirical support, we conclude that human resource practice in volunteer administration is loosely coupled with outcomes, but that some organizations do—and many more should—manage according to the singular context of their institutional and external environments.     

Patterns of Volunteer Activity in Professional Associations and Societies

Professional and occupational societies rely on volunteers for leadership, expertise, member recruitment, fundraising, legislative activity, and many other activities. Yet, volunteerism in the professions has received very little analytic attention. This study uses a large, international dataset produced by the American Society of Association Executives to examine patterns of volunteer activity in 23 professional associations and societies. A comparative analysis allows us to test widespread theories on the factors that predict volunteer activity in the particular context of professional life, where the motivations to volunteer may vary. Our findings suggest that some patterns of professional volunteer activity mirror what we can expect in a non-professional context (i.e., church or community volunteering), while other patterns are distinct. Our findings have particular relevance in understanding that a professional??s demographic characteristics and voluntary preferences are context-specific and must be accounted for in volunteer recruitment efforts.     

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.