Pride and respect in volunteers' organizational commitment

As volunteer organizations cannot rely on instrumental means to motivate their workers, we examine organizational commitment as a focal indicator of work motivation among volunteers. Based on a social identity analysis and previous work among paid employees, we argue that pride in the organization and respect from the organization predicts organizational commitment among volunteers. We further propose that among volunteers the perceived importance of volunteer work is an antecedent of pride, and that perceived support from the organization is an antecedent of respect. In this study among volunteer workers, Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) offers empirical support for our hypothesized model. In addition to the theoretical significance of developing a model that explains organizational commitment among volunteer workers, this study also has practical relevance, as it indicates that volunteer organizations might convey the importance of volunteer work and provide organizational support to induce pride and respect as a means of enhancing organizational commitment among their volunteers. Copyright © 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Volunteering for charity: pride, respect, and the commitment of volunteers

This study builds upon and extends the social-identity-based model of cooperation with the organization (T. R. Tyler, 1999; T. R. Tyler & S. L. Blader, 2000) to examine commitment and cooperative intent among fundraising volunteers. In Study 1, structural equation modeling indicated that pride and respect related to the intent to remain a volunteer with an organization, and that this relation was mediated primarily by normative organizational commitment. In Study 2, structural equation modeling indicated that the perceived importance of volunteer work was related to pride, that perceived organizational support related to the experience of respect, and that pride and respect mediated the relation between perceived importance and support on the one hand and organizational commitment on the other. Overall, the results suggest that volunteer organizations may do well to implement pride and respect in their volunteer policy, for instance to address the reliability problem (J. L. Pearce, 1993).     

The Relation between Selection Expectations,Perceptions and Organizational Attraction: A test of competing models

Little is known about how applicants' selection expectations and perceptions interplay in predicting applicant attraction outcomes (organizational attractiveness, job pursuit intention, and recommendation intention). In the present study, 340 entry‐level applicants for jobs in a large financial company provided information about their selection expectations before the procedure, and about their perceptions and attraction to the organization after the procedure. Regression analyses indicated that applicant perceptions, and in particular perceptions of warmth/respect, mediated the relationship between selection expectations and organizational attractiveness and job pursuit intention. No support was found for the moderating role of selection expectations in the perception–attraction relationship. Implications for practice and future research are discussed.     

When motivation is not enough: Effects of prosociality and organizational socialization in volunteers’ intention to continue volunteering

Retention of volunteers is a main issue for no‐profit organizations. In the present study, using a cross‐sectional design, determinants of volunteers’ intentions to continue their service were investigated in a sample of 116 volunteers at different Italian organizations (M_age = 42.32, SD_age = 15.91). Guided by the conceptual model of the volunteer process, we hypothesized that organizational socialization should mediate the link between prosocial personality and intention to continue volunteering. Results confirmed our prediction. Findings provide suggestions for organizations concerned about volunteers’ dropout that focus on ameliorating the socialization process of less prosocial volunteers in order to support their intention to remain in the organization.     

Organizational factors and mental health in community volunteers. The role of exposure,preparation, training,tasks assigned,and support

During disasters, aid organizations often respond using the resources of local volunteer members from the affected population who are not only inexperienced, but who additionally take on some of the more psychologically and physically difficult tasks in order to provide support for their community. Although not much empirical evidence exists to justify the claim, it is thought that preparation, training, and organizational support limit (or reduce) a volunteer's risk of developing later psychopathology. In this study, we examined the effects of preparation, training, and organizational support and assigned tasks on the mental health of 506 Indonesian Red Cross volunteers who participated in the response to a massive earthquake in Yogyakarta, Indonesia, in 2006. Controlling for exposure level, the volunteers were assessed for post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), anxiety, depression, and subjective health complaints (SHCs) 6, 12, and 18 months post-disaster. Results showed high levels of PTSD and SHCs up to 18 months post-disaster, while anxiety and depression levels remained in the normal range. Higher levels of exposure as well as certain tasks (e.g., provision of psychosocial support to beneficiaries, handling administration, or handing out food aid) made the volunteers more vulnerable. Sense of safety, expressed general need for support at 6 months, and a lack of perceived support from team leaders and the organization were also related to greater psychopathology at 18 months. The results highlight the importance of studying organizational factors. By incorporating these results into future volunteer management programs the negative effects of disaster work on volunteers can be ameliorated.     

Young People and Volunteerism: A Model of Sustained Volunteerism During the Transition to Adulthood

A model of sustained volunteerism in young people is proposed. The longitudinal study addresses the questions “Why do young people decide to continue to volunteer over an extended period of time?” There were 158 volunteers (82 female and 76 male). The volunteers completed measures of motivation to volunteer, integration, and satisfaction with the organization, merged effects due to voluntary service, social support, identity, and intention to volunteer on a first (Time 1) and a second research wave (Time 2). Results show that both dispositional and organizational variables are important in determining long-term volunteerism in young people and confirmed that role identity is the best predictor of intention to volunteer.     

Some suggestions for modifying the incremental influence of organizational members

The purpose of this series of three studies was to examine ways of modifying incremental influence. The first was an experimental laboratory study involving manipulation of interpersonal attraction via perceptions of similarity. Results from Study I strongly supported the hypothesis that referent power can be changed as a function of interpersonal attraction. Study II reports on an organizational simulation and provides further evidence for the linkage between interpersonal attraction and referent power. This study also tested the hypothesis that satisfaction covaries with self-perceived referent power. The data, while supporting the hypothesis, expanded the association of satisfaction to the other power bases, i.e., expert, reward, coercive, and legitimate. The final study examined power changes as a function of organization development interventions in a field setting. The findings show that not only was referent power enhanced, as hypothesized, but that other power bases also changed. In addition, hypotheses previously tested in Studies I and II received further confirmation in Study III. The overall pattern of results suggests that referent power can be altered by affecting the interpersonal attraction of group members. Implications for organizational intervention and practice are discussed, and some possible modifications to the theoretical framework of power are advanced.     

Web-based recruitment: effects of information, organizational brand, and attitudes toward a Web site on applicant attraction

Recruitment theory and research show that objective characteristics, subjective considerations, and critical contact send signals to prospective applicants about the organization and available opportunities. In the generating applicants phase of recruitment, critical contact may consist largely of interactions with recruitment sources (e.g., newspaper ads, job fairs, organization Web sites); however, research has yet to fully address how all 3 types of signaling mechanisms influence early job pursuit decisions in the context of organizational recruitment Web sites. Results based on data from 814 student participants searching actual organization Web sites support and extend signaling and brand equity theories by showing that job information (directly) and organization information (indirectly) are related to intentions to pursue employment when a priori perceptions of image are controlled. A priori organization image is related to pursuit intentions when subsequent information search is controlled, but organization familiarity is not, and attitudes about a recruitment source also influence attraction and partially mediate the effects of organization information. Theoretical and practical implications for recruitment are discussed.     

Person–job fit versus person–organization fit as predictors of organizational attraction and job acceptance intentions: A longitudinal study

This longitudinal field study examined the relationship between perceived person–job (PJ) and person–organization (PO) fit and organizational attraction, intentions to accept a job offer, and actual job offer decision. Data were collected from 193 graduate applicants prior to the selection process, during the selection process, at the end of the selection process, and after job acceptance decision. The findings showed support for the hypothesis that perceptions of PJ and PO fit influenced attraction at different stages of selection. The second hypothesis that the relationship between perceptions of PJ and PO fit and intentions to accept a job offer are mediated by organizational attraction was partially supported. Mid‐selection, the relationship between PJ fit perceptions and intentions to accept a job offer was mediated by organizational attraction; in contrast, at the end of the selection process, there was a direct relationship between PJ fit perceptions and intentions. PO fit perceptions were unrelated to intentions to accept a job offer. PJ and PO fit perceptions (before and during the selection process) were unrelated to actual job acceptance decision. These findings highlight the importance of ensuring that applicants have sufficient information about the job during the recruitment and selection process.     

Applicant Attraction: The role of recruiter function,work–life balance policies and career salience

This study examined the impact of salient identity, career path and recruiter functional area [internal human resource (HR) personnel vs external recruitment company] on perceptions of organizational attraction with a sample of young, inexperienced job seekers. Two hundred and one participants responded to a questionnaire and rated their attraction to two different job advertisements. The results partially supported the first hypothesis; applicants perceived a job opportunity in an organization that offered either a flexible career path or a dual career path as significantly more attractive than a position in an organization that offered a traditional career path. There was no support for the second hypothesis that identity salience would interact with career path. The results showed that recruiter functional area had no impact on attraction to the organization. It was concluded that flexible HR policies increase applicants' perceptions of organizational attraction during the initial stages of the recruitment process. Practical and research applications are discussed.     

Recruiting on Corporate Web Sites: Perceptions of fit and attraction

This study adopted a person–organization (P–O fit) framework to investigate job seeker attraction to organizations in the context of e‐recruitment. Recruitment information posted on real corporate web sites was presented to active job seekers (N=120) in order to better understand reactions to online recruiting. Participants examined one of three corporate web sites and completed questionnaires about their perceptions of web site usability, subjective P–O fit, and organizational attraction. In addition, occupational preference, internet experience, organization size and location were used as control variables. For female participants, perceptions of web site usability and subjective P–O fit were both positively related to attraction, with subjective P–O fit mediating the relationship between web site usability and organizational attraction. These relations were not found for male participants. Implications for future empirical research and recruitment practice were discussed.     

Social Identity and Social Exchange: Identification, Support, and Withdrawal From the Job

Integrating insights from the social exchange perspective and the social identity perspective, we propose that evaluations of support received from the organization and its representatives and organizational identification interact to predict withdrawal from the job. The relationship of support with withdrawal is proposed to be weaker the more strongly employees identify with the organization. This prediction was confirmed in 2 samples focusing on different operationalizations of support and withdrawal. Study 1 explored the interaction between organizational support and organizational identification in predicting turnover intention; Study 2 investigated the link between supervisor support and organizational identification and absenteeism. The present study thus yields evidence that may lay the groundwork for further integration of social exchange and social identity analyses of organizational behavior.     

Volunteers Versus Non-Volunteers��Which Group Cheats More, and Holds More lax Attitudes About Cheating?

Academic dishonesty has been a frequent topic of research and discussion. In this article, we examine the differences between student volunteers and student non-volunteers in terms of their attitudes towards academic dishonesty as well as their cheating behaviors. We found that student volunteers held more serious attitudes towards cheating and academic dishonesty than did student non-volunteers; however there were not many significant differences between student volunteers and student non-volunteers when it came to cheating behaviors. We finally provide some suggestions for future research in the topic of academic dishonesty.     

Racial Tolerance and Reactions to Diversity Information in Job Advertisements1

The present paper reports the results from two investigations that examined the degree to which racial tolerance influences Caucasians' attraction to organizations. In Study 1, 280 Caucasian job seekers rated the extent to which various organizational features would influence their interest in an organization. Findings suggested that (a) racial tolerance was related to the importance placed on organizational diversity, but not other factors (e.g., pay), and (b) that racial tolerance predicted the importance placed on organizational diversity above and beyond other relevant individual differences. Study 2 extended Study 1 by examining whether the diversity values expressed in job advertisements affect Caucasians' perceptions of organizational image and subsequent job pursuit intentions. The results of Study 2 indicated that racial tolerance was significantly related to organizational perceptions and pursuit intentions when strong diversity values were communicated in a job advertisement.     

On the importance of cognitive evaluation as a determinant of interpersonal attraction

Three studies examined a model of attraction in which the cognitive evaluation of the target individual was the primary determinant of interpersonal attraction. In Study 1, the cognitive evaluation of the target individual mediated the influence of attitude similarity on interpersonal attraction. In Study 2, a path analysis revealed significant indirect effects of (a) similarity on cognitive evaluation via the valence of information implied by attitudes and (b) the valence of information implied by attitudes on attraction via cognitive evaluation of the target. Study 3 provided empirical and theoretical support for the uniqueness of interpersonal attraction from cognitive evaluation. The implications of these data for existing attraction theory are discussed, and a new model of interpersonal attraction is described.     

Positive emotions in volunteerism

Volunteerism is a well consolidated social phenomenon in our society. However, its rapid growth in the last few years has complicated the integration of theoretical knowledge and its application in organizational settings. Taking into account that nowadays, one of the chief problems of volunteer organizations is sustained volunteer service, the object of this work is to verify, within the context of the psychosocial model of sustained volunteerism (Vecina, 2001), the type of relation between the experience of positive emotions in volunteers and their intention of remaining in the organization. This work was carried out on a sample of volunteers who had been in service for less than one year prior to this study.     

Social support in the short- and middle-term prediction of welfare volunteers' permanence

This work explores the significance of different types and sources of social support in the short- and middle-term prediction of volunteer permanence. Volunteers ( N = 1362) belonging to 109 different Spanish organizations were surveyed to gather social support data and other information related to factors traditionally associated with sustained volunteerism prediction. In spite of the fact that a relationship between social support and permanence was found, logistic regression analysis showed that social support variables did not appear to be relevant to make this kind of prediction at short term, because the only factors associated with volunteers' permanence in the multivariate model obtained were the volunteers' previous time in the organization, their intention of remaining in service, and their sex and religious attitudes. In contrast, at middle term, social support and, in particular, informational social support from other volunteers was significant, integrating the multivariate model with the other aforementioned factors, except for sex.     

Intrinsic need satisfaction and the job attitudes of volunteers versus employees working in a charitable volunteer organization

This research examines how intrinsic need satisfaction during volunteer work relates to the job attitudes of volunteers ( Deci & Ryan, 2000 ; Ryan & Deci, 2000 ). We distinguish between autonomy, competence, and relatedness needs, and predict these to have distinct effects on volunteers' job satisfaction and intent to remain with the volunteer organization. We then compare volunteer workers to a matched sample of paid employees (performing identical tasks within the same organization) in the way in which they derive their job satisfaction and intent to remain from satisfaction of these three types of needs. As predicted, path analysis (N=105) shows that satisfaction of autonomy needs and relatedness needs are positively related to the intent to remain a volunteer with the volunteer organization, and this relation is mediated by satisfaction with the volunteer job. The matched samples comparison further reveals that whereas the job satisfaction and intent to remain of paid employees is most clearly predicted by satisfaction of autonomy needs, satisfaction of relatedness needs is the primary predictor of job satisfaction and intent to remain among volunteers. Theoretical and practical implications, as well as avenues for further research, are discussed.     

Investigating Web‐Based Recruitment Sources: Employee testimonials vs word‐of‐mouse

Although the internet has dramatically changed recruitment practices, many web‐based recruitment sources have not yet been investigated. The present study examines the effects of web‐based employee testimonials and web‐based word‐of‐mouth (i.e., ‘word‐of‐mouse’) on organizational attraction. The source credibility framework is used to compare these company‐dependent and company‐independent recruitment sources. In a sample of potential applicants for a head nurse position, word‐of‐mouse was associated with higher organizational attractiveness than web‐based employee testimonials. However, potential applicants were more attracted when testimonials provided information about individual employees than about the organization. Conversely, word‐of‐mouse was associated with higher organizational attractiveness and more organizational pursuit behavior when it focused on the organization instead of on employees. Most of these effects were mediated by credibility perceptions.