Performance and Commitment: Issues in Management of Volunteers in Human Service Organizations

Volunteers are difficult to monitor because they are not liable to serious sanctions. We propose that we cannot learn about volunteer work from existing knowledge of paid employees. We then review the literature regarding volunteer commitment and performance. Based on a sample of 510 consistent volunteers in human service organizations, we assess three sets of variables (demographic, personality, and situational) to determine their significance in explaining variability in volunteer commitment and performance. The findings suggest that careful screening and use of symbolic rewards are significant in explaining variation in volunteer satisfaction, hours volunteered per month (commitment), and length of service (tenure). Disciplines Sociology Comments Copyright Haworth Press. Postprint version. Published in Journal of Social Service Research, Volume 24, Issue 3/4, 1998, pages 1-37. The authors assert their right to include this material in the ScholarlyCommons@Penn. This journal article is available at ScholarlyCommons: http://repository.upenn.edu/spp_papers/1 vol-perf.rv2 09/09/96 Performance and Commitment: Issues in management of volunteers in human service organizations Ram A. Cnaan University of Pennsylvania and Toni A. Cascio University of South Carolina Accepted for publication in: Journal of Social Service Research Mailing address: Ram A. Cnaan School of Social Work University of Pennsylvania 3701 Locust Walk Philadelphia, PA 19104 Tel: (215) 898-5523 Fax: (215) 573-2099 E-mail: [email protected] Running head: Performance and commitment... Performance and Commitment: Issues in management of volunteers in human service organizations Abstract Volunteers are difficult to monitor because they are not liable to serious sanctions. We propose that we cannot learn about volunteer work from existing knowledge of paid employees. We then review the literature regarding volunteer commitment and performance. Based on a sample of 510 consistent volunteers in human service organizations, we assess three sets of variables (demographic, personality, and situational) to determine their significance in explaining variability in volunteer commitment and performance. The findings suggest that careful screening and use of symbolic rewards are significant in explaining variation in volunteer satisfaction, hours volunteered per month (commitment), and length of service (tenure).Volunteers are difficult to monitor because they are not liable to serious sanctions. We propose that we cannot learn about volunteer work from existing knowledge of paid employees. We then review the literature regarding volunteer commitment and performance. Based on a sample of 510 consistent volunteers in human service organizations, we assess three sets of variables (demographic, personality, and situational) to determine their significance in explaining variability in volunteer commitment and performance. The findings suggest that careful screening and use of symbolic rewards are significant in explaining variation in volunteer satisfaction, hours volunteered per month (commitment), and length of service (tenure). Authors' note: This study was supported in part by a grant from the Indiana University Center on Philanthropy on behalf of the Lilly Endowment and other donors. The authors wish to thank Ugo Ascoli, University of Ancona, Italy; Jeffrey L. Brudney, University of Georgia; Lester M. Salamon, the Johns Hopkins University, and five anonymous reviewers of this journal, for helpful comments on earlier drafts of this manuscript. Performance and commitment...