Volunteers who remain for a long period of time and volunteers who quit during the first year: What s it going on?

Transcription

1 Paper presented at 2 nd International Conference on Community Psychology Lisbon, June 2008 Volunteers who remain for a long period of time and volunteers who quit during the first year: What s it going on? Being a volunteer for a long time produces something that we can call PSoC, understanding as a feeling of belonging and connection with a group of people who have shared concerns. We reached that conclusion studying what Penner call sustained volunteerism, and using other concepts as motivations, organizational commitment, and role identity. We think the way a phenomenon is studied determines the concepts to be used, but the reality remains the same and it can be read in different ways. So our research topic is volunteerism. We think it can be study as a form of social action, as a kind of social participation or as a helping behaviour. But, in any case, it has four salient attributes that define it: Volunteering is a planned action, it is a long-term behaviour, it occurs within an organizational context, and involves non-obligated helping (Penner, 2002). For us, sustained behaviour without obligation is one of the most important characteristics to be explained, and some research questions related to this are, for instance, the following: What are the essential ingredients to make people persist working for the common good in spite of difficulties, problems, deceptions, and so on?, What is what sustain their involvement over time? According to the three-stage model of volunteer s duration the variables which determine people decide to become volunteers are not necessarily the ones that lead them to continue a year later, and these may be very different from those that lead them to continue when five or ten years have passed. The very experience of volunteerism modifies volunteers initial motivations, their social network, even their self-concept. As Penner argues a dynamic component has to be taken into account if we want to have a full understanding of sustained volunteering (Penner, 2004; pag. 648). This model establishes that in the initial stage of volunteering, satisfaction is the most important variable. Volunteers can obtain satisfaction from the fulfilment of their motivations, as the functional analysis of volunteers motivations proposed by Snyder and his team predicts, but also from some characteristics of the tasks they perform and from organizational management aspects. Nevertheless to predict longer duration of service and greater involvement at the 2nd stage, when unexpected costs become evident, the fundamental variable would be organizational commitment, that is according to Brickman, what makes a person assume or continue a course of action when difficulties or positive alternatives would lead him or her to give it up

2 (Brickman, 1987). Finally, the role identity as a volunteer would be the best explanation for sustained volunteerism at the 3th stage. When the volunteer role becomes part of the personal identity, behaviours are produced and maintained independently of variables such as social norms. That is what the role identity model of Piliavin and colleagues maintains. Taking into account this wide framework and in order to try to answer the research questions of this study, we compared two extreme groups: the first one was made up of those who quit in their first year and the second one was made up of those who remain after seven years in big set of variables, among them the variables of the three-stage model of volunteer s duration. We also carried out a discriminant analysis to determine which variables discriminate between both groups. We expected, according to the model, the group conformed by those who remain have higher scores in all these variables because in order to continue during such a long time it is necessary to be highly satisfied, to feel commitment with the organization, and to see themselves as volunteers. These variables should be significant predictors. METHODOLOGY Participants Participants were 291 volunteers in social work organizations. We conformed 2 groups made up of: 110 volunteers who quit the organization during the first year 181 volunteers who remain after seven years Instruments We measured the following variables: - Sociodemographic characteristics: age, sex, education, days and hours per week as a volunteer, and time to arrive to the organization. - Motivations (Clary, Snyder, et al., 1998; adapted by Dávila, 2003) - Satisfaction of those motivations (Vecina & Chacón, 2008 in press) - Satisfaction with different aspects of the organizational management (Vecina & Chacón, 2008 in press) - Characteristics of the tasks they perform (Vecina & Chacón, 2008 in press) - Organizational commitment (Mowday, Steers & Porter, 1979; adapted by Dávila & Chacón, 2003) - Role identity as a volunteer (Grube & Piliavin, 2000) - Emotional exhaustion (Maslach & Jackson, 1986) Procedure The independent variables were all assessed at the same time. Twelve months after, we carried out a telephone follow-up on actual duration of service, in which volunteers were asked whether or not they were still with the organization and, if not, the date that they left. We selected those who stayed after the follow-up and had been more than six years in the organization, and those who quitted and had been in total less than one year Data analysis Analysis of the variance to study the differences between both groups

3 Discriminat analysis to study which variables best predict whether volunteers are likely to stay or to quit. (Forward stepwise analysis) RESULTS We can see significant differences in all the sociodemographic variables, except in education. It was very high in both groups. In fact, more than 50% of them had university education. Volunteers who have stayed for more than seven years have the following characteristics: They are older (40 years old approximately). They devote more days and more hours per week to volunteer (3 days per week and 11 hours per week) They spend less time to arrive to the organization (25 minutes approximately). Finally, there are as many men as women in this group. That is important because the most studies find more women than men in volunteering, and that seems to be true only at the beginning. Regarding the importance of the motivations, there aren t significant differences in values and protective motivations. Both groups consider them the most and almost the less important motivation respectably. These results are similar to those found in other many studies. At least, we would say that volunteers see themselves mainly motivated by values and less motivated by protective. We can see significant differences in the rest of them. Volunteers who stay for a long period of time give more importance to social and enhancement motivations and volunteer who quit give more importance to career and understanding motivations. We think that the benefices from career and understanding motivations can be obtain in a short time, whereas the benefices from social and enhancement motivations are obtained over time. That can explain the differences between both groups because those who quit can obtain what is important for them (knowledge and professional skills) sooner than those who stay (they are looking for friends and well-being). Regarding the fulfifment of the motivations, there are significant differences in values, understanding, and career. Volunteers who stay are more satisfied with the way their values can be expressed. However volunteers who quit are more satisfied with the way they can learn and improve their professional skills. As we said, it takes less time to satisfy understanding and career motivations than values motivation, so they could quit highly satisfied with these motivations because they are not as satisfied as they expected in their most important motivation of values. If we analyze in deep how much satisfied the important motivations are in both groups, we can see that volunteers who remain after seven years have a better fulfilment. That is what the Functional approach of volunteers motivations predicts: people will remain as volunteers insofar as they satisfy the motivations that are relevant for them. And that is what the three-stage model of volunteer s duration also predicts: volunteers who have not a positive balance in terms of satisfaction won t move forward to the 2 nd stage.

4 Regarding satisfaction with the organizational management, there are not significant differences in aspects that are important just when volunteers join to the organization. For example, initial information, conditions to be volunteer and fitness between tasks and volunteers preferences, but there are significant differences in those aspects that can be important over time. Volunteers who stay seem to be more satisfied with the training the organization provides, with their level of participation in the making decision process and with their friendships in the organization. We can see also significant differences in some characteristic of the tasks they perform. Volunteers who remain think the tasks they perform are more different, less routine, better defined, useful for others, and part of a process whose aims they know. The tasks also allow them to obtain feedback, to be autonomous, and to work with other people, and finally the tasks were chosen by themselves. Finally, there are significant differences in 1. Organizational commitment. 2. Role identity as volunteers. 3. Emotional exhaustion Volunteers who remain seem to feel more commitment and they have developed a stronger identity as volunteers over time. They also feel more emotional exhaustion, something logical after 7 years, but it is not enough to quit, may be because of their high commitment and their strong role as volunteers. All these differences support the predictions of the three-stage model of volunteer s duration. In order to determine the variables that discriminate between both groups, we carried out a discriminant analysis. We included the measures displayed significant differences in the analysis of the variance and obtained a discriminant function with an eigenvalue of.576. The Wilks lambda value was significant: 0.635; χ2(6)= ; p=.000), although we have to say that about 63% of the variance is not explained by group differences. The canonical correlation was That means that about 36% of the variability of the scores is accounted for by differences among the two groups. Considering the structure matrix, we could classify volunteers who remain after 7 years and volunteers who quit in a year on the basis of 6 variables. The variables which best classify our participants were: organizational commitment, role identity, emotional exhaustion, satisfaction with the friendship in the organization, and fulfilment of the values and understanding motivations. These results were expected according to the assumptions of the three-stage model because its variables seem to have predictive capacity to distinguish between both groups. In the classification matrix, we saw that 79.1% of cases were classified correctly. Especifically, 88% of cases were correctly classified in the group of the stayers and 65% of the cases in the group of quitters.

5 ORG.COMMITMENT RO LE IDENTITY EMOTIONA L EXHA USTION S.FRIENSHIPS S.VA LUES S.UNDERSTA NDING 0 QUITTERS STAYERS Correctly clasified 65,1 Correctly clasified 87,9 Total correctly clasified 79,1 CONCLUSIONS Analysed in detail these results it is possible to conclude that: - Volunteers who remain after seven years are more involved in their organizations. They devote more days and more hours per week to volunteer, may be because they spend less time to arrive to the organization. - Values motivation is equally important in both groups, but volunteers who remain are much more satisfied with the way they can express their values. - Social motivation is more important for those who remain. In addition to this, they value highly those tasks which require other volunteers cooperation. - They feel helpful and more confident about their efficacy to perform their tasks, because the tasks are meaningful, give them feedback, are well defined, and could be chosen by themselves. - They have a strong emotional link with the organization, they feel it is the best place to work, they do what the organization expects, they would accept whatever job,. - They have integrated the volunteer role into their self-concept and see themselves as volunteers. - They also feel a higher level of emotional exhaustion, something logical after seven years, but they persist as we expected probably because of their organizational commitment and their role as volunteers. - Finally, we can conclude from the discriminat analysis that in order to classify volunteers in one of the two group, the following variables seem to have discrimnat capacity: o organizational commitment o role identity o emotional exhaustion o satisfaction with the friendships in the organization, o satisfaction of the values motivation o less satisfaction of the understanding motivation.

6 If we had to summarize all these conclusions to answer why people continue investing their time, effort, money, etc., without obligation neither economic reward and in spite of many costs and difficulties, we would say that, according to our framework, It is because of their high level of satisfaction at the first stage, because of their high organizational commitment that allow them to overcome the unexpected costs and move forward to the second one, and finally because of their strong role identity as volunteers that make them do what they think is coherent with their self-concept. But if we look our results from a different framework, it is also possible to conclude that it is the social network they have woven over time in the organization what tie them up, because sharing with people their own values, expectations, feelings and behaviours is highly rewarding. These feelings of connection and attachment with people in the organization can be described as psychological sense of community, for us one important outcome of being volunteer for a long time that may be reinforce the intention to remain. References Brickman, P. (1987). Commitment, Conflict, and Caring. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall. Clary, E., & Snyder, M. (1991). A funtional analysis of altruism and prosocial behavior:the case of vounteerism. In M. S. Clark (Ed.), Prosocial Behavior. Review of Personality and Social Psychology (Vol. 12, pp ). London: Sage. Clary, E., Snyder, M., Ridge, R. D., Copeland, J., Stukas, A. A., Haugen, J., et al. (1998). Understanding and assessing the motivations of volunteers: A functional approach. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 74(6), Dávila, M. C., & Chacón, F. (2003). Adaptación de instrumentos para la evaluación de aspectos organizacionales en ONG's. Revista de Psicología del Trabajo y de las Organizaciones, 19(2), Grube, J. A., & Piliavin, J. A. (2000). Role identity, organizational experiences and volunteer performance. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 26(9), Maslach, C., & Jackson, S. E. (1986). Maslach Burnout Inventory. Palo Alto, CA: Consulting Psychologists Press. Montero, M. (2004). Introducción a la Psicología Comunitaria. Buenos Aires: Paidós. Mowday, R. T., Steers, R. M., & Porter, L. W. (1979). The measurement of organizational commitment. Journal of Vocational Behavior, 14, Omoto, A. M. (2005). Processes of Community Change and Social Action. Nahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. Omoto, A. M., & Snyder, M. (2002). Considerations of community: The context and process of volunteerism. American Behavioral Scientist, 45, Penner, L. A. (2002). Dispositional and organizational influences on sustained volunteerism: An interactionist perspective. Journal of Social Issues, 58(3),

7 Penner, L. A., Dovidio, J. F., Piliavin, J. A., & Schroeder, D. A. (2005). Prosocial behavior: A multilevel approach. Annual Review of Psychology, 56, Vecina, M. L., & Chacón, F. (2005). Positive Emotions in Volunteerism. The Spanish Journal of Psychology, 8(1), Vecina, M.L., & Chacón, F. (2008 in press). El concepto de satisfación en el voluntariado: análisis de su estructura interna y de su relación con la permanencia en las organizaciones. Psicothema

8 TABLA 1 Volunteers who quit in year Volunteers who stay after 7 years Sociodemographic characteristics Med. S.D. Med. S.D. Age Days/week Hours/week Time to arrive (minutes) TABLA 2 Sociodemographic characteristics χ2 (gl) p Coeficiente contingencia Sex (1) Education (university/no university) 1.85 (1) t p Tabla 3 Volunteers quit in year who Volunteers who stay after 7 years Motivations (scale 1-7) Med. S.D. Med. S.D. F p 1. Values Understanding Social Career Enhancement Protective Satisfaction of those Motivations (scale 1-7) 1. Values Understanding Social Career Enhancement Protective Satisfaction management (scale Med. S.D. Med. S.D. F p 1-7) 1. Information initial Conditions to be volunteer 3. Fit between tasks and preferentes 4. Training Participation in making decisions 6. Friend relationships Caracteristics of tasks (scale 1-10) Organizacional commitment (scale 1-7) Role Identity (scale 1-10) Emotional exhaustion (scale 1-5)