Three Essays on the Individual, Task-, and Context-related Factors Influencing the Organizational Behaviour of Volunteers

This dissertation examines how various individual, task-, and context-related factors influence important volunteering outcomes. Using data sourced from a large international aid and development agency in the United Kingdom, the three studies that follow explore the organizational behaviour of volunteers and highlight several initiatives that nonprofit organizations can introduce in order to motivate and retain their volunteers.In the first chapter, I present a moderated mediation model where I show that prosocially motivated volunteers dedicate more time to volunteering. The study results further show that volunteer engagement fully mediates the relationship between the value motive and volunteer time, and that the strength of the mediated effect varies as a function of volunteers' commitment to beneficiaries. These findings provide a new perspective on the link between volunteers' motivation and active participation in volunteer activities.The second chapter presents a framework for understanding the processes through which volunteers' perceived impact on beneficiaries influences their turnover intentions and time spent volunteering. The results show that volunteers who perceive that their work impacts beneficiaries (1) report lower intentions to leave their volunteer organization due to their commitment to that organization; and (2) dedicate more time to volunteering because they are committed to the beneficiaries of their work. These findings make a significant contribution to volunteering research by uncovering two different mechanisms that explain how the positive consequences of perceived impact on beneficiaries may unfold.Finally, the third chapter presents a mediation model that explains how an organizational support framework promotes organizational commitment in volunteers. Specifically, the results show that training and paid staff support promote higher levels of volunteers' organizational commitment due to increases in volunteers' perceptions of role clarity and self-efficacy. Importantly, this study illustrates how volunteer managers can use two management practices that are under their control to maximize the commitment of volunteers.Ph.D