Challenges in Volunteer Management: Factors of Undesirable Volunteer Behavior

This paper compares different perspectives on factors that drive volunteer behavior in a direction against an organization’s policies, principles, or desired preferences. Often volunteer managers are challenged to enforce rules and policies in response to volunteer’s disruptive behavior while being afraid to cause volunteer withdrawal. This exploratory research provides an analysis of undesirable volunteer behavior by using two different approaches. Through an examination of possible factors, which may influence and direct volunteer behavior, two key concepts — perceived organizational support and psychological contract fulfillment - were identified as those towards which organizations should direct their efforts to prevent withdrawal of volunteers. The implementation of good managerial practices in volunteer management is recognized as necessary. Therefore, a synthesized guide to direct organization\u27s efforts is suggested. Future research in this field should test a relationship between an increase of organizational investment in volunteer management capacity and perceived organizational support and psychological contract fulfillment