Volunteering research has long focused on the characteristics of volunteers and their motivations to highlight what drives them to dedicate their free time to good causes. More recently, researchers have turned their attention toward exploring the management practices that nonprofit organizations can implement to promote volunteers’ motivations and thereby improve their attitudes and performance. Our study contributes to this research by analyzing the extent to which combinations of human resource practices can be leveraged to influence volunteers’ level of engagement in their role. Survey results from 256 volunteers in five different nonprofit organizations in the Netherlands support our hypothesized model. Specifically, high-performance human resource practices are related positively to volunteer engagement, and volunteers’ organizational identification and psychological empowerment can account for a significant portion of variance in this relationship. Implications for research and the professional management of volunteers are discussed.
The management of volunteers – What can human resources do? A review and research agenda
There is an increasing interest from scholars and practitioners in understanding how non-profit organizations can design and implement human resources (HR) practices to enhance desirable volunteer attitudes and behaviors. This paper presents a comprehensive overview of existing studies on the relationship between HR practices and volunteering outcomes. We use the ability-motivation-opportunity model as a guiding…