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There are different types of non-profit organisations (NPOs) characterised by the different extents of their volunteer management practices. In addition, the use of volunteer work measurement tools is infrequent among these organisations, especially in contexts where NPOs face no obligations or standard practices in this area, such as in Italy. The literature has stated that volunteer programmes and activities are effective if a NPO is highly structured and employs good volunteer management practices and that the measurement of volunteer work may increase the effectiveness of such programmes; this is frequent, for instance, in US NPOs. However, what would occur if a NPO introduces the measurement of volunteer work in a context where volunteer management is not highly structured, such as in Italy?

To study this topic, we adopt the quasi-experimental approach to examine six Italian voluntary organisations (VOs) based in Abruzzo. The treatment consists of the gradual introduction of volunteer work measurement tools to the managers and volunteers who work for the selected organisations, as well as the observation of the early impact of this treatment on the effectiveness of volunteer programmes and activities. This paper aims to discuss the issue of the implementation of measurement tools for effectively managing volunteer services in two different contexts: Italian and US NPOs.

Our findings have practical implications, especially with regard to the management of relatively unstructured volunteer organisations that would like to introduce new tools of measurement but do not have the necessary skills to do so. We also wish to show in this work how some organisations are implementing these tools and highlight the initial effects produced by this implementation process.

This study is innovative, particularly for contexts in which there are no obligations and customs with regard to the measurement of volunteer work.

The purpose of this paper is to examine a range of issues and methods in relation to measuring the impact of volunteer labour on the design and delivery of all types of library services. With the increasing use of volunteers to deliver library and information services in all sectors, managers need to assess their effectiveness and evaluate the impact of their use in relation to operational service design and delivery, and on the development of the profession and professional practice as a whole. Presented here is an initial scoping study, outlining a range of issues, methods and challenges for more detailed future investigation.

A number of methodological challenges and perspectives are identifiable. Contemporary libraries exhibit increasing similarities with Third Sector organisations, namely a complex stakeholder community, and increasing use of volunteers to supplement or replace services delivered by professional staff. Therefore, a starting point for the research is a systematic review and analysis of the methodologies developed by the Third Sector Research Centre, and those studies in the ESRC contemporary Developing Impact Evaluation strand. As a rich picture is required, both quantitative and qualitative approaches are necessary, with the overall study adopting a mixed methods approach.

This paper reports the findings of the preliminary documentary analysis, literature review and scoping aspects of a large-scale study.

Research undertaken to date (June 2014) has failed to identify any published systematic review and examination of these issues.

The purpose of this paper is to intend as a contribution to the performance evaluation of Third Sector organisations (TSOs). The Italian experience on the development and adoption of harmonised indicators is considered here as an example of problems and possible solutions.

Preliminary analysis shows that, in the Italian situation, two main gaps exist. The first one relates to the incomplete statistical information on the magnitude and performance of TSOs; the second is related to the lack of a set of harmonised indicators. To address these problems, two initiatives have been recently set up in Italy. On the one hand, the newly presented “National Strategy on Social Corporate Responsibility – 2012-2014” has been oriented to fill the statistical gap, by extending the compilation of socio-economic and environmental accounts to TSOs; on the other hand, a joint initiative of the Italian Statistical Institute and the CSR Manager Network Italia towards the harmonisation of the “Global Reporting Initiatives-quantitative performance indicators” and the standards of the Italian statistical system. Within the second initiative, a specific sub-set of performance indicators for TSOs is proposed and presented in this paper.

The Italian experiences reported here, together with the set of proposed indicators, can be used to improve data collection and to move towards a common framework for performance evaluation in the TSOs.

The main contribution of the proposed set of indicators is to: first, provide standard definitions and clear calculation methods; second, define quantitative measurements allowing for aggregation; and third, promote data collection and performance evaluation in a context, as the Italian one, where statistical information for TSOs is largely incomplete.

The literature considers three main models of nonprofit sector structure and development: liberal, welfare partnership, and social democratic. This study analyzes the cases of Italian and Canadian nonprofit organizations (NPOs) that operate in two third-sector contexts, widely known as “hybrids.” In particular, we aim to verify whether some features of governance, leadership, and volunteer participation have impacts on the financial performances of selected Italian and Canadian NPOs.

Differences between the two studied nonprofit contexts influenced the sampling, the data collection, and the methods of analysis. Data on Italian and Canadian NPOs are analyzed both together and separately, using multiple regression models. Revenues, fund-raising and other grants from the general public, and program expenses are used as measurements of financial performance.

Our analysis demonstrates that some board characteristics, as well as volunteer participation and representation on the board, have impacts on the nonprofit financial performance. The characteristics of the CEO studied in this work are not significantly associated with the level of financial performance.

This study has several important implications for research on board characteristics, CEO characteristics and volunteer management and governance, as well as implications for practitioners. The limitations of this study are related mostly to the different methods used for sampling NPOs and collecting data in the two different country contexts due to the different level of availability of data.

The past literature has not adequately examined the relationships among the board and CEO characteristics, the role of volunteers in governance and financial performance.

The purpose of this paper is to examine relationships among job demands, job resources, burnout, organizational commitment, and staff turnover intentions in a volunteer workforce setting.

To test empirically the positive and negative forces on the burnout – commitment – turnover relationship, this study uses 190 questionnaires collected from museum volunteers who also hold paid service jobs. The data were analysed using structural equation modelling.

Consistent with previous studies, both job demands and job resources have significant impacts on burnout. Job resources have positive significant impact on organizational commitment. Both burnout and organizational commitment have significant impacts on volunteers’ turnover intentions.

An integrated understanding would require different theoretical approaches to volunteering in various settings to determine cross-influences. Moderator analyses might clarify the predictability of job demands and resources. A multilevel research design would provide further insights.

To retain their volunteer workforce, firms should grant volunteers sufficient autonomy and allow them to determine their work processes, which not only reduces burnout but also satisfies psychological control needs. Constructive feedback from colleagues offers better organizational support to volunteers.

This study identifies and empirically tests key indicators of job demands and job resources for volunteers who also hold paid jobs. It helps explain inconsistent reports of the burnout – organizational commitment link by raising the possibility that it is context specific rather than generic.

Towns and cities across Canada face rapidly changing economic circumstances and many are turning to a variety of strategies, including tourism, to provide stability in their communities. Community Economic Development (CED) has become an accepted form of economic development, with recognition that such planning benefits from a more holistic approach and community participation. However, much of why particular strategies are chosen, what process the community undertakes to implement those choices and how success is measured is not fully understood. Furthermore, CED lacks a developed theoretical basis from which to examine these questions. By investigating communities that have chosen to develop their tourism potential through the use of murals, these various themes can be explored. There are three purposes to this research: (1) to acquire an understanding of the “how” and the “why” behind the adoption and diffusion of mural-based tourism as a CED strategy in rural communities; (2) to contribute to the emerging theory of CED by linking together theories of rural geography, rural change and sustainability, and rural tourism; and (3) to contribute to the development of a framework for evaluating the potential and success of tourism development within a CED process.

Two levels of data collection and analysis were employed in this research. Initially, a survey of Canadian provincial tourism guides was conducted to determine the number of communities in Canada that market themselves as having a mural-based tourism attraction (N=32). A survey was sent to these communities, resulting in 31 responses suitable for descriptive statistical analysis, using Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS). A case study analysis of the 6 Saskatchewan communities was conducted through in-depth, in person interviews with 40 participants. These interviews were subsequently analyzed utilizing a combined Grounded Theory (GT) and Content Analysis approach.

The surveys indicated that mural development spread within a relatively short time period across Canada from Chemainus, British Columbia. Although tourism is often the reason behind mural development, increasing community spirit and beautification were also cited. This research demonstrates that the reasons this choice is made and the successful outcome of that choice is often dependent upon factors related to community size, proximity to larger populations and the economic (re)stability of existing industry. Analysis also determined that theories of institutional thickness, governance, embeddedness and conceptualizations of leadership provide a body of literature that offers an opportunity to theorize the process and outcomes of CED in rural places while at the same time aiding our understanding of the relationship between tourism and its possible contribution to rural sustainability within a Canadian context. Finally, this research revealed that both the CED process undertaken and the measurement of success are dependent upon the desired outcomes of mural development. Furthermore, particular attributes of rural places play a critical role in how CED is understood, defined and carried out, and how successes, both tangible and intangible, are measured.

The purpose of this paper is to advance ongoing debates on the organizational impact of wider public sector reform in the field of organizational change management by presenting an analysis the regionalization of the fire service in the Netherlands. How regionalization has impacted the work floor of local fire stations, where the workplace majority comprises volunteers, requires further empirical investigation.

The authors apply an interpretive approach and qualitative methodology to study how volunteer firefighters and public management make sense of public reform and the ensuing organizational change.

Findings indicate that while the fire service has professionalized, notable tensions have emerged between public management and volunteers, the regional and local level of fire service and between professionalism and volunteerism which are problematised in the paper.

The originality of the paper is found in the insight it provides in the sensemaking of volunteer firefighters and public managers of diverse of change regions and fire stations during the regionalization process by applying an emergent perspective to change.

Volunteers are often crucial components to many nonprofit organizations as their financial resources continue to decline. Volunteer activities in the nonprofit sector provide a broad range of services from administrative support (24%) such as fundraising and office work to providing social service and care (20%) such as preparing and delivering food, teaching or counseling. The purpose of this study was to examine the influences of important factors in creating volunteers’ engagement with nonprofit organizations.

The population of the proposed survey was volunteers of a faith-based nonprofit organization in the Northeast region of United States. The organization is a synod that oversees more than 1,000 Presbyterian churches over eight states in the Northeast region of the United States. The primary focus of its mission is prison ministry that aims to help imprisoned immigrants and their families with legal and other necessary supports. With help from the organization’s management, the researcher sent out an online survey to 1,973 eligible volunteers, with response rate of 29.90 percent (AAPOR RR1). This resulted in a total sample size of 590 volunteers who completed the survey.

This study found that, when the level of identification was higher, the influence of satisfaction on affective commitment became greater. Therefore, for this nonprofit organization that heavily relies on volunteer support, it is important to establish and maintain a mutually agreeable identification with its volunteers to foster volunteer engagement. Volunteer-organization identification seemed particularly crucial for volunteers to be empowered and to become actively involved with the case organization. Also, when individual volunteers identified themselves with the nonprofit organization, there was a greater influence of satisfaction with the organization on their engagement in their voluntary work.

This study findings suggest that for a nonprofit organization that heavily relies on volunteer support, it is important to establish and maintain a mutually agreeable identification with its volunteers to foster volunteer engagement. Volunteer-organization identification seemed particularly crucial for volunteers to be empowered and to become actively involved with the case organization. Due to the exploratory nature of the study with the survey data from a single nonprofit organization, the application of the research findings beyond the scope of this study should be made cautiously. Especially, given various kinds of nonprofit organizations, the specific context of this study’s nonprofit organization (i.e., faith-based charity organization) would limit the general application of research findings.

This study also suggests a sound measure of volunteer engagement. For management of volunteer engagement, the suggested measurement system can be helpful for management of nonprofit organizations and further research in nonprofit public relations.

Extra-role behaviors and organizational citizenship behaviors have been identified as manifest characteristics of both employee and customer engagement and this link has yet to be explored in the nonprofit sector for volunteering and cause advocating behaviors. The current study adopts engagement as an important motivational variable to understand volunteer motivations and suggests satisfaction with nonprofit organization management and volunteer-organization identification as important antecedents to volunteer engagement.

This paper responds to recent calls for deeper scrutiny of the institutional contexts of citizen science. In the last few years, at least two dozen civil society organizations in New York and Pennsylvania have begun monitoring the watershed impacts of unconventional natural gas drilling, also known as “fracking.” This study examines the institutional logics that inform these citizen monitoring efforts and probes how relationships with academic science and the regulatory state affect the practices of citizen scientists. We find that the diverse practices of the organizations in the participatory water monitoring field are guided by logics of consciousness-raising, environmental policing, and science. Organizations that initiate monitoring projects typically attempt to combine two or more of these logics as they develop new practices in response to macro-level social and environmental changes. The dominant logic of the field remains unsettled, and many groups appear uncertain about whether and how their practices might have an influence. We conclude that the impacts of macro-level changes, such as the scientization of politics, the rise of neoliberal policy ideas, or even large-scale industrial transformations, are likely to be experienced in field-specific ways.

To date, researchers examining the motivations of volunteers at festivals and events have used a range of measurement indexes, most of which appear to have common antecedents in the psychology literature. It is not clear if different events actually require different scales, or if individual scales are more generalizable than is currently recognized so that the proliferation of scales is largely an academic exercise. The current study takes a preliminary step in exploring this issue by using an existing scale developed to measure the motivations of volunteers at western sporting events to examine the motivations of volunteers at a music festival in China.

The Volunteer Motivation Scale for International Sporting Events (VMS-ISE) is administered to volunteers at the Midi Music Festival in China. The 467 respondents are divided into two subgroups. Exploratory factor analysis (EFA) is applied to the first subsample to explore the factor structure of the index. Confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) is then applied to the second subsample to test the factor structure of the resolved scale.

The results of the EFA are promising, yielding a resolved factor structure, which is very close to the hypothesized index. The resolved scale is reasonably well supported by the subsequent CFA.

The findings suggest it may be possible for researchers to use a smaller number of scales on a larger range of festivals leading to a better understanding of similarities and differences in motivations across event volunteers. The results should also be helpful to festival organizers in their continuing efforts to recruit volunteers.