Organization size and behavior setting capacity as determinants of member participation

Abstract

A series of three studies, using archival, mail survey, and telephone interview data from national, state, and city samples of churches, explored the relation of church size, capacity, staffing and member participation. Member attendance at Sunday worship service and at church school and taking a responsible job in the church school were the measures of participation. Major findings, confirmed in at least two of the studies were: (a) the relation between member participation and church membership was linear, and not negatively accelerated as predicted on the basis of the theory of undermanning, (b) level of pastoral staffing was not a consistently strong mediator of the size participation relation, and (c) capacity of the behavior setting (in terms of number of participants who could be accommodated) was at least as effective as church membership for predicting attendance. It was suggested that the traditional index of degree of manning of an organization (members/behavior settings) be replaced with a more precise measure which takes into account the capacity, the number of applicants for positions, and the minimum number of persons required in organization settings.