The Influence of Volunteers' Psychological Capital: Mediating Role of Organizational Commitment, and Joint Moderating Effect of Role Identification and Perceived Social Support.

Li Ping Xu,Jie Zhou,Jing Jing Yu,Yu Shen Wu

doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2020.00673

Abstract

This study explores the relationship between volunteers’ psychological capital and their commitment to volunteering. We tested whether volunteers’ psychological capital had a positive predictive effect on volunteering and whether this effect was mediated by organizational commitment, role identification, or perceived social support. A sample of 1165 volunteers who were registered in the national volunteer service information system of China were recruited in the study. The results showed a significant and positive relationship between volunteers’ psychological capital, volunteering, role identification, perceived social support, and organizational commitment. Volunteers’ psychological capital not only had a direct effect on volunteering but also affected volunteering through the mediating role of organizational commitment. Additionally, the influence of the volunteers’ psychological capital on organizational commitment was affected by the joint moderated effect of role identification and perceived social support. Volunteers with low role identification and low perceived social support, high role identification and low perceived social support, and low role identification and high perceived social support committed to their volunteer organization faster when they had a high level of psychological capital; whereas, volunteers with high role identification and high perceived social support committed to their volunteer organization faster when they had a low level of psychological capital.

Highlights

Volunteers are organized actors who voluntarily provide public service without making any profit or fame; the scale, service effect and sustainability of volunteer work greatly affects the health condition of civil society (Musick and Wilson, 2003; Hustinx et al, 2010)
The present study focused on the relation between volunteers’ psychological capital and volunteering, as well as the mediating effect of organizational commitment and the joint moderating effects of role identification and perceived social support
The product of the volunteers’ psychological capital, role identification, and perceived social support can have significantly negative predictive power on organizational commitment (β = 0.077, p < 0.01). These results showed that role identification and perceived social support could individually adjust the relation between volunteers’ psychological capital and organizational commitment, and have a joint mediating effect on it

Summary

Introduction

Volunteers are organized actors who voluntarily provide public service without making any profit or fame; the scale, service effect and sustainability of volunteer work greatly affects the health condition of civil society (Musick and Wilson, 2003; Hustinx et al, 2010). Volunteers make important contributions to large-scale competitions, emergency rescue, and community service at home and abroad; their work helps to make up for the lack of governmental and market services and is beneficial to the development of social harmony. The effectiveness of voluntary service is closely related to the psychological state of volunteers (Min and Ming-Jie, 2017). In order to strengthen and promote voluntary service, it is necessary to continue researching ways to improve the psychological wellbeing of volunteers. Previous research on volunteering has mostly focused on cultural capital (Harflett, 2015), social capital (Bailey et al, 2003; Wang and Graddy, 2008), and human capital (Choi and Chou, 2010; Lindsay, 2016) at home and abroad; yet research on psychological capital with respect to volunteering has yet to appear

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Conclusion