The Relationship Between Leadership Behaviors and Volunteer Commitment: The Role of Volunteer Satisfaction.

Paula Benevene,Michael West,Ilaria Buonomo

doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2020.602466

Paula Benevene, Michael West + Show 1 more

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2020.602466

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Abstract

Despite the relative scarcity of studies on the impact of leadership styles on satisfaction and commitment of volunteers within non-profit organizations, this relationship plays a crucial role in fostering sustained volunteerism and volunteers' well-being. A questionnaire was administered to more than 200 volunteers involved in delivering social services in non-profit organizations from Central and Northern Italy. The questionnaire contained the Volunteer Satisfaction Index, the sub-scale on Affective Commitment of the Organizational Commitment Scale, and two sub-scales of the Key Leadership Behaviors, namely: Helping people to grow and lead, and Enabling learning and innovation. Socio-demographic data were collected as well. Findings revealed that leaders' actions oriented toward the enablement of learning and innovation have an effect on volunteers' affective commitment, through the full mediation of volunteer satisfaction. Leaders' actions oriented toward the growth and empowerment of volunteers, instead, did not show significant relationships with volunteer satisfaction and affective commitment.

Highlights

The Relevance of the Non-Profit WorldNon-profit organizations (NPOs) are organizations committed to promoting the well-being of individuals, communities, and society through the delivery of their services (Benevene and Cortini, 2010; Kong and Ramia, 2010; Dal Corso et al, 2019)
Affective commitment was associated with both Helping people to grow and lead (r = 0.444, p = 0.000) and Enabling learning and innovation (r = 0.475, p = 0.000), as well as to volunteer satisfaction (r = 0.496, p = 0.000)
Our findings suggested an involvement of leaders’ actions oriented toward learning and innovation, but not of those oriented toward volunteers’ growth and empowerment, in enhancing volunteers’ satisfaction and commitment

Summary

Introduction

The Relevance of the Non-Profit WorldNon-profit organizations (NPOs) are organizations committed to promoting the well-being of individuals, communities, and society through the delivery of their services (Benevene and Cortini, 2010; Kong and Ramia, 2010; Dal Corso et al, 2019). All NPOs rely—partially or totally—on volunteers to deliver their services and carry out other tasks, such as office work, fundraising, and event organization to mention a few (Salamon and Anheier, 1992; Benevene and Cortini, 2010; Jiménez et al, 2010; Bahmani et al, 2012; Dal Corso et al, 2019) If all those who engaged in volunteering activities formed a country–the so-called “Volunteer Land” –this would be the ninth most populous country in the world, behind Russia and Bangladesh. As far as the Italian context is concerned, the volunteer rate is 12.6% among the adult population (i.e., more than 6 million people)—out of which 7.9% operate in an organized context (ISTAT, 2019)

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