Inadvertent Volunteer Managers: Exploring Perceptions of Volunteer Managers’ and Volunteers’ Roles in the Public Workplace (2015)

25/05/2020

Published: March 2015

Authors: Rebecca Nesbit, Heather Rimes, Robert K. Christensen and Jeffrey Brudney

Published by: Review of Public Personnel Administration, 36(2), 164-187

At present, there is little research on employees’ responses to being assigned the role and responsibilities of a volunteer manager.

This study analysed data from a large public library system in the US examining employees assigned to a volunteer manager role without prior training and experience. Data emanated from 20 branch libraries consisted of 24 locations. 34 individual interviews were conducted in 2012 with volunteer managers as well as some quantitative data from short electronic surveys from the same interviewees. Most participants were female, with an average age of 47 years, who were highly educated.

There were three research questions:

First, how did employees who have been assigned volunteer management duties view the volunteer management role?

Most participants were “inadvertent” volunteer managers; their assignment to the role was often haphazard and arbitrary and they did not view this as a promotion. However, most also felt that they gained a variety of managerial skills from their tenure in the volunteer management role.

Second, how did employees who were assigned volunteer management duties view the role of volunteers in the organisation?

There were three main patterns:

(a) Volunteers make some positive contributions but the volunteer manager still has serious reservations about their involvement in the library system.

(b) Volunteers enhance library services.

Third, how do volunteer managers’ perceptions of both roles affect their level of investment in the volunteer manager role?

There was mixed evidence that perceptions of the volunteers’ roles would be positively associated with managers’ level of investment.

The study concluded that that role perceptions, expectations and conflict all informed the effectiveness and dynamics of managing volunteers. The authors argued that some organisations may give too little thought to who will manage the volunteers and what roles volunteers will perform.

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