This chapter purports to conclude the results and findings of this study. Research and practical implications, research limitation are also provided. Lastly, suggestions for future research are discussed for better improvements in future studies.
Conclusion
The purpose of this was to examine how volunteer motivations may impact their level of commitment in the voluntary organization, and through the influence of their perceptions toward the organization. The research intends to understand the relationship of different types of volunteer motivations and its influence on affective commitment with the impact of perceived organizational justices. Specifically, three types of motivations (intrinsic, understanding, and self-esteem) were found to show positive influence on volunteers’ level of commitment. In theory, motivations were typically examined in terms of intrinsic and extrinsic motives. Those who perform a behavior (i.e. volunteer work) for their own self-perceived needs and goals are intrinsically motivated, as compared to those who pursue a goal only to receive an external reward from someone else are extrinsically motivated.
Intrinsic motivation was found to have the strongest impact on affective commitment as compared to the understanding and self-esteem type of volunteer motivations. A growing stockpile of research has strongly favored intrinsic orientations to be the most powerful form of motivation in influencing individuals’ long term retention (Crookes & Schmidt, 1991;
Dörnyei, 2001a; Noels, Clément, & Pelletier, 1999; Noels, Pelletier, Clément, & Vallerand, 2000; Wu, 2003). Intrinsically motivated behaviors are aimed at bringing certain internally rewarding consequences such as the feelings of competence, self-determination, and sense of achievement. Moreover, Maslow (1970) claimed that intrinsic motivation is clearly superior to extrinsic one.
Self-esteem is the second type of extrinsic motivation found to have an influence on
affective commitment. According to the hierarchy of needs, Maslow (1970) claimed that motivations is dependent on the satisfaction of physiological needs, then of community, security, identity and self-esteem, the fulfillment of which finally leads to self-actualization or a common phrase to describe is “being all that you can be”. Participants from this study agreed that volunteering is a feel-good experience, and perhaps makes each of them feel more important and useful to the organization. Thus, volunteering work somewhat fulfills individuals’ self-attainment of what is described in the Maslow’s pyramid.
Understanding is the third type of extrinsic motivation discovered to have an impact on affective commitment. Volunteers agreed that they volunteer because this behavior helps them to gain new perspective on things, learn through direct-hands experience, learn more about the cause that they are working for, learn how to deal with a variety of people, and an opportunity to explore their strengths. A more recent offshoot of Maslow’s view of motivation is described as the effect of “flow”. The flow theory highlights the importance of
“an experiential state characterized by intense focus and involvement that leads to improved performance on a task” (Csikszentmihalyi, 1990, p.88). Volunteers perceived the participation and planning of the voluntary events as a way to push themselves to higher levels of performance, so that their performance can be seen and recognized by the headquarter. The most obvious method of recognizing a volunteers’ performance is to get the chance to be filmed, interviewed, and exposed through the foundation’s television news channel. To some extent, volunteers feel good to see themselves on television, which will be also seen by their friends, family, and colleagues.
As for the perceived organizational justices, all dimensions of perceived justices were found to have partial influences in the relationship between types of motivation (i.e. intrinsic, understanding, and self-esteem) and affective commitment. However, perceived organizational justices did not serve to influence on all types of motivation. Specifically, perceived organizational justices did not influence some types of extrinsic motivation,
including career development, social interaction, reactivity, social, values, and protective when predicting affective commitment. The result may infer that justice is not a factor that contributes for a direct impact on enhancing individuals’ career development process and social opportunities, healing current issues about life, finding values through volunteer work, and addressing personal problems.
Research Implications
The focus of this study was to place the importance of understanding the associations between motivations, affective commitment, and perceived organizational justice on volunteers, who are non-paid workers but contribute certain levels of professionalism in the non-profit sector. The theory proposed that all types of motivation should have a positive and significant impact on affective commitment; however, the result of the study only found certain types of motivations to be associated with affective commitment. Motivations such as career development, social interaction, and social considered as the external or instrumental type of motivation, which does not apply for volunteers who place importance of integrating their internal values with the organization, especially when the voluntary organization is religious. Religious organization usually focuses “pure” community service events without putting much emphasis in networking, profitability, publicity, or exposure. In addition, not all dimensions of perceived organizational justice were found to strengthen the relationship between motivations and affective commitment. Although the perceived organizational justice items was modified to apply for the volunteer sample, the researcher did happen to observe that some participants with the non-supervisory roles do not seem to have an adequate knowledge about the organization’s resource allocation and procedural processes, and thus, had difficulties in answering the items in the distributive and procedural dimensions.
Volunteers found the interactional justice to fit their perceptions about interpersonal treatments in the organization.
Practical Implications
In the practical side, this study hopes to provide a better understanding of why volunteers are able to do voluntary work continuously for more than 10 years. What drives such long-term commitment in the organization? Part of the reason to explain this tie with the voluntary organization is that most volunteers are more likely to be intrinsically motivated, and they devote their knowledge and skills in advancing their work competencies, and also enriching their mental health of feeling self-worth and value (self-esteem). The importance of this study is to apply organizational justice on volunteers. The result of the study only shows partial impact of perceived organizational justice on commitment. The researcher has observed that volunteers have diverged perceptions regarding the fairness of the organization.
Although the voluntary organization has been well-structured, well-known, and well-established for 50 years, but as members, senior volunteers, or executives of the organization, they feel the organization does not have clear standards, policies, and regulations in carrying out a good management team. The organizational structure needs to be improved to avoid the gray areas of leading volunteers to inconsistent work procedures and creating more interpersonal conflicts. Due to the fact that the organization put emphasis on a more horizontal, equal culture, many of those who perceive themselves of having a higher social status than other volunteers may not even want to report to their team leader.
Volunteers like this would prefer to skip to acknowledge the team leader or branch leader and report themselves directly to headquarter through their personal connection. Re-structuring the organization is an important fact the organization needs to improve in order to reduce unfair treatments among volunteers. Provided with more consistent, fair, and clear justice perceptions, volunteer’s will see the meaningfulness of contributing and thus raising their loyalty to the organization.
Research Limitations
The research limitation of this study is that the result of this study only limit to the participants who respond to the questionnaires. A total of 432 samples were collected from a specific voluntary organization in Taiwan. Also, with time and resources limited, convenient sampling was conducted, which findings may not be representative in describing the situation of all volunteers, and thus may not generalize to the entire population in all non-profit organization. As for the validity and reliability of the measurement, the scale for intrinsic motivation did confirm to meet the criteria of CFA, but the items were not sufficient to pass the multi-group comparison for cross-validation. Moreover, with many types of motivation being measured in this study, some participants lose their patience in filling out the questionnaire. In addition, some of the participants aged 60 years old and above could not understand some of the distributive justice items being asked and needed help from other volunteers to put the language in the simpler form.
Future Research Suggestions
Based on the limitations provided above, the researcher would like to suggest finding a more valid and reliable measurement for the intrinsic motivation. The population chosen for the study should be targeted at a specific age range. Finding volunteers with adequate language proficiency level, years of volunteer experience, and knowledge toward voluntary work is important. The researcher would like to suggest examining only volunteers with supervisory roles, are officially certified, and have at least five years of experience volunteering in the organization in order to attain a more accurate result. In addition, instead of having so many types of volunteer motivations, choose the types of motivation with the higher reliability alpha scores to test volunteer motivations. It is also suggested to test the motivation scale on non-religious based voluntary organizations. Lastly, data can be collected from different non-profit organizations to compare the effect of motivations, affective commitment, and perceived organizational justice in a bigger picture.
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