Successful volunteer management in service provision confronted with mixed workforce conflict: Demarcating volunteer managers’ scope of action

Beschreibung

The professionalization of nonprofit organizations that provide social, welfare, and healthcare services has led to the embedded collaboration of paid staff and volunteers (Maier et al., 2016). According to the literature employing volunteers can improve service quality and organizational performance (Nesbit et al., 2018). However, role-differences between volunteers and paid staff can, if not managed successfully, result in organizational paralysis entailing subsequent service provision failure (De Wit et al., 2012; Park et al., 2020). Volunteer managers responsible for securing and coordinating the voluntary engagement are confronted with such conflicts on a regular basis. Due to the inherent conflict in volunteer-paid staff relations and the increasingly important role of CSOs in providing social, welfare, and healthcare services, we answer the following research question:
How do volunteer managers succeed in the governance of service provision despite inherent conflicts in their mixed workforces?
It is essential to understand which managerial practices are employed under the umbrella of interactive volunteer management (Studer & von Schnurbein, 2013) and what conditions, including appropriate governance structures, need to be in place to empower volunteer managers with a broad scope of action (Studer 2016) – providing a toolbox to success. To enable sustainable third sector service provision, we need to zoom in on the accomplishments of and challenges faced by volunteer managers and the structural determinants and possible contingencies enabling or hindering effective practice application via governance structures.
To achieve this, we investigate the variance of the scope of action of volunteer managers applicable to tackle inter-group conflict in mixed workforces. For this study, we define the scope of action as the possible practices available to volunteer managers regarding their volunteering program. Prior research indicates “a rather wide scope of action” (Studer, 2016, p.705) as well as “variables limiting the scope of action” (p.696) for volunteer managers who can influence some of these limiting variables, but not all of them (Hager & Brudney, 2011). Additionally, we explored related contingencies (Brudney & Meijs, 2014) by asking interviewees to indicate relevant contextual information on the design and recent changes in their organizations to conduct a more nuanced analysis of conflict, considering the factors that enable or prevent certain managerial practices, thus determining practice availability.
We develop a model on the scope of actions available, illustrating the conditional effectiveness of three distinct but layered approaches to managing such conflicts. Further, we explain the scope’s dependence on endogenously and exogenously contingent determinants. By analyzing 31 semi-structured interviews with volunteer managers, we explored their in-use practices regarding conflicts between paid staff and volunteers and what determines successful outcomes in their perception. We contribute by abductively advancing theory on the diminishing scope of action available to volunteer managers confronted with volunteer / paid staff conflict.

Implications for Practice

Our framework on the scope of action supports practitioners in navigating conflicts by helping them assess their context and identify suitable managerial practices—both for conflict management in general and for addressing tensions between paid staff and volunteers in particular.

References

Brudney, J. L., & Meijs, L. C. P. M. (2014). Models of Volunteer Management: Professional Volunteer Program Management in Social Work. Human Service Organizations Management, Leadership & Governance, 38(3), 297–309. https://doi.org/10.1080/23303131.2014.899281
De Wit, F. R. C., Greer, L. L., & Jehn, K. A. (2012). The paradox of intragroup conflict: A meta-analysis. Journal of Applied Psychology, 97(2), 360–390. https://doi.org/10.1037/a0024844
Hager, M. A., & Brudney, J. L. (2011). Problems recruiting volunteers: Nature versus nurture. Nonprofit Management and Leadership, 22(2), 137–157. https://doi.org/10.1002/nml.20046
Maier, F., Meyer, M., & Steinbereithner, M. (2016). Nonprofit Organizations Becoming Business-Like: A Systematic Review. Nonprofit and Voluntary Sector Quarterly, 45(1), 64–86. https://doi.org/10.1177/0899764014561796
Nesbit, R., Christensen, R. K., & Brudney, J. L. (2018). The Limits and Possibilities of Volunteering: A Framework for Explaining the Scope of Volunteer Involvement in Public and Nonprofit Organizations. Public Administration Review, 78(4), 502–513. https://doi.org/10.1111/puar.12894
Park, S., Mathieu, J. E., & Grosser, T. J. (2020). A Network Conceptualization of Team Conflict. Academy of Management Review, 45(2), 352–375. https://doi.org/10.5465/amr.2016.0472
Studer, S. (2016). Volunteer Management: Responding to the Uniqueness of Volunteers. Nonprofit and Voluntary Sector Quarterly, 45(4).
Studer, S., & von Schnurbein, G. (2013). Organizational Factors Affecting Volunteers: A Literature Review on Volunteer Coordination. VOLUNTAS: International Journal of Voluntary and Nonprofit Organizations, 24(2), 403–440. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11266-012-9268-y

Zeitraum	15 Juli 2026
Ereignistitel	17th International ISTR Conference: Strengthening the Foundations of the Third Sector
Veranstaltungstyp	Konferenz
Ort	Lissabon, PortugalAuf Karte anzeigen
Bekanntheitsgrad	International