HOW KIBBUTZ VOLUNTEERS’ EXPERIENCES AFFECT THEIR ATTITUDE AND THEIR SOCIAL MEDIA EXPRESSIONS
Xiaoya Deng (10695877)
Supervised by dr. J.W.M. Verhoeven
January 2016
Master’s Thesis
Graduate School of Communication
Abstract
Although there is much research regarding employee ambassadorship, little
is known about another important organizational member--volunteers as ambassadors,
and the relations between their volunteering experiences, their attitude toward the
organization, their attitude toward the country they work in and their social media
expressions. Former kibbutz volunteers (n = 201) were selected as the research
sample, two hypotheses (1 and 2) were raised to investigate the effect of their
volunteering experiences in the kibbutz on their attitude toward kibbutz and Israel. In
addition, four hypotheses (3, 4, 5 and 6) were posed to analyze how volunteers’
attitude toward kibbutz and Israel respectively affect their social media expressions
regarding the kibbutz or Israel. The results showed that there were positive relations
between volunteers’ experiences and their attitude toward the kibbutz and Israel.
Specifically, their relations with volunteer leader in the kibbutz and fellow volunteers
had positive influence on their attitude toward the kibbutz; their communication with
the locals, their relations with superiors at work and their length of stay positively
affected their attitude toward Israel. However, only their attitude toward Israel had
positive influence on their positive social media posts regarding the kibbutz and Israel.
There was no significant correlation between volunteers’ attitude toward the kibbutz
and their social media posts regarding the kibbutz or Israel.
Key words: volunteer ambassadorship, kibbutz volunteers, Israel, volunteering experience, attitude, social media expressions
Introduction
In this day and age, organizational members are considered to be credible
communicators or the critical ambassadors of organizations. They appear here and
there in various social media channels, for instance, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn,
Instagram, etc. In an era of Electronic Word of Mouth, ambassadorship of
organizational members will affect the reputation of organizations (Harris & De
Chernatony, 2001). Besides, organizational members’ voice behavior also support
organizational goals (LePine & Van Dyne, 2001).
However, the personnel composition of an organization has changed over
years, more flexible work relationships occur in modern society, the expansion of the
temporary workforce has become one of the most critical features of the new
economy workforce (Smith, 2010). Among which, volunteers play an increasingly
important role in an organization, especially for NGOs and some big events, like the
Olympic Games. Besides, volunteerism has improved the efficiency of organizations
(Sunney & Kleiner, 2003). In reality, most volunteers do no get paid for their work.
Therefore, volunteers’ intrinsic motivation of work could be different from formal
employees’ (Boezeman & Ellemers, 2009), which may lead to their different work
experiences in an organization. “Volunteers have only a moral and emotional
commitment to their organizations, whereas formal employees also have an
instrumental commitment” (Cnaan & Cascio, 1998, p. 3). Besides, normally
volunteers just work in an organization for a short period, from a few months to a year
findings of literature on the organizational behaviours of formal employees may not
be applicable to volunteers who are intrinsically motivated. Therefore, it is important
to study how volunteering affects volunteers’ organizational behavior.
While working in an organization, volunteers communicate with formal
employees, they learn from the job, they may feel the differences in the treatment
compared to normal employees, and they may also identify with the organization, etc.
All these work experiences of volunteers may affect their attitude toward the
organization and also their expressions on their own social media, which could
somehow influence the reputation of the organization, for instance, what they post on
their Facebook or Twitter will affect their friends’ or followers’ perspectives regarding
the organization, especially if these volunteers are opinion leaders in their own circle.
Little research has explored the connection between the experiences and the impacts
in volunteers’ post-volunteer life regarding this aspect. Therefore, it is important to
examine the relationship between their experiences and their attitude toward the
organization. For volunteers, there is another factor that should be taken into
consideration, as they have a relatively loose connection with organizations compared
to formal employees, organizations have less control over their online behaviors.
Hence, it is important for organizations to know how to stimulate volunteers to post
more positive posts regarding the organization on their social media. The study will
provide some practical implications for organizations, for instance, how to stimulate
volunteers to become their ambassadors as formal employees do, and in which way to
In the present research, kibbutz volunteers in Israel were used as the research
sample, approximately 400,000 volunteers came to work in 30 kibbutzim over the
past 40 years, according to the official statistics from the kibbutz volunteers program
center. We could predict that the worldwide influence of volunteers’ social media
would be powerful. I suspect if their experiences will affect their attitude toward
Israel and the kibbutz, if so, how these experiences influence their attitude. In the
meanwhile, volunteers experienced a way of life totally different from their own
country (Bowes, 1980), which might make them want to share the experiences on
their social networking platforms. However, little research has been conducted to
study that how the volunteering experiences affect kibbutz volunteers’ attitude toward
the kibbutz and Israel, which is critical for the image of Israel in all volunteers’ eyes
all across the world.
Therefore, we wonder if their attitude also affect what they expressed on their
social media regarding kibbutz and Israel. The research questions are raised as
following:
RQ1: To what extent and how do the experiences in Israel affect kibbutz volunteers’ attitude toward the kibbutz?
RQ2: To what extent and how do the experiences in Israel affect kibbutz volunteers’ attitude toward Israel?
RQ3: To what extent do kibbutz volunteers’ attitude toward the kibbutz affect their social media posts?
social media posts?
Theoretical Framework Volunteer experiences in a kibbutz
According to the definition, ‘‘volunteerism can be defined as long-term,
planned, pro-social behaviours that benefit strangers and occur within an
organizational setting” (Penner, 2002, p. 448). The pro-social behaviour per se can be
regarded as an experience, which could be an occurrence; the practical contact and
observation of an occurrence; and also an encounter with other people or a feeling
(Campbell & Warner, 2015).
Some organizations even invite foreigners to volunteer, especially when the
concept “gap year” goes increasingly popular, more and more people choose to
volunteer while they are traveling, thus, they work and travel at the same time, which
brings out the concept of “volunteer tourism” generally applied to the situation that
tourists volunteer in an organized way to spend their holidays which might help
alleviate the poverty of some groups, restore the environments or research into the
society (Wearing, 2001).
A study estimated that 1.6 million people worldwide participate in volunteer
tourism projects annually (Tourism Research & Marketing, 2008). Volunteer tourism
is regarded to form a mutually beneficial relationship between the hosts and the
volunteers (McIntosh & Zahra, 2007).
The group of working tourists consists of overseas youth from
collective farms kibbutzim, and engage in unpaid work for a period of a few months.
Approximately 1,200 volunteers arrive at kibbutzim each year, they receive a status of
volunteer-tourist and seek a special and cheap tourism experience (Mittelberg, 1988).
Volunteers can have different volunteering experiences in the kibbutz during
their staying in Israel, there are various volunteer jobs in each kibbutz, for instance,
doing the dishes in a dinning hall, fishing on a boat, picking up bananas in a
plantation, doing the laundry in a laundry room, or working in a fruit factory, etc.
Apart from working, volunteers can also travel around the country during the
kibbutz-organized monthly trips or on their own choice.
Specifically, volunteers stay in a kibbutz for at least two to nine months for
volunteering (The current maximum time of volunteering is nine month, however, the
previous generations volunteers could stay there as long as a few years), which means
some volunteers have more time to identify with the kibbutz than others. During this
period, normally volunteers talk with their fellows frequently. Besides, they also have
chances to talk with the local kibbutz people. During work, they need to work closely
with their superiors, which may make them feel stressful. After work, they have
meetings or go to group trips with their volunteer leader and fellow volunteers.
Volunteer tourism experiences may affect individual’s identity through social
interaction (Wearing & Neil, 2000) , and the experiences also had an impact on their
personal development, social interactions, values and attitude (Brown, 2005; Canada
World Youth, 2006). In addition, most kibbutz volunteers started their volunteering
identity (Arnett, 2000), therefore, their opinions and attitude toward some issues could
be influenced through social interactions with others.
Pizam, Uriely and Reichel (2000) showed that the intensity of the relationship
between volunteer tourists and hosts in the kibbutz positively affected tourists’
feelings toward their hosts and their attitude toward hosts and the destination. As
kibbutz volunteers interact with kibbutz people or hosts daily during their
volunteering, thus, we assume their experiences will positively affect their attitude
toward the kibbutz.
Therefore, our first hypothesis is posed as following.
Hypothesis 1: Volunteers’ experiences in the kibbutz (length of stay, interaction with the locals and fellow volunteers, relations with superiors and
volunteer leader and fellow volunteers, stress degree of volunteering) have positive
influence on their attitude toward the kibbutz.
A study by Grothe(1970) found that American travelers’ attitude toward the
Soviet Union which they visited became more negative after the journey, but their
attitude toward the hosts were more positive. Due to the fact that volunteers stay in
Israel whilst volunteering, they are likely to talk with local people or the hosts about
Israel, the social interactions with the locals can have an impact on their opinions
about Israel as a country, therefore, we assume that volunteers’ experiences have
influence on their attitude toward Israel.
Hypothesis 2: Volunteers’ experiences in the kibbutz (length of stay, interaction with the locals and fellow volunteers, relations with superiors and
volunteer leader and fellow volunteers, stress degree of volunteering) have positive
influence on their attitude toward Israel.
Ambassadorship
Organizational members are important boundary spanners in an organization,
they maintain the communication between the organization and the stakeholders,
which presents a brand's emotional values (Harris & De Chernatony, 2001). Therefore,
organizational members become the brand ambassadors naturally. Nowadays, these
interactions between organizational members and the public mostly have been
conducted through social media, which enable users freely exchange information with
each other (Aula, 2010). The fast growth of social media all over the world has
provided various platforms for organizational members to express themselves through
social media.
In the meanwhile, the boundaries between individuals’ personal and
professional life have become blurred (Sánchez Abril, Levin & Del Riego, 2012), as
people’s professional life and personal life are both a part of their identity (Lam,
Ahearne, Hu & Schillewaert, 2010). Therefore, organizational members share both
their personal life and professional life on their personal social media accounts, such
as sharing a link of a job vacancy on Facebook, or posting a picture of a new office on
Instagram. As a result, organizational members’ social media expressions regarding
the organization they work for could be seen as a kind of Electronic Word of Mouth
for the organization, which is considered as increasingly critical for reputation
of all stakeholders, reputation indicates the representation of brand performance
(Harris & De Chernatony, 2001). Hence, their social media posts regarding the
organization play an important role in terms of the reputation of the organization.
However, for organizations, free expressions on social media also bring
them problems, these days they are unable to control the content on social media
generated by users, and the negative information about an organization may cause
undesirable impact (Aula, 2010). Normally organizational content on social media is
not welcomed much by users (Fournier & Avery, 2011). However, organizational
members’ personal posts are regarded as more authentic, as most of them express their
personal attitude and opinions regarding the organization.
Similarly, volunteers who work in an organization can also become the
brand ambassadors, as they may post positive content concerning the organization on
their personal social media as well. Uriely, Reichel and Ron (2003) pointed out that
volunteers in tourism may present themselves through the volunteer activities. In
other words, volunteers may post their volunteering experiences on their social media
platforms, which could affect the reputation of the organization they serve for.
“A person's attitude represents his evaluation of the entity in question” (Ajzen,
& Fishbein,1977, p. 889). Employees’ attitude toward an organization is an evaluation
toward the organization (McCaul, Hinsz, & McCaul, 1995). Thus, for kibbutz
volunteers, as they express their own attitude or opinions on social media, we could
assume that those volunteers who have positive attitude toward the kibbutz will be
would like to post positive content about the kibbutz on their social media compared
to those who hold negative attitude.
Therefore, a hypothesis is posed as following.
Hypothesis 3: Volunteers’ attitude toward the kibbutz has positive influence on their positive social media posts regarding kibbutz.
Likewise, when individuals hold a favorable attitude toward a country, they
might be more willing to talk about the good side of the country online, therefore, we
expect volunteers’ attitude toward Israel as a country would also impact their
expressions about the country on social media.
Hypothesis 4: Volunteers’ attitude toward Israel has positive influence on their positive social media posts regarding Israel.
Besides, as the kibbutz is an important part of volunteers’ experiences in
Israel, volunteers’ association with the kibbutz would expand to the country they stay
in, therefore, we expect that volunteers’ attitude toward the kibbutz may also
influence their online opinions about the country and vice versa.
Hypothesis 5: Volunteers’ attitude toward the kibbutz has positive influence on their positive social media posts regarding Israel.
Hypothesis 6: Volunteers’ attitude toward Israel has positive influence on their positive social media posts regarding the kibbutz.
Method
The present study employed an online survey among kibbutz volunteers who
Sample
As kibbutz volunteers come from all over the world, which makes the access
to previous generations volunteers difficult, a snowball sampling technique was
employed in this study. First, participants were recruited through several Facebook
groups of kibbutz volunteers by posting a link of the questionnaire there, then those
who participated were asked to forward the survey link to other kibbutz volunteers
that they knew. During a three-week period of data-collecting, in total 201 participants
took part in the study, there were 88 males (43.8%), and 113 females (56.2%). Among
them, 9.5% finished a few months before the completion of the survey, 10.9 % had
volunteered in the kibbutz within 10 years previous to completion of the survey,
13.4 % had volunteered 20 years before, and 63.2% of them had volunteered 20 years
earlier. The age of the respondents was between 18 to 75 years old (M = 45.5, SD =
13.5). Besides, 20.9% of the participants identified as Jewish, and 50.2% of them had
obtained an academic education. Volunteers started to work in the kibbutz when they
were averagely 22 years old (M = 21.9, SD = 3.4), and the average period they stayed
in the kibbutz was almost 11 months (M = 10.9, SD = 11.6). In addition, participants
came from 26 countries (one participant did not provide his or her nationality) in 5
large regions, specifically: Europe (68.7%), North and South America(16.9%), Africa
(7.0%), Oceania (4.5% ) and Asia (2.5%).
Measurement
In order to investigate volunteers’ experiences in the kibbutz, their attitude
online questionnaire was conducted to collect the data by the self-report way. The
measurements of the questionnaire can be seen in Table 1. All items were ranked on
5-point Likert scales.
Table 2 presents the correlations of the main dependent variables and
independent variables. The variable “Attitude toward kibbutz” was measured with the
attitude scale developed by McCaul et al. (1995); the scale of “Attitude toward Israel”
T ab le 1 T he va lue and re li abi li ty of the m ai n va ri abl es M ea sur em ent or a sa m pl e of the it em W he n di d yo u vol unt ee r in the ki bbut z? M y vol unt ee ri ng w as st re ss ful . T o w ha te xt end di d yo u ta lk w it h loc al pe opl e about Is ra el ? T o w ha te xt end di d yo u ta lk w it h ot he r vol s about Is ra el ? T he re la ti ons hi ps be tw ee n yo u and yo ur supe ri or s? T he re la ti ons hi ps be tw ee n yo u and yo ur vol unt ee r le ade r? T he re la ti ons hi ps be tw ee n yo u and ot he r vol unt ee rs ? Four adj ec ti ve pa ir s li ke ba d-good. Is ra el is a count ry tha tI li ke . I pos te d pos iti ve cont ent about ki bbut z on m y soc ia lm edi a. I pos te d pos iti ve cont ent about Is ra el on m y soc ia lm edi a. C ronba ch ’s α - - - -.949 .816 - -M /S D 10.9/ 1 2.0/ 0.9 3.8/ 1.0 4.1/ 0.9 4.2/ 0.7 4.3/ 0.8 4.7/ 0.5 4.5/ 0.8 3.9/ 0.8 4.0/ 1.0 3.6/ 1.1 It em s 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 4 4 1 1 V ar ia bl e na m e L engt h of st ay S tr es s C om m uni ca ti on w it h the loc al s C om m uni ca ti on w it h ot he r vol s R el at ions hi p w it h supe ri or s R el at ions hi p w it h vol le ade r R el at ions hi p w it h ot he r vol s A tt itude tow ar d ki bbut z A tt itude tow ar d Is ra el P os iti ve cont ent about ki bbut z P os iti ve cont ent about Is ra el
11 -10 -.588** 9 -.271** .508** 8 -.187** .080 .156** 7 --.251** .1 15 .246** .021 T ab le 2 C or re la ti ons be tw ee n the m ai n de pe nde nt and inde pe nde nt va ri abl es 6 -.270** .274** .204** .088 .190** 5 -.459** .248** .224** .282** .102 .109 4 -.141* .141* .296** .058 .139* .159* .052 3 -.455** .335 .292** .226** .157* .300** .166* .197** 2 - -.108 .051 -.230** -.127 -.249** -.185** -.029 -.102 -.066 1 - -.088 .206** .074 .151* .122 .065 .080 .200** .097 .079 1 L engt h of st ay 2 S tr es s 3 C om m uni ca ti on w it h loc al s 4 C om m uni ca ti on w it h ot he r vol s 5 R el at ions hi p w it h supe ri or 6 R el at ions hi p w it h vol le ade r 7 R el at ions hi p w it h ot he r vol s 8 A tt it ude tow ar d ki bbut z 9 A tt it ude tow ar d Is ra el 10 P os it ive pos ts on ki bbut z 11 Pos it ive pos ts on Is ra el N = 201; * p < .05; ** p < .01
Besides, participants were also asked to provide information regarding the
location of the kibbutz where they volunteered, their motivations to volunteer, and the
specific work they did in the kibbutz. The full survey can be seen in the appendix.
All the six hypotheses were tested by means of linear regression.
Results Table 3
Multiple regression of independent variables volunteering experience on volunteers’ attitude toward kibbutz (H1) and volunteers’ attitude toward Israel (H2)
Predictors H1 H2
B1 SE B1 b*1 B2 SE B2 b*2
Length of stay .002 .005 .021ns .009 .004 .138*
Stress -.084 .065 -.094ns .023 .058 .028ns
Communication with the locals .044 .066 .055ns .132 .059 .178* Communication with other vols -.038 .071 -.042ns .000 .063 .000ns
Relationship with superiors .079 .093 .068ns .183 .083 .171* Relationship with vol leader .196 .087 .176* .048 .077 047ns
Relationship with other vols .283 .134 .159* .033 .120 .020ns
Jewish or not .084 .141 .041ns -.351 .126 -.186**
Gender -.068 .114 -.040ns .012 .102 .008ns
Note. For H1, R2= .13, adjusted R2= .09, F (9, 191) = 3.23, p = .001; for H2, R2= .18,
adjusted R2= .14, F (9, 191) = 4.67, p < .001; *p < .05, ** p < .01
For hypothesis 1, in which length of stay, stress degree of volunteering,
communication with the locals and other volunteers, relationship with superiors and
the volunteer leader and other volunteers, Jewish or not, gender were performed as
independent variables, volunteers’ attitude toward the kibbutz was the dependent
As we can see in Table 3, this regression model as a whole can be used to
predict volunteers’ attitude toward the kibbutz, but the strength of the prediction was
relatively weak, only 9% of the variation in volunteers’ attitude toward the kibbutz
can be predicted on the basis of all the predictors. However, only two predictors “the
relationship with volunteer leader” and “the relationship with other volunteers”
predicted the dependent variable. They had a significant and relatively weak
association with volunteers’ attitude toward kibbutz respectively. The interpretation is
true only if the effects of other predictors are held constant. When volunteers had
more positive relationship with their volunteer leader, their attitude toward the kibbutz
would be more positive. Similarly, when volunteers had more positive relationship
with other volunteers, their attitude toward the kibbutz became more positive.
Therefore, the hypothesis 1 was partially confirmed.
For hypothesis 2, the independent variables were the same as hypothesis 1,
volunteers’ attitude toward Israel was the dependent variable. This regression model
as a whole can be used to predict volunteers’ attitude toward Israel (see Table 3), but
the strength of the prediction was relatively weak, only 14% of the variation in
volunteers’ attitude toward Israel can be predicted on the basis of all the predictors.
Four predictors “the length of stay” “communication with the locals” “relationship
with the superior” and “Jewish or not” predicted the dependent variable. All these four
had a significant and relatively weak association with volunteers’ attitude toward
Israel respectively. For “the length of stay”, when volunteers stayed in the kibbutz
locals”, when volunteers talked with local people about Israel more, their attitude
toward Israel became more positive. For “the relationship with superiors”, when
volunteers had better relationship with their superiors, their attitude toward Israel was
more positive. For “Jewish or not”, Jewish volunteers’ attitude (M = 4.20, SD = 0.64)
was more positive than non-Jewish volunteers' attitude (M = 3.79, SD = 0.78).
Therefore, hypothesis 2 was partially supported as well.
Table 4
Multiple regression of independent variables on volunteers’ social media expressions regarding kibbutz (H3/H6) and their social media expressions regarding Israel (H4/H5)
Predictors H3 / H6 H4 / H5
B SE B b* B SE B b*
Vols’ attitude toward kibbutz .027 .087 .022ns .100 .084 .073ns Vols’ attitude toward Israel .368 .097 .272** .694 .094 .470**
Gender -.262 .143 -.125ns .040 .139 .018ns
Jewish .077 .180 .030ns -.306 .175 -.110ns
Note. For H3/H6, R2= .09, adjusted R2= .07, F (4, 196) = 4.88, p = .001; for H4/H5,
R2= .27, adjusted R2= .26, F (4, 196) = 18.42, p < .001; ** p < .01
A linear regression was employed to test hypothesis 3 and hypothesis 6, the
independent variables were volunteers’ attitude toward kibbutz, volunteers’ attitude
toward Israel, gender and “Jewish or not”, their positive social media expressions
regarding kibbutz was the dependent variable.
As can be seen in Table 4, the regression model as a whole can be used to
predict volunteers’ positive social media expressions regarding the kibbutz, but the
positive social media expressions regarding the kibbutz can be predicted on the basis
of all the predictors. However, the predictor “the attitude toward kibbutz” cannot
predict the dependent variable, as p > 0.05.
Therefore, hypothesis 3 was rejected.
For hypothesis 6, as we can see in Table 4, the attitude toward Israel has a
significant and relatively weak association with volunteers’ positive social media
expressions regarding the kibbutz. When volunteers’ attitude toward Israel was more
positive, they posted more positive content regarding the kibbutz on their social
media.
Therefore, hypothesis 6 was supported.
Another linear regression was conducted for hypothesis 4 and hypothesis 5,
volunteers’ attitude toward kibbutz, volunteers’ attitude toward Israel, gender and
“Jewish or not” were independent variables, their positive social media expressions
regarding Israel was the dependent variable.
For hypothesis 4, as what we see in Table 4, the regression model as a whole
can be used to predict volunteers’ positive expressions regarding Israel, the strength of
the prediction was weak, 26% of the variation in volunteers’ positive social media
expression regarding Israel can be predicted on the basis of all the predictors. “The
attitude toward Israel” can predict the dependent variable, it had a significant and
medium association with volunteers’ positive social media expressions regarding
Israel. When volunteers’ attitude toward Israel more positive, they posted more
Therefore, hypothesis 4 was supported.
For hypothesis 5, as we can see in Table 4, the predictor “the attitude toward
kibbutz” cannot predict the dependent variable, as p > 0.05.
Therefore, hypothesis 5 was rejected.
Discussion
Kibbutz volunteers’ attitude toward the kibbutz was positively influenced by
the relationships they engaged in with people they live with closely in the kibbutz (the
volunteer leader and other volunteers). The positive influence of the relationship
between volunteers and the volunteer leader on volunteers’ attitude toward the
organization is in accordance with the finding of Nystrom (1990) that employees who
had better relationship with their leaders also had higher levels of commitment to the
organization which was considered as employees’ attitude toward the organization
(McCaul et al., 1995). Moreover, the result is also in line with the organizational
socialization theory that the social interaction between organizational members and
newcomers takes an active part in the socialization process in an organization, which
increases the newcomer’s commitment to the organization (Haski-Leventhal & Bargal,
2008; Cable & Parsons, 2001). As a consequence, for organization managers, in order
to exert more influence on volunteers’ positive attitude toward the organization, they
should coordinate the relationship between volunteers and their leaders. According to
the study of authentic leadership, authentic leaders build collaborative relationship
with their followers, which can affect followers’ identification with the organization
managers select volunteer leaders, they might consider the traits that authentic leaders
own: confidence, hopefulness, optimism, resilience, and high degree on moral
character (Avolio, Luthans, & Walumbwa, 2004).
The impact of the relationship between volunteers on their attitude toward the
organization is in line with the finding regarding transformational leadership (Liden,
Wayne, & Sparrowe, 2000), that employees with better coworker relationship had
higher organization commitment. Coworker relationships were influenced by the
shared tasks, physical work proximity, work-related problems and slack time (Sias &
Cahill, 1998). These factors can be seen from the interactions of volunteers in the
kibbutz: Volunteers work together with other fellow volunteers for about eight hours
per day, after work they spend time in talking to each other or participating in other
activities together. Therefore, in order to enhance the relationships between volunteers,
it might be a good idea for organization managers to organize more communal
activities that can allow volunteers to become closer to each other (Nencini, Romaioli,
& Meneghini, 2015). Moreover, as transformational leadership creates more frequent
interactions among employees (Bass, Avolio, Jung, & Berson, 2003), volunteer
leaders could try to employ the way of transformational leadership to work with
volunteers, such as acting as their mentors or coaches and listening to followers’
concerns (Bass et al., 2003).
In terms of volunteers’ attitude toward Israel as a country, the results showed
that when they stayed in the kibbutz longer, their attitude became more positive. In
toward Israel was also more positive, which is in line with that interactions with local
people affected volunteers’ experience (Palacios, 2010). Besides, when volunteers’
relationship with their superiors in work was better, their attitude toward the country
became more positive. Furthermore, whilst volunteers held more pro-Israel attitude,
they posted more positive content regarding the kibbutz and Israel on social media.
Therefore, for managers and authorities, in order to attract more young
volunteers to work there, which would help improve the country image (Alvarez &
Campo, 2014), and try to influence their attitude toward the country through volunteer
tourism, three aforementioned facets should be paid attention. Firstly, the length of
volunteering, the volunteering rules might include that volunteers have to stay there
for a period that is long enough, for instance at least three months, which allows
volunteers to have enough time to communicate with the locals and to learn the
country more deeply, as newcomers may turn to their coworkers and superiors to
finish the socialization process in an organization (Barge & Schlueter, 2004), which
takes time. Secondly, the locals should be mobilized to communicate with volunteers
more, such as inviting volunteers to have dinner together or to some parties or events
in the community. Furthermore, to enhance the relationship between superiors and
volunteers, organization managers could select superiors who own the characteristics
of authentic leaders, or incumbent superiors could try to employ the manner of
authentic leadership, as which can help leaders build cooperative relationship with
their followers (Avolio et al., 2004). Specifically, superiors should try to identify
backgrounds into consideration during the management process.
By doing so, volunteers’ attitude toward the country where they work might
become more positive, as a result, more positive social media content regarding the
organization and the country might appear online, which is very critical for country
branding, especially for countries that arouse controversial reactions in the world like
Israel.
However, it is unexpected that volunteers’ attitude toward the kibbutz had no
impact on their positive social media expressions regarding the kibbutz or Israel. A
possible explanation could be that the attitude toward kibbutz might not be the direct
motivation to stimulate volunteers to post related content on their social media.
Overall, the present result confirmed the finding of Pizam et al. (2000): When
volunteers’ experiences in the kibbutz are more positive, their attitude toward the
hosts or the kibbutz is also more positive. In addition, the result also confirmed the
finding that volunteering experience had influence on volunteers’ values and attitude
(Canada World Youth, 2006). Besides, the present study steps further, at the level of a
country, when kibbutz volunteers had more positive volunteering experience, they
held more pro-Israel attitude.
Due to the different work motivations between volunteers and formal
employees, we assumed their work experience would have different influences on
their attitude toward the organization. However, as we can see from the conclusion
part, the literature regarding formal employees can also be applied in the case of the
volunteers in terms of organization commitment.
In terms of the relationship between volunteers experience and their attitude
toward the country where they volunteer, as there is little existing related research, it
is hard for us to find out if similar results exist or not between volunteers and formal
employees in terms of country branding.
Limitation and future research
The present study is one of the first attempts to investigate the relationship
among volunteer experience, attitude and social media expressions in a specific
context. Therefore, some limitations that should be taken into account for future
studies. Firstly, in terms of the measurement of the volunteering experience, specific
scales in the range of volunteer tourism were chosen, such as the relationship between
volunteers and the locals, which restricted the possibility to generalize the study
results to other areas. Secondly, the method employed to collect data may also affect
the final results, as the survey request and questionnaire link were posted on a variety
of kibbutz volunteer Facebook groups, the sample was not randomly selected.
Therefore, for future studies, it is better for researchers to contact the related
organizations for the contact information of all the volunteers, thus, the sample could
be selected more randomly in a bigger volunteers pool.
Furthermore, for future studies, volunteers’ living situations and non-work
activities could be incorporated as the independent variables to measure volunteers’
experience, as they interact with each other to influence the experiences (Campbell &
identification, which has positive correlation with people’s affective organizational
commitment (Jones & Volpe, 2011), therefore, it may also relate to volunteers’ social
media expressions, as individuals have positive affective organizational commitment,
they are more likely to post positive information about the organization online. In
addition, given the current study was conducted in the context of a developed country,
future studies could consider of doing a similar study in some developing countries
(McIntosh & Zahra, 2007).
Although the present research has a number of limitations, it still made a
valuable contribution to the existing knowledge about the volunteers ambassadorship,
and provided some implications for organization managers in the field of volunteer
Acknowledgements
The author would like to thank dr. J.W.M. Verhoeven for his supervision
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Appendix 1 - Questionnaire
The first part of the study deals with your volunteering experience.
1. When did you volunteer in the kibbutz?(If you volunteered for a few times, please answer the questions below based on your first experience)
From mm/yyyy to mm/yyyy
2. What kind of work did you do in the kibbutz?(Several answers may apply) 1. Plantation 2. Fishing 3. Dairy 4. Laundry 5. Factory 6. Service 7. Other___________
3. To what extend did you talk with local people about Israel? 1. Not at all
2. Rarely 3. Sometimes 4. Often 5. Very often
4. To what extend did you talk with other volunteers about Israel? 1. Not at all
2. Rarely 3. Sometimes 4. Often 5. Very often
5. How do you evaluate the relations between you and your superiors in the kibbutz? 1.Very bad
2.Bad 3.Neutral 4.Good 5.Very good
6. How do you evaluate the relations between you and the volunteer leader in the kibbutz?
1.Very bad 2.Bad
3.Neutral 4.Good 5.Very good
7. How do you evaluate the relations between you and other volunteers in the kibbutz? 1.Very bad 2.Bad 3.Neutral 4.Good 5.Very good
8. About your work in the kibbutz, to what extend do you agree with the following statements?
Statement A: I am satisfied with the quality of my work as a volunteer. Statement B. I achieved my personal goals as a volunteer.
Statement C. I fulfilled my responsibilities as a volunteer. 1Strongly disagree
2disagree 3neutral 4agree
5strongly agree
9. What is the location of your kibbutz in Israel? 1. Northern area(from Nazareth to the north area) 2. Middle area(Tel Aviv and Jerusalem area)
3. Southern area(from Beersheba to the south desert) 10. Why did you go to work in a kibbutz?(Multiple choice) 1. I wanted to learn about other cultures
2. I was interested in Israel/kibbutz 3. My family sent me there
4. I wanted to get away from my previous life 5. Other________
11. To what extent do you agree with the following statements about your volunteering experience in the kibbutz?
Statement 1: My volunteering experience was positive in general. Statement 1: I’m satisfied with my volunteering.
Statement 2: My volunteering was challenging. Statement 3: My volunteering was stressful. Statement 4: My volunteering was intense. 1 totally disagree
3 neutral 4 agree
5 totally agree
In the second part, I would like to ask some questions about your identification with the kibbutz you volunteered and your attitudes towards Israel and kibbutz.
12. To what extent do you agree with the following statements?
Statement A. When someone criticizes my kibbutz, it feels like a personal insult. Statement B. I am very interested in what others think about my kibbutz
Statement C. When I talk about this kibbutz, I usually say ‘we’ rather than ‘they’. Statement D. The kibbutz’s successes are my successes.
Statement E. When someone praises this kibbutz, it feels like a personal compliment. Statement F. If a story in the media criticized the kibbutz, I would feel embarrassed. 1 totally disagree
2 disagree 3 neutral 4 agree
5 totally agree
13. To what extent do you agree with the following statements about Israel? Statement 1: Israel is a country that I like.
Statement 2: Israel has a good reputation as a country.
Statement 3: I have positive impression of Israel as a country. Statement 4: I hold favorable attitude towards Israel.
1 totally disagree 2 disagree
3 neutral 4 agree
5 totally agree
14. How do you think about the kibbutz you volunteered in?
1. Bad-good 1 2 3 4 5
2. Unfavorable-favorable 1 2 3 4 5 3. Unpleasant-pleasant 1 2 3 4 5 4. I dislike-I like 1 2 3 4 5
In the third part, I would like to know your usage of social media regarding Israel and kibbutz.
15. Do you use social media? 1.Yes
2. No
If your answer is yes, please go to question 17; if your answer is no, please go to question 20.
16. What kind of social media and to what extent do you use?(Multiple choice) 1. Facebook Not at all rarely sometimes often very much
2. Twitter Not at all rarely sometimes often very much 3. Instagram Not at all rarely sometimes often very much 4. LinkedIn Not at all rarely sometimes often very much 5. Others_____ Not at all rarely sometimes often very much
17. Since you have used social media, to what extent do you post information about the issues below on your social media?
1. You stay in the kibbutz Not at all rarely sometimes often very much 2. Kibbutzim in general Not at all rarely sometimes often very much 3. Israel Not at all rarely sometimes often very much 18. To what extent do you agree with the following statements?
Statement A: I posted positive contents about the kibbutz I volunteered in on my social media .
Statement B: I posted negative contents about the kibbutz I volunteered in on my social media .
Statement C: I posted positive contents about the kibbutzim in general on my social media.
Statement D: I posted negative contents about the kibbutzim in general on my social media .
Statement E: I posted positive contents about Israel on my social media. Statement F: I posted negative contents about Israel on my social media. 1Strongly disagree
2disagree 3neutral 4agree
5strongly agree
19. What’s your gender? Male
Female
20. What is your age at present?
Please write down your year of birth, for instance 1990 21. What is your nationality?
1. Yes 2. No
23. What is your highest education level that you have completed at present? (If your education is not listed choose the one that resembles your educational level best.) 1) No education or not completed
2) primary school
3) primary vocational education 4) Lower vocational education 5) Secondary education (high school) 6) Higher vocational education 7) Academic education (university) 8) Other namely___
