FROM MOTIVATION TO ORGANIZATIONAL COMMITMENT OF VOLUNTEERS IN NON-PROFIT CARE ORGANIZATIONS
The role of transformational leadership
Master Thesis, MscBA, specialization Human Resource Management University of Groningen, Faculty of Economics and Business
December 11, 2013
JANINE SMID Student number: 1890484
Wassenberghstraat 5a 9718 LD Groningen tel.: +31 (0)646095162 e-mail: janinesmid@gmail.com
Supervisor
Prof. Dr. O. Janssen
FROM MOTIVATION TO ORGANIZATIONAL COMMITMENT OF VOLUNTEERS IN NON-PROFIT CARE ORGANIZATIONS
The role of transformational leadership
ABSTRACT
Volunteer organizations often encounter nonattendance, referred to as the reliability problem. This study integrates theory and research on volunteer motivation, transformational leadership, and organizational commitment to advance understanding of motivational processes underlying volunteers’ affective commitment to non-profit care organizations and to tackle the reliability problem. A mediated moderation model was examined specifying how initial volunteer motivation was indirectly related to affective organizational commitment through volunteer present motivation and moderated by transformational leadership for the first stage that links initial to present motivation. Using a sample from 99 volunteers of the Dutch Red Cross, results confirm that there is a positive relation between motivation and affective organizational commitment. Transformational leadership was not found to serve as a boundary condition between initial and present motivation. A direct relation between transformational leadership and present motivation was found. This shows that transformational leadership positively contributes to present motivation but not to the motivation development of volunteers. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed.
Keywords: non-profit organization; organizational commitment; volunteer;
INTRODUCTION
Volunteer work is labor in an organizational context, unpaid and without any obligations, for the benefit of others and/or society (Meijs, 1997). In 2010 a survey revealed that the level of volunteering in the Netherlands was very high, 40% of the adults were involved in carrying out voluntary activities; this is approximately 5 million people (Mathou, 2010). In order for a volunteer organization to function effectively, it is necessary that its volunteers perform and attend as relied upon (Boezeman & Ellemers, 2007). As a result of the characteristics of volunteer work (e.g., the absence of obligation) volunteer organizations are often confronted with nonperformance and nonattendance of volunteers, referred to as the reliability problem (Pearce, 1993). The reliability problem (Pearce, 1993) however is not easily solved, for example, because the reward structures that operate to motivate and retain paid workers (e.g., pay, promotion) are not available in volunteer organizations.
Pearce (1983) showed that organizational control of volunteers is largely based on personal relationships. Taking into account the enormous volunteer contribution in the Netherlands, maintaining the volunteer base and preventing volunteer drop out is one of the most prominent tasks in non-profit organizations (Yanay & Yanay, 2008).
To tackle the reliability problem and to prevent volunteer drop out, it is important for volunteer organizations to know how to keep volunteer commitment high. Excessive drop out can be fatal to volunteer organization, which is a good reason to study in more depth the influences and causes that affect it (Yanay &
Yanay, 2008). An important element in retaining volunteers in non-profit organizations is volunteers’ organizational commitment, as this seems to discriminate between those who stay and those who leave (Griffeth, Horn, & Gaertner, 2000).
Volunteers’ organizational commitment can be considered as one’s attitude toward an organization related to the willingness to dedicate significant time and effort to the organization without monetary compensation (Bang, Ross, & Reio, 2013). Volunteers who are highly committed to the organization are less likely to leave the organization.
Although volunteers work for an organization without remuneration, they are
likely to have unique expectations or beliefs concerning the organization (Bang et al.,
2013). Lavelle (2010) and Shin and Kleiner (2003) found that volunteers expect
intrinsic rewards from the organization. When this expectation is not fulfilled during
the volunteering, it is expected that volunteers are more likely to quit volunteering.
initiates, directs, and sustains individuals’ volunteer action, thereby attempting to answer the questions “why do people volunteer?” and “what sustains voluntary helping?” (Clary et al., 1998). Motivational needs guide the agendas which people pursue as volunteers, not only by moving people to volunteer and defining the features of volunteer experience which constitute fulfillment of those motivations, but also by defining the consequences for their intentions to remain committed to the organization. Clary et al. (1998) defined six motivational functions of volunteerism and designed an instrument to assess these functions (volunteer functions inventory).
The first purpose of this study was to test the direct relationship between the three functional motives of volunteerism and commitment of volunteers in non-profit care organizations. The three functional motives of volunteerism tested in this study were values, understanding, and enhancement. The first functional motive to volunteer, values, is about expressing or acting upon important values like humanitarianism.
Understanding is a motive which enables individuals to seek to learn more about exercised unused skills. The last functional motive to volunteer, enhancement, is concerned with growing and developing psychologically (Clary & Snyder, 1999). The social exchange theory suggests that individuals who believe they benefit from volunteering will feel obligated to reciprocate, for example through developing beneficial attitudes and performing behaviors that benefit the organization (Jones, 2010). This means that volunteers could exchange commitment to the organization as a result of staying motivated. Accordingly, this study predicts that volunteers who are highly motivated are more likely to stay committed to the volunteer organization.
Ryan, Kaplan, and Grese (2010) state that little is known of volunteers’ motivations for continued participation. Bang et al. (2013) examined volunteering commitment in non-profit sport organization. They found that the functional motives, values, understanding, social, and enhancement of Clary et al. (1998) had a significant and direct impact on commitment. This relationship was partially mediated by job satisfaction. They state that future research could expand on the relationship tested by including other moderators or mediators and by testing the model in other sectors.
In order to understand volunteerism and the volunteering process, it is
important to examine the changes to which the volunteers’ motivation are subjected,
after they joined the organization. The organizations can respond to changes in
volunteer motivation levels when they know if motivation changes. Shin and Kleiner
maintaining the spirit of volunteerism amongst individuals. The second purpose of this study was to examine if the relation between initial motivation and present motivation of volunteers is contingent upon the leadership style of the supervisor of the volunteer. Leaders can be capable of transforming the needs, values, preferences, and aspirations of the volunteers from self-interests to collective interests and subsequently inspire people. Such a leadership style is called transformational leadership. Bass (1985) characterized transformational leadership as the ability to elicit support and participation from followers’ through personal qualities rather than through reward or punishment. Transformational leaders cause followers to become highly motivated and committed to the organization, to make significant personal sacrifices in the interest of the mission, and to perform above and beyond the call of duty (Shamir, House, & Arthur, 1996). Therefore, the degree of transformational leadership of supervisors might be capable of maintaining the initial motives to volunteer and even increase motivation among volunteers. Catano, Pond, and Kelloway (2001) state that although a significant amount of research focusing on organizational commitment and leadership in business organizations has accumulated, comparatively little data addresses the role of leadership in voluntary organizations.
Riggio and Smith Orr (2004) underlined the potential value of transformational leadership theory for voluntary organizations and called for more research in this area.
Therefore, the third purpose of this study was to examine the possibility that elevated levels of volunteer motivation, induced by transformational leadership, ensured that commitment of volunteers in voluntary care organizations stays high.
This study integrates theory and research on organizational commitment,
volunteer motivations and transformational leadership to advance understanding of
the motivational processes underlying volunteer organizational commitment. Non-
profit care organizations are a type of organization whose primary aim is contributing
to a higher quality of life in the community by offering care, first aid, and helping
activities. The goal of this study is to propose and test a mediated moderation model
in which volunteer initial motivation is indirectly related to affective organizational
commitment through volunteer present motivation and moderated by transformational
leadership for the first stage that links initial to present motivation, see figure 1. The
prediction is that a high degree of transformational leadership of supervisors
transforms volunteer initial motivation into a higher present motivation. This
FIGURE 1 Research Model
This study contributes to the existing literature in several ways. Volunteers are fundamentally different from paid employees in the fact that volunteers do not rely upon their job for their livelihood (Pearce, 1993). Therefore, the first contribution to the literature is to shed new light on the motivational process underlying commitment within a voluntary context. Secondly, the relationship between motivation and commitment has been studied in a volunteer sport organization context (Bang et al., 2013) but not in volunteer care organizations. Thirdly, this study contributes to the literature by differentiating between the volunteers’ initial and present motivation for three functional motives from Clary et al. (1998). Fourth, this study combines individual factors (personal motives to volunteer) and contextual factors (behavior of volunteers’ leaders). This study also challenges the current predominant approach of research in this area by testing the moderating role or transformational leadership for volunteer motivation (Shamir et al., 1996; Shin & Kleiner, 2003). Lastly, although a wealth of research has addressed the role of leadership in formal business and government organizations, little work has systematically examined the role of leadership in voluntary organizations (see Catano et al., 2001 and Dwyer et al., 2013 for an exception).
THEORY Organizational Commitment
Meyer and Allen (1991: 67) noted that common to the various definitions of organizational commitment is “the view that commitment is a psychological state that (a) characterizes the employees’ relationship with the organization, and (b) has implications for the decision to continue membership in the organization”. Miller,
Volunteer initial motivation
Affective organizational
commitment Transformational
leadership of supervisor
Volunteer present motivation
Powell, and Seltzer (1990) found that organizational commitment is related to withdrawal cognitions (intentions to remain or leave) among volunteers. Which indicates that committed employees are more likely to remain in the organization than uncommitted employees. It is important to note that as volunteer work is unpaid and not obligatory (Meijs, 1997; Pearce, 1993), it is easy for volunteers to act upon their desire to leave the organization (Pearce, 1993), and therefore the willingness of volunteers to stay in the organization remains important.
Meyer and Allen (1990) made a distinction between three different types of organizational commitment, namely, affective, normative, and continuance organizational commitment. Affective organizational commitment refers to a sense of emotional attachment to the organization. One might feel an emotional bond with an organization, for instance, because one feels “part of the family” within the organization, and they may also feel as if problems of the organization are one’s own.
Employees with a strong affective commitment continue employment with the organization because they want to do so. Normative organizational commitment refers to a feeling of responsibility to stay with the organization. For instance, one may feel that it is immoral to leave the organization because of the goal of the organization.
Employees with a high level of normative commitment feel that they ought to remain with the organization. Continuance organizational commitment is a calculative form of attachment to the organization that binds the individual to the organization because important costs are associated with leaving the organization (e.g., loss of pension benefits). Employees whose primary link to the organization is based on continuance commitment remain because they need to do so.
Given their specific nature, these types of organizational commitment operate
differently in psychologically attaching the individual to the organization and in
describing the behavior of individuals within the organization (Boezeman & Ellemers,
2007). This three-component model of commitment (Meyer & Allen, 1990) has been
used extensively to examine employee involvement in profit organizations (Meyer,
Stanley, Herscovitch, & Topolnytsky, 2002). Taking into account the definition of
volunteer work (e.g., Meijs, 1997) literature suggests that the three types of
organizational commitment operate differently in non-profit volunteer organizations
compared to for-profit organizations (Boezeman & Ellemers, 2007), which will be
discussed below.
With normative organizational commitment individuals may feel that they ought to remain with an organization because they think it is morally right to continue to participate in the same organization (Dordevic, 2004). However, normative commitment seems to have potential limitations in terms of its relationship with other variables (Bang et al., 2013). Meyer et al.’s (2002) study using a meta-analysis identified the relationship between the three forms of commitment and variables such as their antecedents, correlates, and consequences. They found that although affective and continuance commitment correlated with demographic variables, individual differences, work experiences, and alternatives/investments as antecedents, normative commitment identified no distinctive antecedents. Additionally, previous research on volunteerism has consistently found a low-reliability coefficient for the normative commitment variable (Preston & Brown, 2004). Therefore, normative commitment in the non-profit volunteer context may be deemed a point for future research rather than being included in the current study.
Given that the basis of continuance commitment identified by Meyer and Allen (1997) is generally based on economic costs, it seems this is not the case for volunteers (Cuskelly & Boag, 2001). Boezeman and Ellemers (2007) state that given the calculative nature of continuance organizational commitment, one may expect that this type of organizational commitment is less relevant to volunteers because volunteer work is not bound by legal obligations and occurs without material benefits.
Likewise, Dawley, Stephens, and Stephens (2005) tentatively support the notion the continuance commitment might have less utility in the context of volunteers.
Accordingly, the present research will not focus on continuance organizational commitment.
The most effective assessment of organizational commitment appears to be affective organizational commitment (Bang et al., 2013). Meyer and Allen’s study (1991) emphasized that employees who expressed strong affective commitment would be motivated to achieve higher levels of performance, and make more meaningful contributions than employees with continuance or normative commitment. More specifically, affective commitment represents an individuals’
emotional attachment to an organization and its goals, resulting in agreements
between individual and organizational values (Dordevic, 2004). Affective
organizational commitment emerged as a relevant correlate of perceived volunteer
participation in research carried out by Preston and Brown (2004). Accordingly, the present study includes affective organizational commitment as the most important commitment variable.
Volunteer Motivation and Affective Organizational Commitment
Individual motivation emerges as the core of the actualization and continuity in voluntary work from both the standpoint of theoretical research and practical volunteerism (Yeung, 2004). Given that volunteer activities do not involve monetary rewards, motivation is an indispensable factor to consider when trying to understand why individuals volunteer and what sustains this type of behavior (Bang et al., 2013).
The social exchange theory (Thibaut & Kelley, 1959) proposes that individuals who believe that their motivational needs and goals will be fulfilled through volunteering are more likely to engage in, and be more committed to, the service than those who have no such belief. Yeung (2004) states that volunteer motivation provides an excellent research area for exploration of commitment and participation.
Clary et al. (1998) applied a functional approach to volunteer motivation by identifying six broad functions: values, understanding, social, career, protective, and enhancement. A functional analysis is concerned with the needs being met, the motives being fulfilled, and the broad psychological functions served by beliefs, attitudes, and behaviors (Lavelle, 2010). The first motive to volunteer, values, states that the individual volunteer acts on important values such as humanitarianism. The understanding motive states that the volunteer is seeking to learn more about the world or exercise skills that are often unused. The third motive, social, states that volunteering allows an individual to strengthen his or her social relationships. The career motive is the fact that the volunteer has the goal of gaining career-related experience through volunteering. The protective motive states that the individual uses volunteering to reduce negative feelings, such as guilt, or to address personal problems. The final motive, enhancement holds that one can grow and develop psychologically through volunteer activities.
To maintain a viable volunteer base, one of the most important issues facing
non-profit sector programs and services is to know what specifically motivates
individuals to participate (Munro, 2001). The present study includes three
motivational functions of the Volunteer Function Inventory (VFI) as they are the most
relevant in the context of non-profit care organizations. The three motives it encompasses are: values, understanding, and enhancement. Clary et al. (1998) measured the importance of motivations directly and found that values, understanding, and enhancement motivations were rated more highly than social motivation, although no significance tests were reported and the ordering was based on several types of volunteers. Gidron (1978) found that volunteers in health and mental health institution where motivated because they expected to receive benefits related to self-development, learning, and variety in life through their volunteer service. Planalp and Trost (2009) tested 351 hospice volunteers on the VFI, the volunteers reported being most strongly motivated by values and understanding.
As mentioned above, individual motivation is the core of the continuity in voluntary work given that volunteers do not receive any monetary rewards. Social exchange theory can help explain the relationship between motivation and commitment (Bang et al., 2013). When volunteers feel that their needs, goals and motives to volunteer are fulfilled through the volunteer activity, commitment can become an exchange commodity (Lavelle, 2010). Farmer and Fedor (2001) found that the value motivation was positively associated with the amount of money and time donated by March of Dimes volunteers. Consistent results were found by Clary and Orenstein (1991) with a sample of telephone crisis counselors. Omoto and Snyder (1995) found that learning and understanding motivations predict the duration of time people spent volunteering for an AIDS service organization. Okun, Barr, and Herzog (1998) found a similar pattern, reporting that the learning and understanding motivation predicted frequency of volunteering in a senior volunteer program. Okun et al. (1998) also found that ego-enhancement motivations predicted frequency of volunteering in a variety of aspects. Therefore, in exchange for fulfilling volunteers’
values, understanding, and enhancement motivation volunteers might maintain a higher degree of affective organizational commitment. To test this relationship in volunteering care organizations the following hypothesis will be tested.
Hypothesis 1. Volunteer motivation is positively related to affective
organizational commitment.
Clary et al. (1998) suggest that the same motivational concerns are present in different phases of the volunteer process (e.g., initiating volunteer activity and sustaining volunteer activity). According to Haski-Leventhal and Bargal (2008) the strength of the motivation to volunteer may change significantly during the period of volunteering. Empirical research has confirmed this and indicated that the strength of volunteers’ motivation is dependent on the frequency of volunteering (Okun, 1994;
Omoto & Snyder, 1995). Therefore, the motivation to volunteer can be categorized according to the different kinds of people who volunteer, similar to Cary et al. (1998), but also according to the different stages they are in regarding their careers as volunteers. It would be meaningful to test if there is a moderator that could maintain or increase the volunteers’ initial motivation. Schneider (1987) found that an organization’s leaders, rather than its structure, are the fundamental determinants of organizational behavior. Also, given the fact that volunteers in volunteer organizations are unpaid, eliciting positive emotions as well as motivating volunteers to perform well is vital for the overall effectiveness of a volunteer organization (Rowold & Rohmann, 2009). The key to understanding the increase or decrease of volunteer motivation could be to study the leadership style of the supervisors.
Transformational Leadership
Volunteers receive no monetary compensation or material incentives. Rather, their service brings intangible rewards that fulfill different needs and motivations.
Members of volunteer organizations join and contribute to the organization in order to be rewarded by positive emotions (e.g., joy, pride, having succeeded in helping others) and not for money (Rowold & Rohmann, 2009). Therefore, the effective management of volunteers is crucial to instilling and maintaining the spirit of volunteerism among individuals (Shin & Kleiner, 2003). Rowold and Rohmann (2009) found that leaders should avoid evoking negative emotions as this could lead to less motivation on the side of the followers or even to the fact that members of volunteers’ organization drop out. In theory, several suggestions have been made that intend to provide assistance to practitioners in non-profit organizations (e.g., Riggio
& Smith Orr, 2004). However, the understanding about the effects of leadership in
non-profit contexts is very limited (Rowold & Rohmann, 2009). This is surprising
given the growing interest in non-profit and voluntary organizations (Boerner &
Gebert, 2005). Shamir et al. (1996) found that employees’ feelings of involvement, cohesiveness, commitment, potency and performance are enhanced by the transformational leadership style.
The transformational leadership style emerged around 1980 and was referred to as “charismatic”, “visionary”, or “inspirational” in the organizational literature (Shamir et al., 1996). Transformational leaders go beyond the exchange of resources by appealing to followers’ psychological needs (Bryman, 1992). It is the process of influencing organizational members to change their motivational attitudes and assumptions by building commitment to the organization (Yukl, 1998). Individuals who have adopted a transformational style of leadership emphasize higher motive development and arouse followers’ motivation and positive emotions by means of creating and representing an inspiring vision of the future (Bass, 1997).
Transformational leadership is traditionally divided into four components, namely, inspirational motivation, idealized influence, individual consideration, and intellectual stimulation (Avolio, Waldman, & Yammarino, 1991). Inspirational motivation focuses on the communication of an appealing vision of the future and the use of symbols to articulate this vision (Hartog den, Koopman, & Muijen van, 1997).
In other words, the supervisor is optimistic and enthusiastic about the future (Bono &
Judge, 2004). By representing and communicating an optimistic future vision the
inspirational motivation component of leadership could moderate between the initial
and present motivation of volunteers. Secondly, idealized influence refers to
behaviors such as showing that benefits of the group are more important than benefits
of the individual, demonstrating ethical norms and being a role model for the
subordinates (Bono & Judge, 2004). By emphasizing the concern of others above self-
concern, which is related to the value motivation of Clary et al. (1998), the idealized
influence component of transformational leadership could moderate between the
initial and present motivation of volunteers. The third component of transformational
leadership, individual consideration, refers to coaching, supporting, and stimulating
subordinates. The supervisor acknowledges the followers’ feelings, emotions, and
their need to grow and develop themselves (Hartog den et al., 1997). Volunteers are
seen as unique individuals who need specific, individual attention that is congruent
with the development phase they are in (Avolio & Bass, 1995). By stimulating the
self-development of the volunteer, which is related to the enhancement motivation of
Clary et al. (1998), the individual consideration component of transformational leadership could moderate between the initial and present motivation. The fourth and final component of transformational leadership is termed intellectual stimulation, which means that the supervisor challenges the subordinate to see problems from a different perspective. In this way, the supervisor makes the workers active thinkers within the organization and consequently, the employees become more involved with the organization. By stimulating volunteers to learn new experiences and performing abilities that would otherwise go unpracticed, a concept related to the understanding motivation of Clary et al. (1998), the intellectual stimulation component could moderate between the initial and present motivation. This study will test if the degree of transformational leadership of the supervisor can influence the relation between volunteers’ initial motivation and volunteers present motivation.
Hypothesis 2. Transformational leadership moderates the positive relationship between volunteer initial motivation and present motivation, such that the relationship is more positive when transformational leadership is higher rather than lower.
In this study a distinction is made between initial and present motivation. The purpose of the following hypotheses is to measure whether the transformational leadership style of the supervisor moderates the relation between initial motivation and present motivation, which will lead to a higher degree of affective organizational commitment. The idea is that the high degree of transformational leadership style of supervisors’ causes the volunteers’ initial motivation to remain or increase, which will result in a higher degree of volunteers’ present motivation. Because, a low demonstration of transformational leadership style by the supervisor causes volunteers’ motivation to decrease over time. The lower present motivation causes a lower degree of affective organizational commitment, and in accordance a higher present motivation causes a higher degree of organizational commitment.
Hypothesis 3. The positive indirect relationship between volunteer initial
motivation and affective organizational commitment, as mediated by volunteer
present motivation, is conditional upon the degree of transformational
leadership, such that the indirect relationship is more positive when transformational leadership is higher, rather than lower.
METHOD Participants and procedure
The present study’s data was obtained from a questionnaire survey in a field setting among volunteers of the Dutch Red Cross (DRC). The DRC is a humanitarian movement which has approximately 35,000 volunteers in the Netherlands. It was founded to protect human life and health, to ensure respect for all human beings, and to prevent human suffering. The DRC offers first aid during events, social assistance and after war care. Respondents who filled in the questionnaire were volunteering for the department Special Holidays (65.6 percent) and for the department first aid (34.4 percent) of the DRC.
The survey was distributed in two ways, online surveys (32.3 percent) and hardcopy questionnaires (67.7 percent). A link to the online survey was sent by email to volunteers. In the email participants were informed about anonymity processes, the content of the survey, and the procedure. During team meetings hardcopy questionnaires were distributed and participants were informed about the research, the procedures and participant anonymity was emphasized. This information was retrievable on the front page of the questionnaire. The survey took approximately 10 minutes to complete.
The total sample included 99 participants (43.4 percent male and 56.6 percent female). Age ranged from 18 to 78 with a mean age of 51.1 years. Nearly half (45.5 percent) of the participants were classified as holding a high school degree, 23.2 percent held a middle-level applied educational degree, 20.2 percent held a bachelors degree, 9.1 percent held a masters degree and 2 percent of the participants only finished elementary school. The years’ participants were volunteering for the DRC ranged from 0 to 50 years, with an average of 9.3 years.
Measures
Affective commitment. The affective commitment scale (ACS) developed by
Meyer and Allen (1997) and translated in to Dutch by Gilder de, Heuvel van den, and
Ellemers (1997) was used to measure affective organizational commitment. In a
commitment (Meyer & Allen, 1997). This measures consists of four items, among which are “I enjoy discussing my organization with outside people” and “This organization has a great deal of personal meaning to me”. The response format to answer the items was a 7-point Likert scale ranging from “strongly disagree” (1) to
“strongly agree” (7). The α in this study for the affective commitment scale was .85.
Volunteer motivation. Clary et al.’s (1998) volunteer functions inventory (VFI) was used to measure motives to volunteer. Three dimensions of the VFI, namely, values, understanding, and enhancement were included in the questionnaire as a composition scale. They all consisting of 5 statements, representing the variable of volunteer motivation. Respondents were asked about their initial and present motivations to volunteer. When examining the validity of the VFI scale, Clary et al.
(1998) and Allison, Okun, and Dutridge (2002) observed that the VFI scale appears to be a valid measurement. Examples of the value items are, “I am concerned about those less fortunate than myself” and “I feel compassion toward people in need”.
Examples of the understanding items are, “Volunteering lets me learn things through direct, hands on experience” and “I can explore my own strength”. Lastly, examples of the enhancement items are, “Volunteering increases my self-esteem” and
“Volunteering makes me feel better about myself”. The α for initial volunteer motivation in this study was .90. The α for present volunteer motivation in this study was .94. The response format to answer the items was a 7-point Likert scale ranging from “strongly disagree” (1) to “strongly agree” (7).
Transformational leadership. Respondents were asked to describe the behaviors of their supervisors in their current work situation using a seven-point scale ranging from “strongly disagree” to “strongly agree”. A short measure of transformational leadership developed by Careless, Wearing, and Mann (2000) was used consisting of 7 statements. Examples of the transformational leadership items are, “My supervisor encourage employees to be team player” and “My supervisor leads by example”. The response format to answer the items was a 7-point Likert scale ranging from “strongly disagree” (1) to “strongly agree” (7). The α for transformational leadership in this study was .95.
This study included four demographical variables as control variables: gender
(1 = male, 2 = female), age (in years), education (1 = no education, 2 = elementary
school, 3 = lower preparatory education, 4 = preparatory middle-level applied
bachelors’ degree, 8 = masters’ or doctoral degree), and organizational tenure (in years). All the measures were in Dutch.
Data analysis
In the case of missing data the solution was imputation of the mean. To test whether the items of the scale were reliable and consistent the Cronbach’s Alpha was calculated. The alphas’ of the respective measures were all above .70 and thus were acceptable. To examine the descriptive statistics and relationships between variables means, standard deviations, and correlation analysis was used. To test the first hypothesis linear regression was used. The moderated mediation analysis procedures outlined by Preacher, Rucker, and Hayes (2007) was adopted to test the proposed moderated mediation effect. Conjointly, an additional bootstrapping procedure with percentile confidence intervals was used (Selig & Preacher, 2008) to test the conditional indirect relationship between initial motivation and affective organizational commitment through present motivation.
RESULTS Descriptive statistics and correlations
Means, standard deviations, Cronbach’s alpha coefficients, and correlations among the study variables are presented in Table 1. Regarding the four demographic variables, gender was positively correlated with volunteer initial motivation, whereas the correlations between education and organizational commitment, and between organizational tenure and transformational leadership were negative. As expected, volunteer initial motivation was positively related to both volunteer present motivation and affective organizational commitment; volunteer present motivation was also positively correlated with affective organizational commitment.
TABLE 1
Descriptive statistics and correlations for study variables
Variables M SD 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
1. Gender 1.57 .50
2. Age 51.07 17.35 .03
3. Education 5.20 1.67 -.22* -.29**
4. Organizational tenure 9.13 9.87 .12 .37** -.13
5. Initial motivation 4.81 .99 .21* -.07 -.19 .14 (.90)
6. Transformational leadership 4.96 1.35 -.01 .04 -.19 -.24* .28** (.95)
7. Present motivation 5.19 1.08 .18 -.18 -.11 .05 .73** .37** (.94)
8. Affective organizational 5.43 1.14 .18 .06 -.27** .07 .43** .36** .56** (.85)
Note: Cronbach’s alpha coefficients are on the diagonal in parentheses. N = 99. *p < .05. **p < .01.
Hypotheses testing
Hypothesis 1 stated that volunteer motivation is positively related to affective organizational commitment. Gender, age, education, and organizational tenure served as control variables. A regression analysis was carried out to test whether present motivation was positively related to commitment. As shown in Table 2, after controlling for gender, age, education, and organizational tenure, a positive relation between present motivation and organizational commitment was found.
Demonstrating that a higher degree of motivation indeed leads to a significant higher degree of affective organizational commitment. These results provide support for Hypothesis 1.
TABLE 2
Summary of regression analysis for variables predicting affective organizational commitment
Dependent variable
Predictor Affective organizational commitment
B SE t p
Constant 2.78 0.76 3.67 .000
Gender 0.17 0.18 0.94 .350
Age -0.02 0.01 -2.69 .008
Education -0.00 0.06 -0.05 .961
Organizational tenure 0.01 0.01 1.04 .301
Present motivation 0.55 0.08 6.43 .000
Coefficient predictor volunteer motivation
𝑅
!F p
.374 11.12 .000
Hypothesis 2 predicted that transformational leadership would moderate the relationship between volunteer initial motivation and present motivation such that this relationship would be more positive when transformational leadership was higher. As the results reported in Table 3 show, initial motivation and transformational leadership were not found to interact significantly in their effects on present motivation (B = -.07, p = 0.147). These results did not provide support for Hypothesis 2. Although this interaction effect was not found, Table 3 shows that initial motivation to a large extent determines present motivation (B = 1.00, p = .000). Also, transformational leadership contributes to the prediction of present motivation (B = 0.49, p = .033).
Finally, Hypothesis 3 predicted that the indirect relationship between initial
motivation and affective organizational commitment through present motivation
would be more positive when transformational leadership was higher rather than lower. When initial motivation, transformational leadership, and their interactive term were controlled for, present motivation was significantly and positively related to affective organizational commitment (B = 0.54, p < .001; see Table 3). A bootstrapping procedure with percentile CIs indicated that initial motivation and affective organizational commitment were indirectly related through present motivation at both high levels of transformational leadership (M + 1 SD; indirect effect = 0.4; Standard Error = 0.12; 95% CI = .188 to .653) and low levels of transformational leadership (M – 1 SD; indirect relationship = 0.3; Standard Error = 0.12; 95% CI = .125 to .578). Thus, there is an indirect relationship between initial motivation and affective organizational commitment through present motivation regardless of the level of transformational leadership, indicating that transformational leadership did not moderate this indirect relationship. Thus, no support for Hypothesis 3 was found.
TABLE 3
Results of mediated moderation analysis
Present motivation
Predictor B SE t p
Constant -0.17 1.16 -0.15 .882
Gender 0.10 0.15 0.66 .511
Age -0.01 0.005 -2.06 .042
Education 0.01 0.05 0.12 .906
Organizational tenure 0.01 0.01 0.86 .394
Initial motivation 1.00 0.23 4.41 .000
Transformational leadership 0.49 0.22 2.17 .033
Initial motivation × transformational leadership -0.07 0.05 -1.46 .147
Pseudo R! .59
Affective organizational commitment
Predictor B SE t p
Constant 2.36 1.51 1.56 .123
Gender 0.12 0.20 0.62 .538
Age 0.01 0.01 0.88 .377
Education -0.10 0.06 -1.63 .107
Organizational tenure 0.003 0.01 0.30 .767
Initial motivation -0.08 0.33 -0.25 .803
Transformational leadership 0.08 0.30 0.28 .779
Initial motivation × transformational leadership 0.01 0.06 0.18 .858
Present motivation 0.54 0.14 3.96 .000
Pseudo R! .39
Indirect relationship between initial motivation and organizational commitment through present motivation at low and high values of transformational leadership
Transformational leadership Conditional SE 95%
interval*
High (M + 1 SD) 0.4 0.12 .188, .653
Middle 0.4 0.11 .169, .586
Low (M - 1 SD) 0.3 0.12 .125, .578
* Based on 20,000 bootstrap samples
