@article {bnh-8383, title = {Exploring Volunteer Turnover Reasons, Intentions, and Behaviour}, journal = {Group \& Organization Management}, year = {2024}, month = {03/2024}, abstract = {

Volunteer involving organisations play a vital role in many societies. Yet, turnover among volunteers remains a persistent struggle and volunteer involving organisations still do not have a good understanding of why volunteers leave. In response, we employed a mixed-methods approach to explore why volunteers consider leaving. By coding textual responses of Australian State Emergency Services and Scouting volunteers (n\ = 252 and 2235) on an annual engagement survey, we found seven overarching reasons to consider leaving these volunteer involving organisations: Conflict, high demands and/or low resources, lack of fit, lack of inclusion, personal commitments and circumstances, poor communication and organisational practices, and poor leadership. When contrasted to the reasons that employees leave organisations for, the lack of inclusion and poor communication and organisational practices seem to be uniquely salient reasons that volunteers consider leaving for. Subsequently, guided by the Proximal Withdrawal States theory and using quantitative data from the Scouts sample, we investigated how reasons to consider turnover can predict turnover intentions and turnover behavior. First, volunteers in different withdrawal states cited different potential turnover reasons. For example, volunteers who {\textquoteleft}wanted to stay, but felt they had to leave{\textquoteright} cited personal commitments and circumstances more frequently than those in different withdrawal states. Second, we found that reasons to consider turnover explained little variance in turnover behavior one year later.

}, keywords = {volunteering}, doi = {https://doi.org/10.1177/10596011241237841}, url = {https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/10596011241237841}, author = {Djurre Holtrop and Christine Soo and Maryl{\`e}ne Gagn{\'e} and Darja Kragt and Patrick Dunlop and Aleksandra Luksyte} } @article {bnh-8340, title = {Setting expectations during volunteer recruitment and the first day experience: a preregistered experimental test of the met expectations hypothesis}, journal = {European Journal of Work and Organizational Psychology}, year = {2022}, month = {04/2022}, abstract = {

In a preregistered experimental study that draws from the met expectations hypothesis, we examined how volunteer recruitment messaging can shape expectations of new volunteers prior to their first day, and whether meeting or failing to meet expectations on the first day would affect satisfaction. By experimentally manipulating a recruitment poster, we set either a transactional (i.e., by volunteering, one can learn new skills) or a relational expectation (i.e., one can work in a team). Participants then viewed an experimentally determined vignette that depicted their first day as a volunteer as either being rich in, or bereft of, experiences of teamwork and learning new skills (crossed). We found that recruitment messaging strongly impacted the participants{\textquoteright} expectations of the volunteering experience prior to their first day. Neither meeting expectations regarding teamwork nor learning new skills played a statistically significant causal role in determining satisfaction. By contrast, richer experiences notwithstanding expectations, and especially those pertaining to learning new skills, were more important determinants of satisfaction. Polynomial regression analyses supported the experimental results, namely that experiences far more strongly determined satisfaction than did expectations. We conclude that providing richer experiences to volunteers is more important than expectation management for volunteer satisfaction.

}, keywords = {experiment, met expectations, preregistered, recruitment, volunteering}, doi = {https://doi.org/10.1080/1359432X.2022.2070478}, url = {https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/epub/10.1080/1359432X.2022.2070478?needAccess=true}, author = {Patrick Dunlop and Djurre Holtrop and Darja Kragt and Maryl{\`e}ne Gagn{\'e} and Hawa Muhammad Farid and Aleksandra Luksyte} } @article {bnh-8139, title = {Enabling sustainable emergency volunteering {\textendash} final project report}, number = {695}, year = {2021}, month = {08/2021}, institution = {Bushfire and Natural Hazards CRC}, address = {MELBOURNE}, abstract = {

The Enabling sustainable emergency volunteering project was jointly undertaken by researchers at RMIT University, the University of Western Australia, and Curtin University for the Bushfire and Natural Hazards Cooperative Research Centre (CRC). It is the only core project in the CRC{\textquoteright}s research cluster on Sustainable Volunteering that is in active research phase. The goal of this cluster was to improve the long-term sustainability of the volunteer workforce, and better engage the potential of volunteering to build disaster resilience in Australian communities.

The Enabling sustainable emergency volunteering project had two broad aims, each of which was addressed by a targeted package of work:

The project complemented other active CRC research projects, especially in the Emergency management capability cluster (e.g. Diversity and inclusion: building strength and capability and Catastrophic and cascading events: planning and capability projects).\ It also drew from work in two completed projects: the Bushfire CRC Volunteerism project (2003-2010) undertaken by researchers at La Trobe University and the Bushfire and Natural Hazards CRC Out of uniform: building community resilience through non-traditional volunteering project (2015-2017), which was a precursor to the Enabling sustainable emergency volunteering project based at RMIT University.\ 

This Final Report communicates the key activities and achievements of the Enabling sustainable emergency volunteering project in its entirety from July 2017, up to March 2021. It also describes a range of follow-on utilisation activities being undertaken from July 2020 to June 2021.

}, keywords = {Emergency, recruitment, sustainable, volunteering}, issn = {695}, author = {Blythe McLennan and Patrick Dunlop and Darja Kragt and Djurre Holtrop and Maryl{\`e}ne Gagn{\'e} and Aleksandra Luksyte and Hawa Farid} } @article {bnh-7341, title = {A Culture of Burning: Social-Ecological Memory, Social Learning and Adaptation in Australian Volunteer Fire Brigades}, journal = {Society and Natural Resources}, year = {2020}, month = {09/2020}, abstract = {

While Australian government agencies are increasingly emphasizing the need to {\textquotedblleft}build community resilience{\textquotedblright} to bushfires, communities in many rural landscapes have a strong history of actively managing fire risk, in particular through involvement in volunteer fire brigades. This paper explores social-ecological memory, social learning, and adaptation in volunteer Country Fire Authority brigades in western Victoria, specifically in the context of planned burning of strategic roadside fire breaks. It examines the relationships between local knowledge, narratives and practices of burning and how these shape volunteer identities, embodying {\textquotedblleft}shared responsibility{\textquotedblright}. Findings show that participation in roadside burning is critical for supporting social learning and ongoing community engagement in fire management. However, changing land uses, social demographics and regulatory processes are negatively impacting local volunteer capacities. While brigades have responded by re-organizing their practices, questions remain as to what extent this constitutes adaptation or transformation connecting to broader landscape-level risk management.

}, keywords = {adaptation, Bushfire, community-based fire management, planned burning, resilience, volunteering}, doi = {https://doi.org/10.1080/08941920.2020.1819494}, url = {https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/08941920.2020.1819494}, author = {Sarah Dickson-Hoyle and Ruth Beilin and Karen Reid} } @article {bnh-5610, title = {Emergency volunteering shared learning network}, number = {478}, year = {2019}, month = {06/2019}, institution = {Bushfire and Natural Hazards CRC}, address = {Melbourne}, abstract = {

The Emergency Volunteering Shared Learning Network (EVN) was established in September 2018, with the following goals:

The EVN was initially set up as a 6-month pilot project, sponsored by the Bushfire and Natural Hazards Cooperative Research Centre (BNHCRC) in conjunction with the Enabling sustainable emergency volunteering research project.1 The EVN is convened by Blythe McLennan and Tarn Kruger from RMIT University.

The purpose of this report is to document the activities of the EVN during the pilot period, evaluate their impact and share learnings with the network{\textquoteright}s members as well as other BNHCRC researchers and end users. The report will also help to inform decisions about the next steps for the EVN.

}, keywords = {Citizen action, disaster, Emergence, Emergency, Informal volunteerism, resilience, volunteering}, issn = {478}, author = {Blythe McLennan} } @article {bnh-6012, title = {State Emergency Service volunteer views on expectations, experiences and motivations}, number = {513}, year = {2019}, month = {09/2019}, institution = {Bushfire and Natural Hazards CRC}, address = {Melbourne}, abstract = {

In 2017, the University of Western Australia (UWA) began a research collaboration project with the Department of Fire and Emergency Services (DFES), funded by the Bushfire and Natural Hazards Cooperative Research Centre (CRC), to investigate ways to improve the retention rates of their emergency service volunteers. The State Emergency Service (SES) volunteers are a vital community within Western Australia{\textquoteright}s emergency volunteering sector due to their profound work and assistance in times of natural disasters and other emergencies. As such, researchers from UWA (Patrick Dunlop, Maryl{\`e}ne Gagn{\'e}, and Djurre Holtrop have since relocated to Curtin University) have collaborated to develop and administer a Cultural Assessment Tool (CAT) in the form of an online survey. The purpose of this survey was to learn about the SES volunteering experience from the volunteers{\textquoteright} perspectives in order to obtain information on how to improve volunteer recruitment, retention, wellbeing, and diversity within the overall SES volunteering journey.

}, keywords = {Emergency management, research, state emergency service, survey, sustainable volunteering, volunteering}, issn = {513}, author = {Hawa Farid and Darja Kragt and Patrick Dunlop and Maryl{\`e}ne Gagn{\'e} and Aleksandra Luksyte and Djurre Holtrop} } @article {bnh-5622, title = {Volunteering research in Australia: A narrative review}, journal = {Australian Journal of Psychology}, year = {2019}, month = {06/2019}, abstract = {

Australian research on volunteering is rich and diverse, but also increasingly fragmented. In an attempt to promote a more integrated study of volunteering, we review volunteering research conducted in Australia, using volunteering journey as a framework. Specifically, we summarise literature on volunteer characteristics, motivations, benefits, psychological contract, commitment, and withdrawal.

}, keywords = {benefits, motivation, narrative review, volunteer retention, volunteering, withdrawal}, doi = { https://doi.org/10.1111/ajpy.12251}, url = {https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/ajpy.12251}, author = {Darja Kragt and Djurre Holtrop} }