Third sector organisations (TSOs) have been operating in a turbulent environment of social, political and economic changes, presenting challenges to their continued activities. The volunteer workforce, as a key component of TSOs’ human resource, has long been considered crucial for the sector. Despite this acknowledgement, existing research suggests that TSOs have not effectively managed and supported their volunteer workforce in order to sustain development. There are claims for TSOs to place volunteer management (VM) onto a strategic level, and it is considered crucial for TSO managers, CEOs and volunteer coordinators (VCs) to achieve sustainable organisational development through the strategic planning and implementation of VM practices. However, existing research has focussed more on articulating volunteer motives; and little attention has been paid to considering the ways in which individual perspectives influence effective VM. This study addressed the gap by exploring key players’ (CEO, VC and volunteer) perceptions of the policies, practices and processes used to attract, engage and retain volunteers in small to medium Scottish TSOs. It aimed to provide insights into the importance of strategic VM in sustaining TSO performance and in understanding the crucial role of VCs, through unfolding the processes of making and fulfilling individual volunteer psychological contracts (VPCs). Three case studies were carried out within three Scottish TSOs; in-depth qualitative interviews were conducted with participants occupying different roles, CEO (n=3), VC (n=5) and volunteers (n=16). Supplementary data were obtained through documentary study of VM policies and practices. Data collection was guided by a conceptual framework developed by embedding the Resource Based View (RBV) of HRM and HR devolution to the Line into the process of making and fulfilling the psychological contract. Results support the claim that TSOs would benefit from more strategic management of their volunteer workforce as a competitive resource. Examining VM through the lens of the VPC provided empirical evidence to confirm that it is crucial to engage and retain volunteers by shaping their expectations and motives within the TSO, and thus ensure more sustainable TSO performance. The results further support the salient role of VC as volunteer line manager, in attracting, engaging and retaining volunteers through effective VM implementation. In arriving at these results, this research has extended the theoretical debate on the importance of strategic HR management and the key role that line managers can play in achieving this beyond the more dominant private sector focus.

In the current South African context there is a strong likelihood of the occurrence of trauma incidents that involve people of different races. Anecdotal evidence suggests that this has contributed to the increased expression of negative racial sentiments by victims of trauma, especially in crime related trauma, when the perpetrator/s are of a different race group to the victim. This research study locates itself within the small number of studies that have sought to engage with the problem of negative racial sentiments as a response to trauma. This study focused particularly on the observations, explanations and interventions of volunteer counsellors in having to engage with this content in traumatized clients. The study sought to understand the impact that the expression of negative racial sentiments had on the process of trauma counselling and debriefing and on counsellors personally. The research was operationalized within a hermeneutically oriented qualitative research framework. The participant group was comprised of 11 volunteer counsellors from different parts of Johannesburg and from different organizations. Participants were chosen through purposive sampling and face to face semi-structured interviews were used as the method of data collection. Thematic content analysis was employed to analyze the interview texts. The findings suggest that negative racial sentiments are a commonly occurring response following a trauma. Counsellors predominantly understand negative racial sentiments to be part of the trauma symptom pattern, in that they explain such responses as ‘trigger’ reactions. Counsellors also understood the sentiments to represent pre-existing prejudice, exaggerated and re-evoked by the trauma. The findings indicate that counsellors were developing and utilizing skills and interventions mainly of their own design in engaging with negative racial sentiments, as they are generally not trained on how to engage with this content in trauma counselling. Counsellors use interventions such as normalizing, psychoeducation and CBT based interventions when they do intervene, but in some cases make a choice not to intervene. Counsellors reported considerable discomfort and suggested that although case by case intervention was important, some guidance as to how to work in this area would be useful. The contextual nature of the problem and related interventions was also highlighted.

Non-profit organizations are different from profit organizations in many ways. One important aspect is that their operation is mainly built up by volunteers giving their timeand contributing to the operations within the organization. This is also one of the biggest issues non-profit organizations have to face daily, the fact that the management constantly be on the search for new volunteers. We decided that we wanted to know how some of these non-profit organizations work towards motivating and retaining their volunteers and if and how this work could be improved. We have done our research on the organizations the Red Cross, Save the Children and YMCA. We chose to do aqualitative research in order to get to know the organization and the people behind it enough to be able to answer our research question. We conducted the interviews with at least one person from each of the organizations that were in a managerial position and we also carried out interviews with a number of volunteers from each of the organizations from different operations.To be able to make conclusions from the empirical findings that we got we used a number of theories on the different subjects such as motivation and organizational theories. The empirical findings that we gathered from the interviews provided us with an insight in the organizations that we had hoped for as well as answers to our questions in a sufficient way. We found out what the major issues these organizations were struggling with according to the managers and from the volunteers we got information on how they want to be motivated and how that could help improve the work carried out by the volunteers.We have come up with suggestions on how this work could be improved for the best of both the organizations and the volunteers within them. The conclusions that we make from this is that there are simple but effective ways that these organizations can improve their work towards motivating and retaining their volunteers such as; creating a feeling of belonging with the organization by arranging meetings and gatherings; improving the communication between higher management and the volunteers in order to convey the mission and reason to why this work is carried out; and by giving the volunteers an opportunity to contribute in the way that fit them at different times in their life.

The purpose of this study was to assess the perceptions of Master Livestock Volunteer program participants regarding the effectiveness of the program, their role in the county 4-H volunteer program, and the role of various stakeholders in livestock project decision making. A census was attempted of the 242 possible participants. Using recommendations from Dillman (2000), master volunteers were contacted by email if available and via mailed questionnaire. This process yielded a 38% response rate. Follow-up methods increased the response rate to 52.4%. The volunteers indicated the programs was of high importance and effective. Findings included that volunteers perceived their most influence came in the selection of feeds. The educator role was the one most involved in the decision making process of the livestock projects, followed by the manager role, leader role, and various servant-type leadership roles. Volunteers ranked stakeholders' influence on livestock project decisions, with the youth and the parents as most influential followed by the CEA, the volunteer, and the breeder. The average participant reported nine years of overall volunteer service and two years of service as a Master Livestock Volunteer. Participants in this study were between 38 and 47 years of age.

Abstract Has several research of voluntary service in recent years in Taiwan, the most subjects are focused on discussed, satisfied on work and tendency of resign or organization commitment, in the other hand, less discussing about characteristic of voluntary service participator and discuss on view of volunteer management. Using questionnaire for research, to analysis the influence from volunteer base property and volunteer¡¦s management to voluntary participator for community concern center in His ¡V Gang township of Tainan county, the main discovery as below: ¢¹. The base property of volunteer in community concern center, the main characteristic is female, marriage and several children, education around three of quarter is focused on graduated from elementary school and junior high school, main for elder and age of voluntary participator around 51-60 years old and over 60 years old; career main for housewife, second for agriculture, fishery and animal husbandry, the salary was not high, volunteer have religious belief mostly and believe in Taoism more than Buddhism. ¢º. Obviously, volunteer quite satisfied in any part of voluntary management, special in volunteer recruit, volunteer planning much more obvious. But the personal welfare aspire and encourage cannot satisfied other psychology and reality layer which special on checking system and reward and punishment system. Has not clear difference in volunteer management form analysis in different marriage, career, different number of children and monthly average salary. Has clear diversity in volunteer management in sexuality, age, education, religious belief and volunteer seniority. ¢». Overall for voluntary management any part has high satisfied, according to regression analysis shows positive influence from volunteer whether continuous participate in voluntary service; therefore, more willing to involve more time and energy on voluntary participation, and then own good evaluation of community and interpersonal relationship lead to honor, self confidence and social responsibility from deep mind, therefore, voluntary management good or not has big influence to attitude of voluntary participator. Key word: voluntary service,volunteer management, voluntary,

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Thesis (Ph.D.) -- University of Western Sydney, 2005. / A thesis submitted to the University of Western Sydney in partial fulfilment of requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy from the College of Law and Business. Includes bibliography.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Wisconsin--Madison, 1974. / Typescript. Vita. eContent provider-neutral record in process. Description based on print version record. Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (Ph.D.)--Kent State University, 2006. / Title from PDF t.p. (viewed Sept. 12, 2006). Advisor: Nancy D. Padak, Wendy C. Kasten. Keywords: fluency; poetry; volunteers; word recognition; words correct per minute; comprehension. Includes bibliographical references (p.153-165).

Thesis (M.A.)--Humboldt State University, 2006. / Includes bibliographical references (54-55). Also available via Humboldt Digital Scholar.