Too Much of a Good Thing? The Emotional Challenges of Managing Affectively Committed Volunteers

TY - JOUR

T1 - Too Much of a Good Thing? The Emotional Challenges of Managing Affectively Committed Volunteers

AU - Ward, Jenna

AU - Greene, Anne Marie

N1 - Funding Information: We would like to acknowledge the generous funding and participation of the National Trust in this research project. Publisher Copyright: © The Author(s) 2018.

PY - 2018/12/1

Y1 - 2018/12/1

N2 - This article presents the emotional challenges of managing affectively committed volunteers and the associated impacts on the managerial task. Through a qualitative arts-based study at a U.K. nonprofit organization, the National Trust, dominant rhetoric positioning volunteering as positive is problematized. Paid managers find managing affectively committed volunteers emotionally demanding and are often reluctant to address what they perceive to be difficult volunteer behavior. This study conceptualizes the emotionally challenging behaviors of volunteers and the reluctance of their paid managers to address them, as a consequence of a variation in adherence to the organizational display and feeling rules that define their shared emotional arena. This is influenced by the existence or lack of an employment contract within the context of their affective commitment. Suggestions are made for further research and practice regarding the management of volunteers.

AB - This article presents the emotional challenges of managing affectively committed volunteers and the associated impacts on the managerial task. Through a qualitative arts-based study at a U.K. nonprofit organization, the National Trust, dominant rhetoric positioning volunteering as positive is problematized. Paid managers find managing affectively committed volunteers emotionally demanding and are often reluctant to address what they perceive to be difficult volunteer behavior. This study conceptualizes the emotionally challenging behaviors of volunteers and the reluctance of their paid managers to address them, as a consequence of a variation in adherence to the organizational display and feeling rules that define their shared emotional arena. This is influenced by the existence or lack of an employment contract within the context of their affective commitment. Suggestions are made for further research and practice regarding the management of volunteers.

KW - affective commitment

KW - arts-based methods

KW - emotional arenas

KW - National Trust

KW - volunteer management

UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85049684225&partnerID=8YFLogxK

U2 - 10.1177/0899764018783276

DO - 10.1177/0899764018783276

M3 - Article

AN - SCOPUS:85049684225

SN - 0899-7640

VL - 47

SP - 1155

EP - 1177

JO - Nonprofit and Voluntary Sector Quarterly

JF - Nonprofit and Voluntary Sector Quarterly

IS - 6

ER -