Gert Huybrechts

Effects of ideological and relational psychological contract breach and fulfilment on volunteers’ work effort

The ideological psychological contract (PC) describes perceived obligations related to an organization’s mission, values, and principles. The lack of research regarding ideological PC breach and fulfilment is surprising, as theory states that this PC type has distinct effects on outcomes. We address this gap in the literature and investigate how ideological PC breach and fulfilment influence volunteers’ work effort and whether this effect differs from relational PC breach and fulfilment. We measured promised and delivered ideological and relational inducements on two separate occasions and used polynomial regressions and response surface analyses to test our hypotheses. In the case of ideological PC fulfilment, results indicated that work effort increases in situations of mutual-low and mutual-high obligations. In the case of ideological PC breach, work effort increases in situations of under- and overfulfilment. We conclude that underfulfilment of ideological PCs differed from relational PCs, as work effort decreases in the case of the latter. Hence, our findings demonstrate the importance of considering the unique nature of ideological obligations in the PC literature.

Volunteers’ Psychological Contracts Extending Traditional Views

There is a growing interest in applying the psychological contract concept to the relationship between volunteers and nonprofit organizations. However, previous studies overlook certain elements of volunteers’ psychological contracts as they build on theory established with reference to paid employees. We argue that the inclusion of a value-based psychological contract type, next to transactional and relational types, enables a more thorough understanding of perceived mutual obligations between volunteers and nonprofit organizations. We use the critical incidents technique to map volunteers’ perceived (un)fulfilled obligations and find that volunteers perceive both fulfilled and unfulfilled value-based obligations. Moreover, we describe specific terms related to the mission and values of the organization reported by volunteers. We conclude that future psychological contract research needs to take this value-based dimension into account, especially in volunteerism.

Volunteer decisions (not) to leave: Reasons to quit versus functional motives to stay

In this article we test whether reasons to quit volunteering can be structured as the commonly used six functional motives to volunteer of Clary et al. (1998). We conjecture that owing to volunteer involvement in an organization, additional contextual factors influence the choice to stop volunteering for that organization. Based on a literature review and a qualitative exploratory analysis, we present items respectively measuring motives to volunteer among active volunteers and reasons to quit among former volunteers in the context of the Scouts and Guides Organization in Flanders (Belgium). We test content-wise symmetry based on expert-rater agreement, while structural symmetry is tested based on factor analyses. Results show that no symmetry can be found. However, additional contextual factors clearly determine the decision to leave an organization. We theorize on how these individual, interpersonal and organizational factors are continuously traded off by volunteers during their involvement in a particular organization.

Revisiting the Relationship between Personality and Psychological Contracts: A Moderated Mediation Model Explaining Volunteer Performance

For many nonprofit organizations, it is of the utmost importance to understand why some volunteers donate more time than others. This article examines how the Big Five personality traits relate to the amount of time donated by volunteers and proposes that transactional, relational, and ideological psychological contracts mediate this relationship. Moreover, this study examines whether the interaction among extraversion, agreeableness, and tenure explains additional variance in the ideological contract. Path analysis is used to estimate a moderated mediation model, on the basis of data from two time-lagged surveys (). The results reveal direct relationships between personality traits and the three psychological contract types and support hypothesized interactions in explaining the ideological contract. This study also finds that transactional and relational contracts act as mediators. The authors conclude that psychological contract types can help explain why, on the basis of personality differences, some volunteers donate more time to their nonprofit organization than others.

From “getting” to “giving”: Exploring age-related differences in perceptions of and reactions to psychological contract balance

We assess how age relates to the degree of balance in volunteers’ psychological contracts (PCs). Research on PCs treating age as a substantive variable remains scarce in the literature. Nonetheless, this seems important in light of the increasing age-diversity in the voluntary workforce, as several theories suggest that younger and older individuals may prefer different degrees of balance in their PC. Moreover, previous studies have empirically shown that age influences how people respond to other aspects of the PC, such as breach and fulfilment. We hypothesize that volunteers perceive different levels of PC imbalance depending upon their age. More specifically, we argue that older volunteers tend to perceive organization underobligation, whereas younger volunteers tend to perceive organization overobligation. In addition, we hypothesize that age moderates the effects of PC imbalance on the intention to stop volunteering in an organization. We use polynomial regressions and response surface analysis to examine survey data of 401 volunteers. Our results support our hypotheses, thus emphasizing the importance of including individual differences, such as age, in future research on PC balance.

Nonprofit Governance Quality: Concept and Measurement

ABSTRACT A nonprofit “governance quality index” was developed to enable verification and falsification of contemporary theoretical insights on social service organizations. Indicators were generated based on an extensive qualitative exploration. For the quantitative validation, a data set was composed of 526 respondents from 52 organizations. Five subdimensions of governance quality are introduced and are recommended to be used as separate scales, rather than combined into a single score on governance quality. Furthermore, the recommendation is made to rely on multiple raters per organization to assess governance quality or related concepts, given the substantial within-organization variance found.

Optimal membership size and the governance of grassroots associations

Abstract This paper explores the link between membership size and the governance of grassroots associations. The issue of mission preference heterogeneity is highlighted and its effect on membership size is analyzed by developing a model and conducting a numerical simulation. An important finding is that the degree of heterogeneity of mission preferences in the potential member population has a negative effect on the optimal number of members of the grassroots association. The paper ends with a discussion of the use of governance mechanisms to limit mission drift.