Transcript The University of Sheffield: PowerPoint template

Applying the psychological
contract to the
management of volunteers
in sport.
Geoff Nichols, Sheffield University
Management School
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Structure
• The importance of volunteers in sport
• Application of the psychological contract to
employees
• The nature of volunteering, in contrast to
paid work
• Implications for applying the psychological
contract to volunteers
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The importance of sports volunteers
• To help achieve government policies
• Expression of individual or collective
identities
• Contribution to democratic structures.
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How many volunteers?
• 44% of adults volunteer formally (England)
• ‘sport & exercise 3rd most important type
of organization
• Sports clubs run by their members = 75%
of sports volunteers [100,000 clubs]
• Major events – 70,000 volunteers for
London Olympics
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Psychological contract for employees
• As mutual promises
• Subjective
• Studied to help manage behaviour
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Types of contract / measurement
• Content – transactional / relational
• By features – written / unwritten etc.
• By how employees evaluate it
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Content – exchange balance
Diagram 1. The Exchange Balance
Employee
underobligation
R
e
w
a
r
d
Mutual high
obligations
Employee
overobligation
Mutual low
obligations
Effort
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Issues in application to employees
• Free engagement v conflict of interests
• Trust – a substitute for control
• Change with experience
• Usually just employees’ view – not managers’
• Dominant quantitative methods
• Attempts to generalize
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Psychological contract and volunteers
• Subjective experience – with socio-cultural
and institutional influences
• Nature of volunteering
• Contrast to paid work
• Illustrated with sports volunteers
• New research questions
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Volunteering as Leisure
• Unpaid work
• Activism
• Serious Leisure – provision and
expression of valued social identity
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Volunteering as Leisure
Unpaid
work or
service
Serious
Leisure
Activism
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Unpaid work - implications
• Effort bargain – minus pay
• Manage volunteers like paid employees
• Motives a proxy for expected rewards
• A transactional contract is possible
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Activism - implications
• Focus on values of volunteers
• Aligned with those of organisation
• Values may extend to how the
organization meets its objectives
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Serious leisure - implications
• Used to understand volunteers in small
organizations
• Explains ‘stalwarts’
• Commitment – self-identity from
volunteering – strong bond
• Changes – transactional to relational
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3 types of leisure - implications
• Psychological contract understood through
qualitative research
• Might be considerable variety on one
organization e.g. a sports club
• Might be better to research them as a
social gathering
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Influence of views of paid work
• Work / leisure couplet – defined in relation
to each other
• As co-operation / or as conflict?
• Less free will than leisure
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Views of paid work - implications
• If a conflict view of paid work, volunteers may
resent management as ‘manipulation under
another name’
• If a co-operation view – management is effective
organization
• But – a different style of management may be
expected by volunteers
• Need to understand volunteers’ and managers’
views
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Conclusions
• Psychological contract useful in
understanding the relationship between
volunteers and managers
• But mutual expectations will be influenced
by experience of volunteering as leisure,
and leisure as a contrast to paid work.
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Conclusions
• Difficult to generalize from employees
• Require qualitative research e.g. in sports
clubs
• Compare views of volunteers and
managers
• Different between event volunteers and
sports clubs
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Some research questions
• Does a view of volunteering as leisure
affect the PC?
• How and why do contracts change – how
can management influence this?
• Do views of employment affect PC in
volunteering?
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Some research questions
• How do managers view the PC with
volunteers? Is it different to employees?
• When volunteers manage volunteers can
we understand this as a viable
combination of psychological contracts – a
social relationship. e.g. sports club?
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