The Psychological Contract of Volunteers

A New Research Agenda

Bibliographic Data

ID12248824
AuthorsGeoff Nichols (0000-0002-2477-0865, corresponding author)
Year2012
Volume24
Issue4
Pages986-1005
Publication date2012-05-09
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueVoluntas Revista Internacional de Filosofia (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 2179-3786 • E-ISSN: 1573-7888
PublisherSpringer Science+Business Media (PUBLISHER • DE)
DOI10.1007/s11266-012-9294-9
OpenAlexW2036392467
LanguageEN
Citations received17
References cited45

This paper considers the ways in which research into the psychological contract of volunteers have been constrained by the direct transfer of measures from the study of employees, and more generally by the assumptions in the dominant psychological contract discourse. After examining these assumptions the paper proposes a revised research agenda, open to the possibility that the psychological contract of volunteers is affected by expectations arising from socio-cultural influences beyond the volunteer/manager relationships, and in particular, from the expectations of relative freedom in volunteering and from subjective perceptions of volunteering as (variously) serious leisure, unpaid work, or activism. Understanding the contract as socially constructed reveals the need to juxtapose the expectations of managers and volunteers in order to understand the contract as a social relationship

Business · Order (exchange · Perception · Political science · Psychological contract · Public relations · Social contract · Sociology · Job Satisfaction and Organizational Behavior · Law · Nonprofit Sector and Volunteering · Psychology · Social Psychology · Tourism, Volunteerism, and Development