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Prediction of Longevity of Volunteer Service: A Basic Alternative Proposal

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  10 April 2014

María Celeste Dávila de León  and
Fernando Chacón Fuertes
María Celeste Dávila de León*
Affiliation:
Universidad Complutense de Madrid
Fernando Chacón Fuertes
Affiliation:
Universidad Complutense de Madrid
*
Correspondence concerning this article should be sent to Mª Celeste Dávila de León, Dpto. de Psicología Social, Facultad de Sociología, Universidad Complutense de Madrid, Campus de Somosaguas, 28223 Madrid. Phone: 91 394 27 66. E-mail: mcdavila@cps.ucm.es
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Abstract

A problem for many organizations is the low continuity of volunteers. Diverse theoretical models have been developed to explain sustained volunteerism, but most of these models have focused on the study of welfare volunteerism and not have verified whether their results could be generalized to other types of volunteerism. In this study, we propose a basic model to explain sustained volunteerism in any type of volunteerism. The aim of this study is to examine this basic model empirically in a sample of socio-assistential volunteers and in a sample of environmental volunteers. For this purpose, 290 volunteers completed a questionnaire and subsequently, two telephone follow-ups were carried out to determine whether the volunteers remained in the NGO one year later. The results show that the basic model offers an acceptable explanation of sustained volunteerism in the two types of volunteer samples studied, but it accounted for a low percentage of variance of the duration of service in both samples. Various relevant implications for the practical management of volunteerism in organizations are derived from theses findings.

Uno de los problemas a los que se enfrentan muchas organizaciones es la escasa permanencia de los voluntarios. Para predecir la permanencia se han desarrollado diversos modelos teóricos, pero la gran mayoría se ha centrado en el estudio del voluntariado de carácter sociosanitario y no se ha comprobado si los resultados podrían generalizarse a otros tipos de voluntariado. En este trabajo se propone un modelo teórico básico que pueda explicar la permanencia de cualquier tipo de voluntariado, independientemente de las peculiaridades de los mismos. El objetivo de este trabajo es contrastar empíricamente en una muestra de voluntarios socioasistenciales y en una muestra de voluntarios medioambientales dicho modelo básico. Para ello, 290 voluntarios contestaron un cuestionario y participaron en dos seguimientos telefónicos durante un año para evaluar su permanencia en la organización. Los resultados muestran que el modelo básico propuesto obtiene un ajuste aceptable tanto en voluntarios socioasistenciales como en voluntarios medioambientales, aunque logra explicar reducidos porcentajes de varianza de la permanencia en ambos casos. De estos hallazgos se derivan distintas implicaciones para la gestión práctica del voluntariado en las organizaciones.

Keywords

volunteerismretentionsatisfactionorganizational commitmentintention to continuevoluntariadopermanenciasatisfaccióncompromiso organizacionalintención de continuar
Type
Articles
Information
The Spanish Journal of Psychology , Volume 10 , Issue 1 , May 2007 , pp. 115 - 121
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2007

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