Volunteers and paid staff members in hybrid organizations
Panel conveners:
Drs. JozefienGodemont (UGent/KULeuven, Belgium)
Dr. Johan Von Essen (ErstaSkondall University College, Sweden)
Dr. Lesley Hustinx (UGent, Belgium)
Panel theme
Civicness, the capacity of organizations to stimulate civility, is no longer reserved for civil society organizations (CSOs) (Brandsen et al., 2010). Third parties, such as public agencies, schools and firms, increasingly enter civil society. At the same time, the prototypical civil society and its universe of organizations is reinvigorated as “a place where politics can be democratised, active citizenship strengthened, the public sphere reinvigorated and welfare programmes suited to pluralist needs designed and delivered” (Brown et al., 2000: 57). Volunteers are explicitly prized for their added value as citizens.
Voluntary associations and their representatives have pioneered formally organized services in many fields (e.g. adult education, elderly care, child care). From the 1980s onwards, international scholarship has noted that welfare services, and educational and leisure activities have been increasingly delivered by hybrid arrangements and volatile partnerships between sectors that flexibly combine quasi-state, quasi-market and quasi-civic institutional logics (Billis, 2010; Bode, 2006; Brandsen et al., 2005). As a result of these processes of ‘institutional hybridization’ (Billis, 2010; Bode, 2006; Brandsen et al., 2005; Brandsen et al., 2010) or ‘rehybridization’ (Wijkström & Zimmer, 2011), CSOs currently exhibit a significant amount of hybrid structural and cultural features: they engage both paid staff members and volunteers, their revenue structure entails both public and private resources, they prioritize partnership governance over more hierarchical modes of governance, they engage in service delivery and advocacy, and so on (Anheier, 2005; Billis, 2010; Evers, 2005).
Although voluntary engagement remains substantial in CSOs, recently it has become more fluid, sporadic and dispersed - as is exemplified by concepts such as ‘episodic volunteering’ (Macduff, 2004; Cnaan & Handy, 2005), ‘revolving-door volunteering (Dekker & Halman, 2003), or ‘plug-in’ volunteering (Eliasoph, 1998). Volunteer-involving organizations, mainly CSOs and public agencies, have pro-actively sought to accommodate these changes in volunteering style by providing new arrangements (e.g., more short-term volunteer opportunities) (HustinxMeijs, 2011).
We expect that the increasing organizational hybridity of CSOs plays an important role in the present-day nature and experiences of their paid staff members and volunteers. The impact of organizational hybridity on organizational participants hasn’t received much research attention yet. The findings so far point to both beneficial and adverse effects. Hybrid settings can form stimulating environments because they exhibit clarified lines of public and social accountability, greater efficiency and innovation, promote political activity and sometimes even radicalize their mission (Binder, 2007). Paine et al. (2010) observe that in some organizations volunteers are engaged for more responsible and complex tasks. In contrast, in other organizations a hierarchy is installed, with volunteers being excluded from decision-making roles and performing less risky or ancillary tasks, leaving the complex tasks to paid staff members. Eliasoph (2011) observed that while hybrid settings may stimulate public-spirited dialogue among paid staff members, they impeded political talk among volunteers.
Questions of interest
In the panel the following types of questions can be addressed:
- What is the impact of hybrid organizational settings on:
o Meanings that volunteers and paid staff members attribute to their efforts?
o Organizational participants’ perceptions of citizenship and the role of volunteering in society?
o Structural-behavioral and motivational-attitudinal components of the volunteering style ?
o Interpersonal relationships between organizational participants (paid staff members, volunteers, clients)?
o Volunteer management and service delivery practices?
o Professionalization of volunteering, for instance monitoring, evaluation and demands for competence?
- To what extent do hybrid organizational settings offer a fostering environment for the classic positive externalities of voluntary action? (e.g. social capital formation)
- How is volunteering framed and justified in professionalized organizations?
The panel aims to develop a new and broad research agenda to further define and test the concept of organizational hybridity and its impact on the present-day nature and experiences of CSOs’ paid staff members and volunteers.
Paper Title
A theory informed survey research approach to hybrid organization’s impact on civility in the context of volunteering
Author
AnaelLabigne, ; Hertie School of Governance (Presenter)
Abstract
I will build on a long tradition of research that established a relationship between voluntary associations and some positive impact for democracy. I ask to what extent the knowledge gained within this rather classical Neo-Tocquevillian school of thought matters for research on hybrid forms of voluntary organizations in contemporary, western societies. The three countries under investigation are analyzed as “nonprofit regimes” (AnheierSalamon, 1998) or “civil society regimes” (EnjolrasSivesind, 2009) with a quit different institutional frameworks, namely France, Germany and the US.
The concrete analysis proceeds in two steps:
1. The paper addresses methodological possibilities to study the normative dimension of civil society explicitly, namely with reference to the neglected notion of civility. Based on a Durkheim’s idea of collective consciousness, I theorize about civility as a concept located in the public, not in the private realm, as public opinion and as a collective disposition realized in individuals. Technically speaking, a multi-item construct including survey questions about “good citizenship” like “try to understand the reasoning of people with other opinions” (International Social Survey Program about Citizenship, 2004) will be conceptualized as dependant variable. Thereby reference to political theory is made.
2. The crucial question is, if different types of voluntary associations –conceptualized as independent variable – have different effects on civility. One of the central criteria’s to distinguish organizational forms of volunteering will be the extent to which organizational goals and their membership is flexible (Offe and Fuchs 2002: 193). Such criteria differ in specific ways for churches, political parties and sport clubs.
The conceptualization of the phenomenon to be explained -civility- and the focus of my explanation -organizational context of volunteering- brings us to the central hypothesis: The less the organizational forms resemble the classical civil society perspective -leisure, groups, sport clubs etc. - or, the more hybrid the forms are in the sense that we include volunteering in more professionalized interest and activist groups into the analysis, the less the impact on civility will be observable.
In the result section I will argue that civility is not a virtue possessed by individuals but a collective disposition realized in individuals and therefore an effect rather than a cause of civil societies. Such a finding would indicate that it makes indeed a difference in what organizational form volunteering takes place. Hence, if a country has a lot of professionalized interest groups or a lot of leisure groups may influence civil attitudes on the ‘micro level’ and democracy on the ‘macro level’. To what extend these effects vary by organizational context, and to what extent the civility thesis can be validated empirically in cross-national analysis is a central question for research on volunteering in hybrid organizations.
Paper Title
The impact of organizational objectives on the position of volunteers and on the meaning they experience in their engagement: a case-study
Author
Erik Claes, ; University College Brussels (Non-Presenter)
Emilie Van Daele, ; University College Brussels (Presenter)
Abstract
This paper focuses on the impact of the theory and practice of restorative justice on the experiences of volunteers. Throughout the world there are many restorative justice organizations and practices that rely for their well-functioning on voluntary work: citizens participate in family group conferences, community boards, peace circles or work as volunteer mediators or facilitators in restorative processes (PaliPelikan, 2010). Many of these organizations and practices are based on a specific conception of restorative justice that influences the objectives and the organizational settings of their activities and thus also their perspectives on voluntary work. Giving the assumption that voluntary work is a source of meaningfulness we expect that these specific restorative justice perspectives on voluntary work will have a crucial impact on the meaning that volunteers experience in their engagement and practices (Heine, Proulx, & Bohs, 2006) (Finkelstien, 2009).
This contribution presents the voluntary project of BAL as a case-study. BAL is a restorative justice organization in Belgium (Flanders) mainly run by professionals and professional mediators. Since 2005 however BAL started a voluntary project where volunteers operate as mediators. The voluntary project concentrates on victim-offender mediation in cases with juvenile offenders. Currently the organization is also experimenting with other possible roles for volunteers.
BAL can be seen as typical hybrid organization that combines different organizational structures (Billis, 2010) (Osborne, 2008). On the one hand their central aim is to realize an efficient and high quality mediation service and on the other hand they are investing in a strong ‘civil society’ story: volunteers are recruited, trained and supported by BAL not to ‘work’ as a mediator, but to mediate as a ‘volunteer’. The degree of hybridity becomes even clearer when we focus on the specific conception of restorative justice that steers the objectives of their organization and of their voluntary projects.
The main concern of this paper is to show how BAL’s moderate conception of restorative justice combines different dimensions and logics in the response to crime – increasing the hybridity of their organization – and to see what impact this has on the position of volunteers and on the meaning volunteers experience in their engagement.
The issues we aim to address will be developed in three different steps:
1. The first step focuses on the specific moderate conception of restorative justice BAL adheres. A ‘moderate’ conception of restorative justice – in contrast with maximalist, abolitionist or minimalist approaches of restorative justice – sees criminality as multidimensional: criminal offences reveal an interpersonal dimension, a public dimension and a ‘rule of law’- dimension (Aertsen, 2006). The first dimension concerns the life world experiences of victim and the offender. Crime appears as a disruption or disturbance of human relations. The public dimension of crime – the second dimension – relates to the impact of criminal offences on public trust in norms and norm enforcement. Crime within a public context appears as a subject of discussion and public opinion. The third dimension is ‘the rule of law’-dimension: crime is also defined a violation of legal norms established by the state. All these dimensions need to be heard and need to be involved in a just answer to crime. But there is more, not only does each dimension need to be respected, the different dimensions of criminality also need to communicate and interact with each other. This central objective of a moderate conception of restorative justice – pursuing a participatory and communicative criminal justice – shows the complexity of BAL as a hybrid organization: in pursuing a just answer to crime they need to interconnect these different logics and dimensions.
2. In a second step the paper examines to what extent this moderate conception of restorative justice steers the aims and objectives of BAL, their choice for working with volunteers and other organizational settings such as the relation between and the responsibilities of paid staff members and volunteers. The central objectives of their voluntary project aim at making the trust-building engagement of voluntary citizens visible in the aftermath of crime and show that a volunteer is very well suited to combine the different dimensions of criminal offences. Based upon field-research, the paper will examine how these restorative justice aims affect the ways in which volunteers are recruited, selected and trained, but also how volunteers present themselves to the conflicting parties and how the limits of their responsibilities are determined.
3. In the third step the paper examines how these conceptual aims and their organizational implications affect the meaning that volunteers experience in their engagements. Do they really see themselves as active trust-building citizens empowering the conflicting parties in their capabilities to actively take part in the restorative process? The research findings will be the result of several focus groups and in-depth interviews with the volunteer mediators from BAL.
This case-study promises to show that volunteers are possibly very well suited to interconnect the different dimensions and logics in the response to crime and vice versa that the hybrid organizational structure that this response implies can also be of crucial value for the meaningful experiences of volunteers.
Paper Title
Securing funds and developing activities: How do public policies, rationalization and managerialism, influence volunteers’ world in the French context
Author
Christophe Dansac, ; Laboratoire de RecherchePluridisciplinaire du Nord-Est de Midi-Pyrénées (LRPMip) / IUT Toulouse 2 Figeac(Presenter)
CécileVachee, ; Laboratoire de RecherchePluridisciplinaire du Nord-Midi-Pyrénées (Non-Presenter)
Patricia Gontier, ; Laboratoire de RecherchePluridisciplinaire du Nord-Midi-Pyrénées (Non-Presenter)
Marc Carletti, ; IUT de Figeac(Non-Presenter)
Abstract
Similar to many modern democratic countries, France benefits from a strong associative sector that plays an important role within the economic system, accounting for approximately 10 per cent of the private employment (RecherchesetSolidarités, 2011). About forty million volunteers contribute to its activity, providing almost as much labor time as the million paid workers of the sector (Tchernonog, 2007). But while the sector grew as regards its activity from 1999 and 2006, government funding (either direct or through social agencies) decreased without being compensated by local authority funding (Tchernonog, 2007). TchernonogVercamer (2006)’s survey of the fragility factors demonstrated that decrease in public funding and increase in administrative complexity are the major concerns for voluntary associations board members along with the changes in volunteer involvement (Ion, 2001).
This paper addresses the following question: Within a context where voluntary organizations must secure their funding, and to this aim have to develop or vary their activities, how do rationalization and the logic of growth influence involvement of volunteers and the French volunteering world as a whole? Our reasoning is based upon multiple evidence: a survey of small-sized voluntary associations’ needs, qualitative analyses of the histories of associations and the stories of volunteers, interviews of volunteers and paid staff members, participative debates with association members, and analyses of the associative sector media (websites and newsletters). Altogether, these data show out that the voluntary associative sector is negatively impacted by two groups of interacting phenomena. The first group is linked to pressures from the institutions providing support to the associations. The second group relates to unquestioned myths that impregnate the voluntary sector.
First, the associative world is submitted to pressures from its environment. One kind of pressure is related to accountability and competition for public funds. Recent reforms have burdened the way voluntary associations must account for the funding they get. Increased red tape and administrative complexity augment the need for a workforce dedicated to administrative and accounting tasks, increasing the bureaucratic culture, and thus managerialism (Hwang & Powell, 2009; Kreutzer& Jager, 2010) and changing the very nature of the associative action (Eliasoph, 2009). A second line of pressures comes from the rarefaction of public funds. Due to this rarefaction, the institutions accompanying voluntary associations encourage them a) to diversify their financial support, leading them to change their activities, and b) to pool resources and integrate or constitute networks. But both kinds of development hinder the commitment of volunteers since they diminish either their feeling of control over the organization they belong to or the pride associated with their membership (BoezemanEllemers, 2008).
Second, voluntary associations board members point out the difficulty to recruit volunteers (see Allen’s 2006 myths). The most frequently envisaged solutions, posited as natural means of fixing this problem are a) better communication about the association project; b) the formal recognition of volunteers; and c) the resort of volunteer agencies. The affordance of these three options is all the more important that they meet the needs and (economic) interests of several stakeholders of the volunteering sector. For instance, favouring voluntary association communication is an easy way to fulfil the Corporate Social Responsibility. Within the global context of youth unemployment, formal recognition of volunteer experience fulfils the young people’s desire to capitalize job-like experiences and demonstrate the competencies they have acquired. Turning to volunteer agencies alleviates the participation difficulty and avoids questioning why the projects do not mobilize volunteers.
Up to now, the voluntary sector is less structured in France than it is in the USA and Canada. There are very few volunteer agencies, and the associations seldom turn to them. However, new nonprofit organizations have recently appeared, inspired from the ones that already exist in the USA (Simonet, 2010). They benefited from recent government measures trying to promote volunteering, particularly by the means of the Voluntary Civic Service. These organizations lobbied towards formal recognition of volunteers’ skills and competences by the means of portfolios, volunteer passports or record books. Also voluntary (unpaid) activities are eligible within the three years of experience required to undergo a validation procedure by which certifications may be delivered. We unravel how these measures contribute to strengthen the managerial culture, and set up a system favouring extrinsic motivations (DegliAntoni, 2009) wherein the very nature of volunteering will be modified (Stebbins, 2009).
To conclude, we propose a synthetic model accounting for how the very nature of volunteering is related to the voluntary association development process. This model, describing the entire process from the birth of a voluntary association towards a bureaucratic nonprofit organization, is an attempt at integrating empirical and theoretical knowledge on volunteering at three levels: the individual level, the organizational level, and the societal and socioeconomic level.