Voluntas: International Journal of Voluntary and Nonprot Organizations Vol. 16, No. 3, September 2005 ( C 2005) DOI: 10.

1007/s11266-005-7724-0

Internal Marketing, Negative Experiences, and Volunteers Commitment to Providing High-Quality Services in a UK Helping and Caring Charitable Organization
Roger Bennett1 and Anna Barkensjo1,2

This empirical study examined the effects of negative contact experiences with beneciaries on charity volunteers job satisfaction and organizational commitment within a helping and caring charitable organization that for 3.5 years had operated an internal marketing program. It was hypothesized that negative experiences downwardly moderated (i) the impact of the charitys internal market activities on satisfaction and commitment, and (ii) the inuences of certain job attributes (autonomy, teamworking, and supervisory support) on these variables. Three personal characteristics (affect intensity, vulnerability to stress, and a persons reasons for having become a volunteer) were also posited to moderate the effects of negative experiences on job satisfaction and organizational commitment. Linkages between the last two variables and a volunteers desire to provide high-quality client services were explored. The results indicated strong connections between job satisfaction, organizational commitment, and a volunteers personal commitment to providing high-quality services. Levels of organizational commitment were inuenced positively and signicantly by the charitys internal marketing activities and negatively by the number of unpleasant client-contact experiences that a volunteer had to endure.
KEY WORDS: internal marketing; charities; volunteering; job satisfaction; service quality; United Kingdom.

1 Department

of Business and Service Sector Management, London Metropolitan University, London, United Kingdom. 2 Correspondence should be directed to Roger Bennett, Centre for Research in Marketing, Department of Business and Service Sector Management, London Metropolitan University, 84 Moorgate, London EC2M 6SQ, United Kingdom; e-mail: r.bennett@londonmet.ac.uk 251
0957-8765/05/0900-0251/1
C

2005 International Society for Third-Sector Research and The Johns Hopkins University

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INTRODUCTION Charities concerned with helping and caring for people with social, psychological, or medical disabilities depend critically on the inputs of volunteer workers (Shin and Kleiner, 2003; Starnes and Wymer, 1999). To cite just a few British examples, the Samaritans (a large UK charity that provides assistance to depressed people) had 21,300 volunteers in 2003; Victim Support (an organization that aids victims of crime) had 14,000 voluntary helpers; the British Salvation Army had 10,000; the UK Hospice Movement 80,000, and the charitable trusts of the National Health Service 36,000 (gures taken from organizational websites). Many of these volunteers provide rst-line client contact services and, very often, the beneciaries of a charity will regard such rst-line (contact) volunteers as a crucial element of the organizations service provision. Thus for instance hospice volunteers furnish personal care services (changing linen, giving bed baths, massage, shampoos, etc.); support (listening, holding hands, reassuring); entertaining (reading books, playing cards, swapping jokes); etc. (Stephany, 1989). Gidrons (1983) survey of human service charities described the activities of volunteers who ran occupational therapy groups in a mental hospital, tutored slow readers, acted as big brothers in a probation ofce, operated help lines for the homeless, and offered companionship to the lonely. Volunteers in asylum seeker and refugee charities (which rely almost totally on unpaid workers) represent beneciaries in their dealings with government immigration ofcials, with landlords, social security ofces, and so on. Volunteers of this nature manage service supply and effectively create the service offering at the place and time of contact (Judd, 2001, p. 12). Charities often make large investments in the recruitment and training of contact volunteers. Yet attrition rates can be considerable (up to 40% in the rst 12 months following training in certain helping and caring organizationssee Starnes and Wymer, 1999). High turnover is especially damaging when volunteers possess special skills where jobs require a long-term commitment, and when a volunteers withdrawal will be personally damaging for clients (Fischer and Schaffer, 1993; Miller et al., 1990). Low levels of volunteer job satisfaction and organizational commitment are known to represent major determinants of volunteers decisions to withdraw (Galindo-Kuhn and Guzley, 2001; Gidron, 1983; Miller et al., 1990; Pearce, 1983; Starnes and Wymer, 2001). Moreover, even if an individual does not actually quit the organization, lack of commitment and poor job satisfaction can reduce a volunteers desire to provide high quality service to a charitys clients (Adams and Shepherd, 1996; Cyr and Dowrick, 1991; Fischer and Schaffer, 1993; Shin and Kleiner, 2003). This paper presents the results of an empirical study of the inuences of two possible antecedents of volunteer job satisfaction and commitment that (to the best of the authors knowledge) have not been previously investigated, namely

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internal marketing and negative volunteer experiences. The effects of certain job and personal characteristics were also considered. Although internal marketing has been studied extensively in the commercial domain (Ahmed et al., 2003; Caruana and Calleya, 1998; Davis, 2001; Varey, 1995), its potential usefulness for nonprot voluntary organizations has not been examined. Clearly, however, charities that use volunteer labor need to gain an understanding of how best to nurture and manage internal relationships with their voluntary workers. Accordingly the current paper seeks to help ll this important gap in the nonprot research literature by reporting the results of a study of the effects of internal marketing in a charitable organization that had implemented such a program 3.5 years prior to the time the study was completed. Investigations undertaken in the for-prot sector have concluded that internal marketing is an excellent device for developing organizational satisfaction and commitment (Ahmed et al., 2003; Varey, 1995) as well as for enhancing motivation and retention. It is important to examine matters of this nature in the nonprot volunteering context as they have the capacity to contribute to client welfare. Specically, the research explored the impact of a disagreeable but inevitable facet of volunteering in the helping and caring area, namely situations involving disturbing and unpleasant incidents, on the connection between internal marketing and volunteer commitment. Internal marketing and the role of negative experiences are discussed in the next two sections. Then the possible inuences on job satisfaction and organizational commitment of specic job and personal characteristics suggested by prior literature in the eld are outlined. Finally the results of the research are presented and their managerial implications examined.

INTERNAL MARKETING The term internal marketing describes a collection of human resource policies and procedures that treat employees (volunteers in the present context) as members of an internal market that needs to be informed, educated, developed, and motivated in order to serve clients more effectively. The concept of internal marketing emerged from the total quality management literature of the 1960s (Doukakis, 2003). Internal marketing seeks to develop client-consciousness and a service ethos among employees (volunteers) via the application of marketing methods, especially marketing communications, to the organizations dealings with its personnel. The aim is to create an internal environment wherein customer consciousness proliferates among employees (Caruana and Calleya, 1998, p. 108). Thus, employees (volunteers) are viewed both as (i) internal customers, and (ii) products that are used to attain the objective of satisfying clients requirements. Advocates of internal marketing suggest, therefore, that managements should attempt to sell ideas about appropriate attitudes and behavior to their workers

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(Davis, 2001). Effective internal marketing allegedly increases the job satisfaction and organizational commitment of employees, leading to greater motivation to provide better client service, improved performance, and lower turnover (Bell et al., 2004; Caruana and Calleya, 1998; Doukakis, 2003; Varey, 1995).

Internal Marketing Techniques Reviews of the academic and practitioner literature on internal marketing completed by Ahmed et al. (2003), Galpin (1997), George (1990), Davis (2001), Doukakis (2003), and Judd (2001) identied several core elements typically included in operational internal marketing programmes, namely: sound internal communications with extensive information sharing and regular two-way interactions. Personnel should be made familiar with the organizations strategies, goals, and activities, and of the linkages between their own duties and the work of others; training people (i) to understand clients needs, and (ii) in interpersonal relationship skills. Training and staff development should be ongoing and not restricted to ad hoc short courses and seminars; helping individuals to work together in teams, to undertake joint problem solving and to think beyond their personal job descriptions; establishing clearly dened reporting and organization structures; empowering workers (i.e., giving them the maximum amount of discretion regarding how they complete their duties); conspicuously recognizing individual accomplishments and contributions (in newsletters for instance); providing employees (volunteers) with a vision.

NEGATIVE EXPERIENCES Front-line volunteering activities within helping and caring organizations entail, in the words of Omoto and Snyder (1995, p. 672), considerable commitment and sizeable personal costs. Positive outcomes to volunteers contacts with beneciaries are likely to generate feelings of role satisfaction (De Rivera et al., 1989), and a great sense of accomplishment and gratication (Shin and Kleiner, 2003). A positive volunteering experience, according to literature cited by Starnes and Wymer (2001), is one which makes the volunteer feel needed, appreciated, and competent, and which induces the belief that the person is making a difference. Positive experiences are known to contribute to job satisfaction and self-esteem and to induce volunteers to continue in service (Gidron, 1983;

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Miller et al., 1990; Pearce, 1983; Shin and Kleiner, 2003). Unfortunately however a volunteers experiences with the clients of a helping and caring charity can be negative as well as positive, and this might not be realized at the moment the volunteer joins the organization (Starnes and Wymer, 2001). Rubin and Thorelli (1984, p. 224) commented on the reality of ambivalent, resistant clients who may resent or otherwise be unable to express gratitude to the (social services) volunteer. Beneciaries, they continued, might focus on the negative aspects of receiving help, viewing this as a humiliating experience and a negative reection of their own capacities (Rubin and Thorelli, 1984, p. 225). This could lead beneciaries to resent or derogate the helper. Indeed, hostility might be greatest towards those volunteers who tried hardest to assist the client. Hence, according to Rubin and Thorelli (1984, p. 225), social service volunteers (especially those working with the disadvantaged) often experienced despair, bitterness, anger and other negative emotions. Fischer and Schaffer (1993) found that large numbers of volunteers began their service in a honeymoon phase of euphoria, but thereafter lost motivation as they encountered negative critical incidents that caused them to realize that they would not be able to accomplish as much as they had anticipated. Recruits may be naive, have expectations that differ from reality, and be greatly disheartened by negative events (Bussell and Forbes, 2002). Thus a fresh volunteer might be outraged if, despite his or her exhaustive efforts and genuine desire to help, beneciaries are rude, uncooperative, refuse to accept assistance, break promises, miss scheduled meetings, or damage the volunteers self-esteem in some way (cf., Bitner et al., 1990; Gidron, 1983). Client contact work in a helping and caring charity can be highly stressful and has the potential to lead to emotional exhaustion. The latter might be brought on, according to Fischer and Schaffer (1993, p. 27), by feelings of being overwhelmed, by grief at situations witnessed, frustration at being thwarted (e.g., if beneciaries fail to take the volunteers advice); and by the special difculties experienced by serving clients who are nancially very poor and in other respects particularly needy. Omoto and Snyder (1995) found that around 50% of all the volunteers of their sample of HIV/AIDS patient support organizations quit shortly after starting work, often in consequence of the distressing situations they experienced and feelings of not being able to cope with psychologically disturbing incidents. Wymers (1999) survey of hospital volunteers concluded that volunteers perceptions that beneciaries were unfriendly or unpleasant made voluntary hospital work unenjoyable, resulting in decisions to drop out (Wymer, 1999, p. 69). (It is relevant to note in this connection that, unlike [most] paid employees, volunteers can quit without rst obtaining another positionsee Miller et al., 1990.) Even if negative experiences do not impel a volunteer to withdraw, they can still have a damaging impact on a charitys overall level of service quality. A volunteer who goes through a large number of disagreeable incidents might lose his or her self-condence and sense of meaning in a job role (Kahn, 1990),

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and generally feel that his or her work is not appreciated. This could lead to a loss of interest and enthusiasm, less commitment to the organization, and halfhearted provision of services to beneciaries. The problem might be more serious in voluntary than in commercial organizations, as a volunteers motivation for working is not normally nancial. (A paid employee is perhaps more willing to put up with disagreeable client interactions.)

MODERATING INFLUENCES It has been argued above that negative experiences have the potential to reduce a volunteers job satisfaction and organizational commitment. It is possible however that certain variables moderate the force of the relationship, namely affect intensity, vulnerability to stress, and an individuals reasons for having volunteered in the rst instance. These are discussed in turn.

Affect Intensity Arguably the psychological effects of distressing negative experiences on a volunteers satisfaction and commitment will be greater the more intensely the person feels his or her emotions (cf., Salovi et al., 1991; Shaffer and Graziano, 1983). The term affect intensity describes the strength of the emotions that individuals feel when responding to emotion-inducing incidents (Larson, 1984). Thus a person with high affect intensity (HAI) might be expected to react to an emotionally disturbing experience in a deeply emotional (and psychologically unpleasant) way. High affect intensity individuals have been found to report feeling great discomfort when confronted with events that evoke painful negative emotions, causing them actively to avoid contact with the disagreeable issue (Moore, 1995). Consequently, the desire of an HAI person to make himself/herself feel better stimulates that individual to want to withdraw from a distressing situation to a greater extent than occurs with a low affect intensity person. Hence affect intensity might be expected to moderate the relationship between a negative experience and a volunteers job satisfaction and commitment. An HAI individual might become signicantly less satised and committed consequent to a specic negative experience than a low affect intensity person.

Vulnerability to Stress Although stress has positive as well as negative aspects (some people thrive on tense and challenging situations), continued exposure to stress can have debilitating physical and psychological consequences. Work performance and job

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satisfaction often deteriorate when individuals experience protracted exposure to high levels of stress (Graham and Bennett, 1995). The duties of a rst-line contact volunteer in a helping and caring charity can be extremely stressful (Babin and Boles, 1996; Gidron, 1983; House, 1981). Intense stress has been found to contribute to volunteer burnout (Cyr and Dowrick, 1991, p. 343), demotivation (Adams and Shepherd, 1996), illness (Daniels and Guppy, 1994; Folkman et al., 1986), and high rates of attrition (Miller et al., 1990; Omoto and Snyder, 1995; Starnes and Wymer, 2001). Certain individuals are more susceptible to the damaging consequences of a stressful event than are others (Cyr and Dowrick, 1991; Daniels and Guppy, 1994). Hence, the level of a persons vulnerability to stress may be expected to inuence the way in which he or she reacts to a negative experience. Accordingly it is posited that someone who is susceptible to the debilitating impact of stress is likely to report lower job satisfaction and less organizational commitment following unpleasant incidents than a volunteer who is not deeply affected by stressful situations.

Reasons for Volunteering Another consideration with the capacity to moderate the links between negative experiences and satisfaction and commitment is perhaps an individuals core motivation for having volunteered in the rst instance. A person may have volunteered because of a sense of obligation to a particular good cause, feelings of social responsibility, or altruistic empathy with the aficted (Amato, 1990). Equally, there is evidence to suggest that many people volunteer to attain (predominantly egoistic) social, psychological, and practical benets (Bennett and Kottasz, 2000; Bussell and Forbes, 2002; Rubin and Thorelli, 1984). Egoistic motivations include the desires to obtain work experience and training; to get out of the house and make new friends; and to experience enhanced self-esteem and a sense of belonging (Bennett and Kottasz, 2000, p. 51). Importantly, the reasons for continuing as a volunteer can differ signicantly from the reasons for having volunteered in the rst place (Pearce, 1983; Rubin and Thorelli, 1984; Shin and Kleiner, 2003; Starner and Wymer, 1999). Galindo-Kuhn and Guzley (2001, p. 48), for instance, cited a number of investigations that concluded that although people typically volunteer initially for altruistic reasons, they continue to volunteer, because they enjoy what they are getting from the experience. Negative incidents make a volunteers work less enjoyable and hence might cause the person to experience lower job satisfaction and feel less commitment to the organization. However, the demotivating inuence of a specic negative event might be mitigated if a persons reasons for volunteering in the rst instance were exceptionally altruistic. Support for this proposition arises from a study completed by Rubin and Thorelli (1984), who found that individuals who volunteered for

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egoistic motives remained with the recruiting organization for shorter periods than volunteers with predominantly altruistic motives.

JOB CHARACTERISTICS Many studies have concluded that practical job-related factors affect volunteers motivation, satisfaction and commitment to an organization (Adams and Shepherd, 1996; Bussell and Forbes, 2002; Galindo-Kuhn and Guzley, 2001). The main variables suggested by this literature are discussed below.

Autonomy A volunteers sense of being in control and of signicantly contributing to an organizations development might be greatly enhanced by allowing the person to complete tasks and attain objectives independently, without constantly referring back to supervisors for permission to take certain actions (cf., Bennett, 1997). Daileys (1986) study of volunteer political campaign workers found that, in general, task characteristics exerted major inuences on job satisfaction, which in turn affected organizational commitment; in particular, the greater the degree of job autonomy the higher the level of commitment. Similar outcomes have been reported by Galindo-Kuhn and Guzley (2001), Starnes and Wymer (2001), and Wharton (1991). Gidron (1983, p. 32) concluded that the individuation of volunteer jobs was essential in order to provide a person with self-expressive tasks that gave a volunteer the opportunity to develop his or her skills and abilities. The experience, fresh ideas, and enthusiasm that volunteers bring to their work can greatly benet the organization (Shin and Kleiner, 2003). Hence it may well be appropriate to allow a volunteer to help determine how his or her job is completed (cf., Peccei and Rosenthal, 1997). Williamson (1996) found that job satisfaction among social services workers was negatively related to bureaucratic controls in the workplace.

Teamwork Allegedly, people who work in teams receive support and encouragement from coworkers and hence are more likely to feel close to the organization (Bell et al., 2004). Information is shared and two-way communications develop (Flaherty and Pappas, 2000). As people interact they begin to adopt common perceptions of issues, interchange roles, and generally help each other out. Critically, a volunteer who works with other volunteers as a member of a team may receive valuable psychological support from these covolunteers which helps the person

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cope with negative experiences (Bell et al., 2004) and the stress they engender (Daniels and Guppy, 1994). Teamworking creates a social aspect to a volunteers job independent of the persons contacts with clients (Galindo-Kuhn and Guzley, 2001, p. 54). It has been found to prevent volunteer burnout (Cyr and Dowrick, 1991) and to be associated with higher levels of job satisfaction (Stevens, 1991). Supervision A contact volunteers ability to provide excellent service to beneciaries depends substantially on the support provided by the organization, particularly at the supervisory level (cf., George, 1990). A priori, it is to be anticipated that extensive and considerate supervisory support will have a positive impact on a volunteers job satisfaction and organizational commitment (see Bell et al., 2004 for details of studies supporting this proposition). Supervisory support is manifest in friendly guidance; trust of the employee (volunteer); open and twoway communications; the provision of operational objectives and time frames and feedback on performance; and the allocation of interesting and appropriate duties (Babin and Boles, 1996; Flaherty and Pappas, 2000). Moreover, individuals who believe that they are supported by their supervisors have been found to be more likely to adopt positive outlooks towards their activities, and to perform behaviors that are consistent with organizational values (e.g., the provision of excellent customer service) espoused by the supervisor (Bell et al., 2004, p. 115). As well as enhancing satisfaction and commitment, sound supervision allegedly encourages volunteers to continue their service (Starnes and Wymer, 2001) and to feel valued by the organization (Eisenberger et al., 1990). It may also develop within the volunteer a sense of obligation that results in (i) behavior designed to benet the organization (Shore and Wayne, 1993), and (ii) greater effort (Eisenberger et al., 2001). The relationships between supervisory support on the one hand, and job satisfaction and commitment on the other, could in principle be moderated by negative experiences. Following a disagreeable incident a volunteer will naturally turn to his or her immediate supervisor, whose support should help the person de-stress and come to terms with the upsetting situation (Folkman et al., 1986, p. 995). Importantly, supervisors can proffer social support that cannot be provided by (anonymous) senior managers (Srivastava and Sager, 1999). A SUGGESTED MODEL A model implied by the abovementioned considerations is shown in Fig. 1 (below), which posits that internal marketing initiatives exert direct impacts on job satisfaction and organizational commitment. Likewise for job characteristics (job autonomy, teamworking, and supervisory support) and negative experiences.

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Fig. 1. The suggested model.

The personal characteristics of affect intensity, vulnerability to stress, and the individuals initial reasons for becoming a volunteer are posited to exert moderating inuences on the effects of the negative experiences variable on job satisfaction and organizational commitment. Following Ahmed et al. (2003), Bell et al. (2004), Galindo-Kuhn and Guzley (2001), Liden and Graen (1980), and Starnes and Wymer (2001), it is then hypothesized that satisfaction and commitment impact positively on the level of a volunteers commitment to providing a high-quality service to clients. Job satisfaction is assumed to be a cause of organizational commitment (cf., Ahmed et al., 2003; Caruana and Calleya, 1998; Dailey, 1986; Shore and Wayne, 1993; Williamson, 1996). The negative experiences variable is posited to moderate downwards the (presumably positive) effect of internal marketing initiatives on job satisfaction and organizational commitment. In other words, the application of internal marketing practices will not have as benecial an impact on the satisfaction and commitment of a volunteer who is experiencing numerous negative incidents as they will on someone who is not experiencing negative (and hence demotivating) incidents. Analogously, negative experiences are hypothesized to moderate downwards the allegedly benecial inuences of job autonomy, teamworking, and sound supervisory support on satisfaction and commitment. THE INVESTIGATION The study was conductedover the period MayJuly 2004in a national UK charity that offers face-to-face assistance to (adult) people experiencing a

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variety of social problems, often connected with substance abuse and homelessness. As is the case with many large helping and caring charities, the organization depends heavily on the services of several thousand volunteers. These volunteers complete a wide range of duties; from fundraising to the face-to-face provision of beneciary services. The current investigation only involved individuals who were engaged in front-line beneciary contact, not fundraisers or volunteer workers in the charitys retail outlets. About half the organizations volunteers came into direct contact with beneciaries. Contact volunteers of this type received several half-days of formal training, followed by a planned experience program under the direction of a mentor (who might be an employee of the charity or a long-serving volunteer). Typical duties of the respondents in the sample included giving lifts in motor vehicles, speaking with and comforting beneciaries on the phone, helping clients in their dealings with government agencies and social services departments, offering moral support in times of crisis and, under supervision, providing basic (nonclinical) counseling services. The sample was restricted to volunteers who had received training and had been on active service for at least six months. Hence all the respondents had sufcient experience to be able to comment on the nature of their relationships with the organization. On average, the sample volunteers had been in post for 2.2 years (range 0.517 years). Attrition rates averaged 2530% annually. Questionnaires were completed by 91 volunteers in ve of the charitys regional ofces that agreed to participate in the investigation (which was backed by the organizations national headquarters). This represented 64% of the people approached. An internal marketing program had been introduced by the charity 3.5 years prior to the month the study was undertaken in an attempt to reduce the rate of volunteer withdrawal. An audit of internal communications methods was completed with the aim of improving organization-volunteer communications and, consequent to a government grant, training (organized via the adult education departments of relevant local authorities) was given in interpersonal skills and behavior. The charity also provided extensive information and training on organizational policies and procedures, emergency situations (e.g., what to do if a client is visited just after he or she has attempted suicide; police and hospital emergency systems), job roles and responsibilities, and the mission and objectives of the organization. Training sessions occurred during evenings and at weekends, involved experts in relevant elds, were interactive and participatory, and encouraged participant feedback. Supervisors were instructed to acknowledge the importance of volunteers, to provide them with opportunities to voice their opinions and to offer as much job autonomy as possible. Support meetings were held on a monthly basis. Volunteers contributions were recognized through appreciation social events, thank-you cards, and mentions in the organizations newsletter.

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IMPACT OF THE PROGRAM It is important to note that (as is likely to occur with any management initiative directed towards an organizations workers) although the internal marketing program was theoretically up and running, it would in reality have reached and been experienced by volunteers to varying levels. This phenomenon is known to be common following the introduction of internal marketing activities. Varey and Lewis (1999) for example observed how, for internal marketing to be successful, the dominant management style must support internal marketing and the whole organization must practice internal marketing. Sometimes, however, only a few parts of the organization and a subset of its managers took internal marketing policies seriously. Hence these policies were implemented unevenly across the organization. Varey (1995) similarly noted that not all managers recognized their own roles in providing excellent support services to their workers. Internal marketing might be ofcially implemented by the management of an organization, but in practice be operationalized by just a minority of individuals and sections, and with differing levels of enthusiasm. Equally, certain volunteers may themselves be indifferent and/or unresponsive to internal marketing initiatives. The application of internal marketing to volunteers assumes that they want to be communicated with more extensively; to be informed regularly and extensively about the charitys mission and strategies; to receive overt recognition of their contributions, etc. This might not always be the case, and some volunteers may simply ignore an organizations internal marketing efforts. It follows that, for these additional reasons, internal marketing activities may be noticed and experienced by different volunteers to disparate degrees. Thus, the impact of internal marketing initiatives on satisfaction and commitment can be expected to vary among individuals. Hence, although the study occurred in a single organization operating a common set of internal marketing policies, volunteers perceptions of the presence and efcacy of these policies would differ. Consequently, individual assessments of the quality of the charitys internal marketing activities would also vary. This means that the study explored the linkages between, on the one hand, the degree to which a volunteer perceived that he or she had been affected by internal marketing, and on the other, the persons levels of job satisfaction and organizational commitment. Consider, for instance, a single key element of an internal marketing program: two-way communications. The charity in question had actively sought to improve its volunteer communications and feedback mechanisms. Some volunteers would have been greatly impressed with the charitys efforts in this regard; others might not have cared less about this initiative. In effect, therefore, the investigation was asking the question: is a volunteer who perceives the charity as possessing excellent two-way communications signicantly more likely to have higher job

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satisfaction and organizational commitment than a volunteer who does not hold this conception? MEASUREMENT OF VARIABLES Internal Marketing Initiatives Respondents perceptions of the caliber of the charitys internal marketing were measured through 12 relevant items selected and adapted from Money and Foremans (1996) 15-item internal marketing scale. (The three deleted items concerned nancial reward systems within commercial organizations.) As the aim of the exercise was to assess a respondents awareness of the intensity of the charitys internal marketing efforts, each item was preceded by the words I believe that this charity. . . Examples of the 12 items were communicates to volunteers the importance of their service role; develops the skills and knowledge of its volunteers as an ongoing process; and communicates its vision very well to its volunteers. Other examples of the items were whether the organization places considerable emphasis on communicating with volunteers; gathers data from employees to improve their jobs and to develop the strategy of the charity; tries to accommodate the differing needs of volunteers; and views the development of knowledge and skills in volunteers as an investment rather than a cost. The adaptation procedure applied followed the recommendations of Engelland et al. (2001). Thus, candidate items were examined to ensure that they fell well within the scope of the domain of the relevant construct, that they expressed the theoretical construct in an effective manner, were worded at an appropriate level of abstraction and were compatible with the vocabulary of the target respondents, and were likely to generate outcomes similar to those of the original studies from which the modied items were taken. Two senior academics in the researchers home university independently assessed the adapted items in terms of these criteria. They also inspected the items that had not been taken from preexisting scales vis-` -vis their clarity, relevance to the particular issue being a investigated and to the population of interest, and their compatibility with the academic literature in the area. This process was replicated when adapting all the other scales that had been borrowed from preexisting instruments.

Job Characteristics The level of a volunteers job autonomy was assessed through adaptations of the three items employed for this purpose by Bell et al. (2004). An example is I can use my own personal judgment in carrying out my job. Four items

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modied from Hult et al. (1997) explored the extent of teamworking, e.g., In this charity, teamworking is the common way of working rather than the exception to the norm. Supervisory support was evaluated via a three-item scale adapted from House (1981), e.g., My supervisor is very concerned about the welfare of the volunteers that he or she controls.

Personal Characteristics Affect intensity was measured through the ten leading items of the questionnaire devised for this purpose by Larson (1984). Examples of the items are My happy moods are so strong that I feel that Im in heaven, and When I do feel anxiety it is normally very strong. Other examples are I am often deeply touched by the things I see happening to others, Sad events deeply touch me, and I am a deeply emotional person. The extent to which a persons reasons for having become a volunteer were egoistical rather than altruistic was assessed using modications of a ve-item scale developed by Bennett and Kottasz (2000). This queried whether an individuals major reasons for volunteering involved the following practical egoistical benets: training received, work experience, opportunities for meeting new people and making new friends, improvement of personal self-image and self-esteem, and improving ones CV. A persons vulnerability to stress was examined via modications of House and Rizzos (1972) job tension inventory. Hence respondents were asked whether problematic and emotionally difcult situations tended to make them very anxious, worried, dgety and nervous, unwell; to keep them awake at night; and to think about these situations while doing other things.

Negative Experiences Semistructured interviews were conducted with 15 rst-line volunteers in the charity hosting the investigation during which the interviewees were invited to specify unpleasant incidents they had experienced in the course of their contacts with beneciaries. Responses were tape recorded and coded in terms of the similarity of the characteristics of the incidents. The analyses were completed independently by each of the researchers, followed by a re-examination of marginal cases and their allocation to appropriate groupings. Two distinct clusters of examples emerged relating to (i) lack of respect (swearing, shouting at the volunteer, making remarks, and complaints about the volunteer behind the persons back), and (ii) refusal to cooperate (abusively rejecting help the volunteer offers, not turning up for meetings, etc.). Accordingly, particular examples of negative experiences of these types were cited in the questionnaire and the respondent asked to tick off a category indicating how many incidents of this or a related kind he or she

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had suffered since becoming a rst-line volunteer. The respondents were instructed only to count those incidents that they had found to be personally unpleasant and distressing. (This takes account of the possibility that the same incident might be viewed as deeply distressing by one person but not at all distressing by someone else.) The category the respondent selected was used as the negative experiences variable. It shows the extent of a persons exposure to disagreeable events over time. It is anticipated that a high number of such exposures (accumulated either over a protracted duration or more intensively during a short period) will be negatively associated with job satisfaction and organizational commitment.

The Outcome Variables Organizational commitment (i.e., a persons identication with, emotional attachment to, and involvement in an organization; see Caruana and Calleya, 1998) was measured using Mowday et al.s (1979) nine-item Organizational Commitment Questionnaire. Examples of the items are I talk up this organization to my friends as a great organization to be involved with, and I would accept almost any type of job assignment in order to keep working for this charity. The degree of a volunteers job satisfaction was evaluated through Gidrons (1983) instrument for measuring this among service volunteers. Thus respondents were asked (5-point scales) whether they found their jobs challenging, interesting, enjoyable, satisfying, a source of personal fulllment, and whether the job required responsibility and utilized the persons skills and knowledge. A volunteers level of commitment to providing high-quality service to beneciaries was assessed via adaptations of six items originally developed by Peccei and Rosenthal (1997). Examples of the items are No matter how I feel, I always put myself out for every client I serve, and I often make suggestions about how to improve the charitys client service.

The Questionnaire The questionnaire began with some background items concerning the respondents age, gender, educational level, and length of service as a volunteer with the charity. Although there is no evidence to suggest that age, gender, or educational attainment exert signicant inuences on volunteer job satisfaction or commitment, these variables have been found to affect the types of activity for which people volunteer (Bussell and Forbes, 2002) and thus were included on a purely speculative basis. Length of service was queried as a potential check on the convergent validity of the results, as it is known to relate signicantly to volunteers levels of commitment to an organization (Starnes and Wymer, 2001). A further item was incorporated into the questionnaire to facilitate the assessment of convergent validity, i.e., the strength of a persons intention to remain with the charity

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in the foreseeable future. Prior research has concluded that this variable is significantly associated with organizational commitment and job satisfaction (Dailey, 1986; Fischer and Schaffer, 1993; Galindo-Kuhn and Guzley, 2001; Miller et al., 1990). Apart from the factual queries, all the questionnaire items were expressed as 5-point scales (5 = strongly agree; 1 = strongly disagree). Consequent to discussions with three senior managers and four supervisors of volunteers in the charity hosting the investigation a questionnaire was drafted and pretested on nine of the organizations volunteers who were attending a Saturday morning training session. This pretest facilitated the rewording of certain questions to improve their clarity. The nal version was distributed to 142 of the charitys volunteers across ve regional ofces, resulting in 91 usable responses. RESEARCH RESULTS Fifty-eight percent of the volunteers in the sample were female. The sample members had an average age of 38 years and a relatively even spread of educational backgrounds. Sixty percent of the respondents reported having had between 4 and 12 signicantly upsetting negative experiences with clients. The overall mean number of negative experiences cited was seven, although 15% of the sample stated they had endured more than 20 negative incidents. Table I gives the Cronbachs alpha values for the multi-item constructs used in the analysis, the correlations among the variables and, for each multi-item construct, the percentage of total variation explained by the dominant factor emerging from a factor analysis of the items. It can be seen from Table I that all the constructs were unidimensional, as anticipated a priori for these well-established and extensively validated inventories. Hence the items within each of the constructs were averaged to form composite measures. Table I shows a weak correlation (R = .17) between affect intensity and vulnerability to stress, indicating the existence of two quite different constructs which may therefore be used as separate independent variables. A volunteers reported intention to remain with the charity correlated positively, signicantly and substantially with job satisfaction (R = .46), organizational commitment (R = .61), perceptions of the caliber of the organizations internal marketing (R = .36), and supervisory support (R = .46); and negatively and substantially with the number of negative experiences (R = .47). Volunteers with high job satisfaction remained with the charity for longer periods (R = .4), as did individuals who were not particularly vulnerable to stress (R = .42) and those with high organizational commitment (R = .48). Predictably, longer serving volunteers had experienced more negative incidents than people with shorter periods of service. These outcomes are compatible with the results of previous research studies in relevant areas and thus imply that the overall model depicted in Fig. 1 is nomologically valid. A factor analysis of all the Table I variables generated a rst factor that explained 22% of the total variation in the data plus

Table I. Correlation Matrixa 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13

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1. Internal marketing 2. Job autonomy 3. Teamworking 4. Supervisory support 5. Negative experiences 6. Affect intensity 7. Reasons for volunteering 8. Vulnerability to stress 9. Job satisfaction 10. Organizational commitment 11. Commitment to providing high-quality client service 12. Length of service 13. Intention to remain with the charity Variation explained by rst factorb (%) 0.81 0.02 0.92 0.26 0.16 0.18 0.04 0.09 0.02 0.82 0.62 0.59 0.40 0.46 69 0.89 0.52 0.48 0.61 69 0.11 0.36 71 0.13 0.01 0.25 0.04 81 80 0.11 0.34 0.02 0.29 0.42 0.46 0.47 0.09 0.19 0.15 73 67 74 77

0.93 0.19 0.86 0.20 0.08 0.83 0.22 0.21 0.12 0.90 0.09 0.03 0.12 0.12 0.11 0.06 0.04 0.10 0.09 0.87 0.09 0.10 0.10 0.13 0.03 0.20 0.03 0.07 0.22 0.24 0.16 0.17 0.37 0.28 0.16 0.51 0.54 0.04 0.45 0.12 0.09 0.43 0.46 0.26 0.49 0.07 0.22 0.50 0.39 0.01

0.84 0.39 0.34 70 0.44

a Cronbachs alpha values are shown in the leading diagonal. b This refers to the total variation explained by the rst factor

extracted from the relevant set of items.

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eight further factors with eigenvalues greater than unity, indicating that common method bias did not characterize the responses. A majority of the sample volunteers (54%) replied in the top two (agree/ strongly agree) categories of the composite concerning perceptions of the calibre of the charitys internal marketing. Most of the sample gave responses in the top two categories for job satisfaction (62%), organizational commitment (64%), and commitment to the provision of high-quality client services (67%). As a number of the variables in the model were not normally distributed and because the sample size was modest relative to the number of variables involved (11 main variables plus 14 moderators), the relationships hypothesized in Fig. 1 were estimated using the technique of partial least squares (Chin, 2001). Initially all 25 variables were entered and statistically insignicant relationships (p > .05) identied. Then each insignicant variable was removed in a stepwise manner, but reinstated if the exclusion of one or more of the other insignicant variables caused the variable in question to attain signicance. Variables were nally deleted if they remained insignicant at the 0.05 level irrespective of the conguration of the other variables appearing in the model. The results are listed in Table II. Parameter estimates and associated standard errors were computed using the bootstrapping facility available on the PLS Graph 3 package. The moderators were mean-centered to minimize technical difculties arising from multicollinearity among the regressors. (To test for multicollinearity the regressions listed in Table II were run separately on SPSS 12 and the variance ination factor calculated for each coefcient. The gures ranged between 1.4 and 4.2, suggesting that multicollinearity did not represent a major problem.)
Table II. Parameter Estimates Standardized coefcient Commitment to providing high-quality service Job satisfaction Commitment to the organization Commitment to the organization Job satisfaction Negative experiences (NE) Internal marketing (IM) (IM) (NE) (NE) (Reasons for volunteering) (NE) (Affect intensity) Job satisfaction Internal marketing Negative experiences (NE) Supervisory support (SS) (IM) (NE) (SS) (NE) (NE) (Affect intensity) (NE) (Reasons for volunteering) (NE) (Vulnerability to stress) 0.49 0.38 0.21 0.22 0.29 0.18 0.17 0.23 0.24 0.37 0.41 0.20 0.26 0.17 0.17 0.25 T-value 4.41 4.02 2.87 3.06 3.99 2.63 2.04 3.22 3.33 5.92 4.43 3.01 2.98 1.99 2.06 3.11

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It can be seen from Table II that, as predicted, a volunteers commitment to providing high-quality service depended signicantly on his or her job satisfaction and organizational commitment. However, an individuals organizational commitment did not appear to be inuenced by any of the three hypothesized job characteristics of autonomy, teamworking, or supervisory support. Commitment to the organization seemingly arose from considerations unrelated to the ways in which a person performed his or her particular duties. The organizations internal marketing had a signicant impact on organizational commitment, presumably through communication activities that focused on informing the volunteer about the charitys mission, current objectives, successes achieved, recent developments, etc. Job satisfaction was signicantly associated with organizational commitment, conrming the ndings of previous research. Commitment to the organization was lower among people who reported large numbers of negative experiences. Table II also indicates that the impact of internal marketing on commitment was moderated downwards by the negative experiences variable. In other words, the charitys internal marketing efforts were less successful in enhancing organizational commitment among volunteers who had experienced numerous negative incidents in the course of their dealings with beneciaries. Moreover, the downward inuence of the negative experiences variable on organizational commitment was higher for (i) people whose motivations for volunteering were heavily egoistic, and (ii) high affect intensity individuals. Volunteers who felt their emotions very intensively were put off by negative incidents to a greater extent than others. Job satisfaction was signicantly higher among volunteers who recognized the quality of the organizations internal marketing initiatives, and lower among individuals who reported having endured numerous negative experiences. Only one of the hypothesized job characteristics signicantly inuenced job satisfaction, namely supervisory support. This relationship was moderated upwards by the negative experiences variable, i.e., sound supervisory support was even more important for the improvement of job satisfaction among volunteers who reported numerous negative incidents, and who presumably would have looked to their supervisors for assistance. Negative experiences moderated downwards the impact of internal marketing on job satisfaction. The effects of large numbers of negative experiences were particularly severe among high affect intensity individuals, people whose reasons for having volunteered were mainly egoistical, and volunteers who were especially vulnerable to stress.

CONCLUSION AND MANAGERIAL IMPLICATIONS This study examined interactions between negative experiences and a charitys internal marketing initiatives in relation to their impact of a volunteers job satisfaction and commitment to the organization. Two important ndings emerged

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from the investigation. First, the outcomes furnished support for the existence of a positive and signicant connection between the introduction of an internal marketing program and subsequent improvements in volunteers satisfaction and commitment. Internal marketing activities did indeed have a benecial inuence on the attitudes of those volunteers who were aware of and took notice of them. It follows that the organizations decision to invest in internal marketing appears to have been worthwhile. This implies the need for the charity concerned to ensure that its internal marketing initiatives reach all, and not just some, of its voluntary workers. In other words it would be valuable to have a separate internal promotional campaign to spread knowledge about organizations internal marketing program! Second, the investigation conrmed that the greater the number of negative incidents that volunteers endured then, on average, the lower their job satisfaction and organizational commitment. Moreover, internal marketing initiatives exerted substantially lower inuence on the job satisfaction and commitment of volunteers who had undergone many negative experiences. This suggests that internal marketing activities need to be supplemented by additional measures designed to mitigate the diluting effect of negative experiences. Accordingly, the problem of the demotivation caused by negative experiences should be explicitly recognized so that the organization can take specic measures to prepare volunteers for negative incidents and then help them deal with their emotional consequences. The issue should gure prominently in volunteer training and mentoring programmes, and duties that are especially prone to generating negative experiences should be time limited. Volunteers could be rotated between jobs that are likely and unlikely to involve numerous negative incidents. Detailed records of each volunteers negative experiences should be maintained and monitored. Consistent with expectations, supervisory support had a positive and significant impact on job satisfaction. Additionally, supervisory support assuaged the detrimental inuence on job satisfaction exerted by negative experiences. This outcome conrms the strong and benecial role of the (frequently social) support offered to a volunteer by his or her immediate supervisor, and underscores the desirability of substantive supervisory training. Supervisory support was the only job characteristic to affect job satisfaction: autonomy and teamworking failed to attain signicance. However, examination of the data revealed that large majorities of the responses for the last two variables (more than three quarters in each case) fell in the top-two (agree/strongly agree) categories, so that the insignicance of teamworking and autonomy may have been mainly due to lack of variation in the data. Discussions with managers and supervisors within the charity after the study had been completed suggested that this might well have been the case. Teamworking and autonomy, these managers and supervisors insisted, were the norm within the organization. Often it was the volunteers themselves who set the agenda regarding the ways in which clients would be contacted and serviced.

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Interactions with beneciaries necessarily involved the exercise of personal discretion and much subsequent discussion at team briengs and meetings. More research is needed into this matter. A typical volunteers commitment to the charity was not at all affected by any of the three job characteristics. Thus, commitment to the charity; its mission, ideals, and activities could be extremely high even if the working methods and environment associated with the volunteers particular job were not entirely to the persons liking. Conversely, two personal characteristics (affect intensity and the individuals reasons for having become a volunteer) had signicant moderating effects on the link between negative experiences and organizational commitment. People high in affect intensity were more likely than others to lose commitment in the wake of a series of negative incidents, implying that highly emotional individuals who experience their feelings very intensively are not necessarily the best people to recruit as volunteers for potentially emotionally upsetting duties. This consideration should be taken into account when screening volunteer applicants. The realities of some of the disagreeable events that a volunteer is liable to encounter, and their possible psychological consequences, must be explained carefully at the beginning of the vetting process. Likewise, persons who volunteered mainly for practical egoistic reasons lost their commitment to the organization as negative experiences accumulated. To the extent that a charity has a choice of applicants to select as volunteer workers, excessive egoistic motivation in an applicant might indicate a person who should be avoided. Affect intensity and egoistic reasons for volunteering had the same moderating inuence on the link between negative experiences and job satisfaction as occurred in relation to commitment to the organization, with comparable implications. Vulnerability to stress also moderated this connection, suggesting the need to train volunteers in the techniques of stress management. Critically, people who were highly resistant to stress remained with the organization for longer periods. Overall the results imply the need to match volunteers to beneciary service roles in terms of a persons emotionality, vulnerability to stress, and core motivation for becoming a volunteer in the rst instance. These variables interact with the impact of negative incidents to help determine job satisfaction, which in turn contributes signicantly to the desire to provide excellent client service. It would be useful to investigate in greater depth the roles of affect intensity and stress proneness in the volunteering context. For instance, are Type A individuals (who nd it difcult to relax) likely to perform stressful client contact duties in ways that are different to Type B people (who allegedly possess more stable demeanors but are somewhat casual in their manner)? A study of the interactions of volunteers personal values with some of the variables covered by the present study would also be interesting. The investigation explored the impact of negative experiences on volunteer behavior. Further research into the effects of positive incidents would be valuable. In particular, it would be useful to establish whether

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