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What’s the Mystery about Motivation?
By Susan J. Ellis
As often happens, a graduate student called me last
week in the process of doing research. While I always try to be helpful
to anyone attempting to study volunteerism, I am near to saturation
with always hearing some variation on the theme of what motivates
people to volunteer? There is a disproportional number of scholarly
articles on why people volunteer--very few of them offering new insight.
In fact, just last month I was asked to blind review a submission
to a university-based journal that presented the results of a study
and concluded that practitioners would be well advised to consider
volunteer motivations in matching applicants to assignments.
Wow! Why didn't any of us ever think of that?
I have tried to analyze why I react so strongly to this fascination
with
motivation in academe. Maybe it’s that I am suspicious of the
motivation of the researchers! So many of the research studies in
volunteerism and
volunteer management don't reflect the needs of the practitioners
in the
field. Rather the studies reflect the researchers inexperience with
real-life volunteers and an inability to frame more complex questions
deserving of study.
Here are some of my other concerns as well as some suggestions for
worthwhile research:
1. In too many cases, studies are done without a thorough
literature search that acknowledges previous studies. So we get
repetitive, superficial articles.
2. I question the relevance of the question why do
people volunteer?; when asked generically. Too many studies
(not only those on motivation, I might add) approach volunteers
as if they are indistinguishable from one another and are interchangeable
parts of some monolith. After all, do we think it's interesting
to ask, why do people take paying jobs? On the other hand,
I think the question of "why" has meaning when asked specifically
about one organization, cause or assignment. Therefore, it may be
helpful, as a volunteer recruiter, to understand what type of person
might be attracted to certain positions. This is part of target
marketing.
3. I also think that these motivational studies examine
the wrong side of the coin. By questioning volunteer motivation,
the emphasis is placed on understanding something inside people
that either makes them agree or refuse to volunteer. It is my belief
that we ought to focus on what organizations are asking people to
do--and how they ask. Maybe prospective volunteers are right to
stay away! It may not be an issue of motivation at all.
4. Over time I have become more interested in the question
of why volunteers remain committed than why they joined in the first
place. This has become even more important as we grapple with who's
a volunteer?; and work with such new sources of help as students
required to do community service or welfare-reform participants.
Since there are external motivators that compel these workers
to seek out projects, it is fascinating to watch those who remain
with the organization past their required time period. What transforms
a mandated worker into a genuine volunteer? And what can we learn
from this to improve the way we deal with all volunteers?
Having stated what research I don't find useful, you might want to read what I identified as needing study in the Journal of Voluntary Action Research back in 1985. The majority of topics I proposed then remain untouched.
So the questions of the month are: What research questions would you like to see studied? If you could communicate with academics, what would you want them to know that would be helpful to you? Have you read any studies that you were able to apply to your work?
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