Publication Date

Fall 2018

Document Type

Capstone project: USD users only

Degree Name

MA Leadership Studies

Department

Leadership Studies

Abstract

Many organizations that serve communities often rely on volunteerism. Yet, volunteers are often found to be left out of the communication loop. More specifically, studies show that volunteers do not voice their feedback to other organization members. With a focus on volunteer reliant organizations, two crucial questions are asked: 1) how might the use of volunteer voice influence to the stability of an organization and 2) in organizations that successfully utilize volunteer voice, are there underlying structures and/or practices at play. The literature review on volunteerism reveals some prominent gaps in theorizing the impact of volunteer voice and its role in organizational development. Additionally, this paper synthesizes several leadership frameworks in consideration of the various degrees of formality and informality when working with volunteers, and also puts forth a framework for thinking about volunteers as resources as opposed to liabilities.

Creative Commons License

Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial 4.0 License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial 4.0 License

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