How Non-profit Organization Boards and Top Management Teams Can Manage Volunteers as a Strategic Organizational Resource. Empirical Evidence from the Emergency Sector in Italy

While strategy and strategic management represent traditional ‘classic’ streams of research for commercial and for-profit business scholars, scarce attention has been dedicated to delineating strategic implications for charity, voluntary, and non-profit organizations. Few studies have investigated the antecedents characterizing volunteers’ behavioural attitudes that allow managers to effectively understand, incentive, and respond to such individuals, as they represent a crucial strategic resource for non-profit organizations. Specifically, we adopt an approach drawn from the gift giving theory that perfectly interprets such tendency in volunteers. This research adopts a quantitative protocol for deepening these important strategic issues for the non-profit context. Specifically, a survey was sent to volunteers of 20 non-profit organizations in the region of Tuscany (Italy) for a total number of 379 usable questionnaires. Then, a bivariate correlation between volunteers’ psychological attitudes and behavioural intent analysed through a path analysis has been performed. The model clearly shows that volunteers’ motivation and their behavioural intention to donate is mediated by a reciprocity element. In a strategic sense, volunteers may enhance their organizational contribution in an environment where they perceive a strong relational clearly signalised by the managerial body. Thus, a continuous effort should be profuse to highlight such relational aspect within the non-profit organization and to promote events and procedures that may enhance it.