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Purpose -Increasingly, post credit crunch, organisations are seeking to develop new ways of attracting, recruiting and retaining staff in the UK high street for less or even no financial reward. The aim of this paper is to investigate volunteerism and volunteer management, based on an exploratory case study of two British Red Cross (BRC) shops. It also aims to examine the reasons why people volunteer and why they keep doing so in the context of BRC, as a charitable organisation. Design/methodology/approach -An exploratory case was used to gain an insight into how BRC recruit and retain volunteer staff. This was achieved by interviewing volunteers and the shop management personnel. An overview of BRC structures, strategic direction and views on volunteerism is also developed as part of the case study. Findings -Exploratory findings from the research show that people decide to volunteer mainly for a variety of reasons such as social interaction, to carry out work that is valued in the local community and for self-satisfaction. Volunteer satisfaction is derived from helping BRC to help others and also being part of The Red Cross. Volunteer retention is attributed to a proactive management style in terms of creating a favourable work environment. The shop manager's leadership skills are crucial in establishing a friendly and positive attitude towards volunteers. In addition, youth volunteers are attracted in order to gain work experience and learn new skills.Research limitations/implications -The study is exploratory, based on preliminary interview findings from 17 informants in two BRC shops. However, the insight gained helps in understanding the reasons why volunteerism is successful within the BRC. Practical implications -The paper can help policy makers reflect and decide on useful tactics and strategy for developing and improving volunteer management within the retail sector. Originality/value -There is a paucity of literature in relation to retailing and volunteerism and this study contributes to the literature by identifying reasons why this charity has been so successful in attracting and retaining volunteers.
Purpose -The purpose of this paper is to explore the role of multi-level forms of efficacy and organisational interactions necessary for promoting effective work engagement. Design/methodology/approach -Work engagement is explored from a multi-level efficacy perspective (self, collective and organisational). Based on the ideas of Bandura, workplace interactions are investigated through the theoretical lens of social cognitive theory (SCT). Findings -The ability to conceptualise engagement from individual, group and organisational perspectives, helps researchers and HR practitioners appreciate the complexities involved. The paper also highlights a need for developing new organisational interactions that promote engagement, as opposed to reinforcing stale managerial policies, or one-sided strategies for short term productivity gains. Organisational interactions should respond to job demands at both individual and collective levels. The paper also suggests that new interactions and stronger communication helps promote collective and organisational efficacy. Research limitations/implications -This is a theoretical discussion piece that attempts to set the scene and examine broad issues, and thus there is no measurement or empirical analysis attempted. Additional work is required to operationalise constructs further, as part of a case study protocol for future in-depth empirical analysis. Originality/value -This thought-piece paper is significant for managers in retail and researchers alike, when developing organisational interactions from a multi-level efficacy perspective. The conceptual contribution of the paper is a fresh macro-analytical perspective concerning efficacy and work engagement. Some ideas are also presented for future research.
A theory-based evaluation of a program is one in which the selection of program features to evaluate is detennined by an explicit conceptualization of the program in terms of a theory, a theory which attempts to explain how the program produces the desired effects. Fitz-GibbonThe theory might be psychological, such as a theory of child development (e.g., Piaget's) or a theory of learning (e.g., S-R theory), or social psychological (e.g., attitude change theories ; organization theories) or philosophical (e.g., the &dquo;Summerhill&dquo; philosophy). The essential characteristic is that the theory points out a causal relationship between a process A and an outcome B. A-~B; that is, A leads to, or causes B. (A, of course, may consist of many necessary components or stages-the whole process deemed necessary, by the theory, to produce B.) Thus, by a &dquo;theory-based&dquo; evaluation, we do not mean an evaluation based on a theory about evaluation. We mean rather, one based on a theory about how a program operates.Perhaps the inclusion of philosophies as theories needs some justification, especially as we shall subsume &dquo;models&dquo; (see Joyce & Weil, 1972) under the same rubric. We justify the inclusion by defining a philosophy as a set of attitudes. There has been extensive consideration of the nature of attitudes in the literature of social psychology and those models of which we are aware assert that attitudes have cognitive and affective components. The affect-cognition model (Rosenberg, 1960) is presented as an example since other models seem readily reducible to it. Rosenberg postulates that a person's attitude towards X is a function of his expectation (subjective probability) that X leads to Y and his emotional response to Y (Figure 1).In the cognitive component, there is a postulated causal relationship; the perceived probability that X~Y. Attitudes involve theories, therefore, since they postulate causal relationships. For this reason philosophies, like theories, suggest variables to study and imply that certain outcomes are likely to occur from certain processes.
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