It’s Not All the Same: Implemented and Perceived HR Practices in the Volunteer Context

• Author: Marlene Walk,Charity Scott,Laura Littlepage
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1177/0734371X21994631
• Published date: 01 September 2022
• Date: 01 September 2022
• Subject Matter: Articles

https://doi.org/10.1177/0734371X21994631

Review of Public Personnel Administration

2022, Vol. 42(3) 492 –513

© The Author(s) 2021

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DOI: 10.1177/0734371X21994631

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Article

It’s Not All the Same:

Implemented and

Perceived HR Practices

in the Volunteer Context

Marlene Walk1, Charity Scott2,

and Laura Littlepage3

Abstract

Being strategic and intentional in the management of volunteers is increasingly

important to tackle volunteer retention and improve other volunteer outcomes.

Drawing on strategic human resource management (SHRM), this inductive study

utilizes qualitative data from interviews to explore how volunteers in a large youth

organization perceive HR practices of training and recognition. Volunteer accounts

are supplemented with focus group data from front-line staff to capture how HR

practices are implemented. Findings indicate a disconnect between implemented and

perceived HR practices in some, but not all, areas. Inconsistent and unintentional

communication was the main driver for negative volunteer perceptions.

Keywords

strategic human resource management, perceptions, HR practices, volunteers,

communication

Background and Significance

Volunteering continues to be a backbone for service-providing nonprofits, with

24.9% of the population 16 years and older (Bureau of Labor Statistics, 2016a)

spending a median of 52 hours of volunteering annually (Bureau of Labor Statistics,

1Indiana University-Purdue University, IN, USA

2The Ohio State University, Columbus, OH, USA

3Indiana University Bloomington, IN, USA

Corresponding Author:

Marlene Walk, Paul H. O’Neill School of Public and Environmental Affairs, Indiana University-Purdue

University, 801 W Michigan Street, IN 46202, USA.

Email: mwalk@iupui.edu

994631ROPXXX10.1177/0734371X21994631Review of Public Personnel AdministrationWalk et al.

research-article2021

Walk et al. 493

2016b). Without them, nonprofits reliant on volunteers—about 80% of all charitable

organizations—would not be able to provide the same level and/or quality of ser-

vices (Hager & Brudney, 2008). It is therefore vital for nonprofits to devote attention

to the question of how to retain their volunteer workforce, just as they would for paid

employees.

To tackle volunteer retention and improve other volunteer outcomes such as satis-

faction or engagement, researchers have increasingly advocated for the importance of

a strategic approach towards human resource management (HRM) when managing

volunteers (Hager & Brudney, 2015; Saksida et al., 2017). This line of research has

focused on the design and intentions behind human resource (HR) practices and their

impact on volunteer outcomes. Findings indicate that HR practices such as training or

recognition increase volunteers’ ability, motivation, and opportunity to perform

(Rogers et al., 2016) and reduce problems with volunteer turnover while increasing

retention (Cuskelly et al., 2006; Walk et al., 2019).

This work builds on strategic human resource management (SHRM), which focuses

on “designing and implementing a set of internally consistent policies and practices

that ensure a firm’s human capital contributes to the achievement of its business objec-

tives” (Huselid et al., 1997, p. 172). Whereas it has long been clear that HR practices

impact organizational performance, the process through which this happens is less

straight-forward (Nishii & Wright, 2008). To further clarify this process, the SHRM

process model distinguishes between intended, actual, and perceived HR practices

(Nishii & Wright, 2008). Specifically, HR practices may not (or not always) impact

organizational performance directly, because how HR practices were intended (e.g.,

planned/designed) may not be congruent with how they are implemented in practice

and with how employees perceive these HR practices. Employees, then, perceive and

react to the HR practices as implemented rather than how they were initially designed,

which impacts their attitudes and behavior.

While scholars acknowledge that the volunteer experience matters (Wilson, 2012)

and research on volunteer management and HR practices in the volunteer context is

growing (e.g., Cuskelly et al., 2006; Rogers et al., 2016; Walk et al., 2019), little

research has focused on volunteers perceptions of how they are managed. Similar to

the context of paid employees (Nishii & Wright, 2008), it is likely that volunteers’

perceptions of HR practices impact their attitudes to volunteer work and behaviors

when volunteering. Building on SHRM theory and literature, we therefore ask: How

do volunteers perceive HR practices? To answer our research question, we draw on

interviews with volunteers in a large youth-serving nonprofit to capture perceptions of

HR practices. We supplement these with focus group data from staff to capture the

implementation of HR practices.

Whereas there have been considerable efforts to adapt HRM to volunteers (e.g.,

Hager & Brudney, 2015; Saksida et al., 2017; Walk et al., 2019), SHRM research in

the nonprofit context “is still very much in its infancy” (Baluch & Ridder, 2020, p. 5).

Whether or not (and if so how) volunteer perceptions of HR practices matter is not

well understood. Since volunteers and paid employees have different motivations and

dispositions to work in the nonprofit sector (Studer & von Schnurbein, 2013), we use