Judgment of Volunteer Competence among Service Professionals: Stereotypes or Skills?

• Published date: 01 March 2022
• Author: Ulrich Thy Jensen,Mette Kjærgaard Thomsen
• Date: 01 March 2022
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/puar.13460

Research Article

Judgment of Volunteer Competence among Service Professionals: Stereotypes or Skills? 225

Abstract: While public service professionals may rely on stereotypes and social categories in exercising who gets what,

when and how in clientelist citizen-state interactions, it remains unclear whether negative judgments similarly pervade

in settings where citizens help produce–rather than consume–public services. We propose that service professionals

judge volunteers as incompetent based on (1) a lack of the skills necessary to solve specific tasks, and/or (2)negative

stereotypes toward volunteers as a means of shielding the privileged position of the profession or safeguarding the

quality of services. Using an experiment among 817 nursing home professionals, negative judgments of volunteer

competence were invoked simply by priming professionals to think of citizens volunteering in service production. The

effect, however, is not conditional on the type of task (complementary vs. core) solved by volunteers, suggesting that

judgments of competence mainly stem from stereotypes of volunteer (in)competence in assisting with service production.

Evidence for Practice

• Service professionals can hold negative judgments of volunteers’ competence because volunteers lack the

skills required to successfully perform a certain task or based on negative stereotypes toward volunteers.

• Negative stereotypes of volunteer competence can prevail among service professionals out of a concern for

protecting the privileged position and monopoly of the professional group or out of a concern for the quality

of the public services.

• Managers can take several steps to counteract negative stereotypes toward volunteers such as articulating

how volunteers are valued and can help the organization achieve its mission, as well as using volunteer

management practices to ensure volunteers are properly trained to solve specific tasks.

Scholarship describes how public service

professionals—or “street-level bureaucrats”—rely

on stereotypes based on social categories in their

decision-making (Keiser, Mueser, and Choi2004;

Lipsky1980; Maynard-Moody and Musheno2003;

Pedersen, Stritch, and Thuesen2018), and to classify

citizens as deserving of help and services (e.g.,

Harrits2019; Jilke and Tummers2018). Yet, it is less

clear whether negative stereotypes of citizens similarly

prevail among service professionals when citizens

volunteer their time and assistance to help produce–

rather than act as clients who consume–public

services. Early voices alluded to this issue, noting

that professionals may hold stereotypical perceptions

or inaccurate views of volunteers (Brudney1990,

72–73); in part invoked by or linked to the strategic

response by professional groups or unions in

anticipation of labor substitution (Brudney1990,

32–33).

This is problematic as governments around the world

are seeking to cultivate volunteer programs to better

engage civil societies in service production and provide

high-quality services in times of scarce financial

resources. “Good” volunteer-staff relationships are at

heart of successful volunteer arrangements (Nesbit

et al.2016), but negative attitudes among service

professionals toward volunteers and their competence

(Brudney1983) might make service professionals

more reluctant to actively collaborate with volunteers

(Brudney1990; Brudney and Gazley2002;

Percy1984), and make volunteers feel less welcomed,

accepted, and appreciated (Nesbit, Christensen,

and Brudney2018). As noted by Brudney “without

question, the most serious impediment to a successful

volunteer program is the likely indifference or,

worse, outright opposition of regular personnel to

volunteers.” (Brudney1990, 33).

It is thus critical, not only to explore whether service

professionals hold negative judgments of volunteers’

competence, but to understand the origins of such

stereotypes. We contribute to these important issues

by answering two questions: Do service professionals

view volunteers as incompetent? And if so, are such

judgments of competence a function of (1) volunteers

Judgment of Volunteer Competence among Service

Professionals: Stereotypes or Skills?

Ulrich Thy JensenMette Kjærgaard Thomsen

School of Public Affairs, Arizona State

University, United States

Crown Prince Frederik Center for Public

Leadership, Aarhus University, Denmark

Department of Political Science and Public

Management, University of Southern

Denmark, Denmark

Mette Kjærgaard Thomsen is an

associate professor in the Department of

Political Science and Public Management

at University of Southern Denmark. Her

most recent research examines citizen

coproduction, volunteering, service

professionals’ response to volunteering, and

administrative burdens.

Email: mtho@sam.sdu.dk

Ulrich Thy Jensen is an assistant professor

in the School of Public Affairs, Arizona

State University (ASU). He is also an

affiliate of ASU’s Center for Organization

Research and Design and the Crown Prince

Frederik Center for Public Leadership at

Aarhus University. His research focuses on

leadership, leadership development, and

public management.

Email: ujensen@asu.edu

Public Administration Review,

Vol. 82, Iss. 2, pp. 225–236. © 2022 by

The American Society for Public Administration.

DOI: 10.1111/puar.13460.