Search

Ultimately, we hope that this special issue prompts us all to consider: What is it we believe to be true about nonprofit and volunteer organizations and organizing practices, how have those beliefs shaped our theorizing, practice, and community engagement, and how might we consider our assumptions anew? Keywords: volunteering; nonprofit organizations EN volunteering nonprofit organizations 335 340 6 07/09/21 20210801 NES 210801 In 2005, I Management Communication Quarterly i published an agenda-setting piece by Laurie Lewis that called for more research and theory building on issues critical to the civil society sector. Alternative organizing and (in)visibility: Managing tensions of transparency in autonomy in a nonprofit organization. [Extracted from the article]

This study examines the social network ties, motivations, and experiences of high-stakes volunteers (HSVs): individuals who fulfill long-term, consistent, and intense time commitments providing medical, social, and/or psychological assistance. Interview, focus group, and observational data from three settings (volunteer firefighting, victims’ services/advocacy, outreach for at-risk youth) were analyzed using qualitative methods. Accordingly, five types of HSVs (stable lifer, imbalanced lifer, conventionalist, professional, crusader) are presented and discussed. These findings advance theoretical insight into the variety of individuals who take on HSV roles and contribute to growing scholarship on diversified approaches to volunteer management. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study explicates dialectical tensions in volunteer–manager communication stemming from the contested nature of volunteering and fluidity of volunteer membership. Interviews and observations of volunteers and supervisors in three nonprofit organizational contexts revealed four central tensions that are dialectical in nature: an attraction-adjustment dialectic in the socialization of prospective and new volunteers, an ownership-oversight dialectic regarding volunteer–manager negotiation of volunteer agency and autonomy, a formalization-flexibility dialectic concerning managerial expressions of expectations for volunteer performance and commitment, and an intimacy-distance dialectic pertaining to the scope and bounds of volunteers’ relationships within and outside their respective organizations. Based on these findings, we offer insight into how volunteers and managers might envision these tensions constructively as complementary dialectics. We also suggest starting points for future communication-centered theory and research on volunteer management. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]