Reconciling “Third Space/Place”: Toward a Complementary Dialectical Understanding of Volunteer Management.

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]