‘Fit for Purpose’: The Role of Program Design and Perceptions in Corporate Volunteering

Abstract

Corporate volunteering programs, an integral part of many organisations’ corporate social responsibility (CSR) strategy, are often touted as a ‘win-win-win’ for employee volunteers and the corporate and not-for-profit (NFP) organisations that provide and involve the volunteers. Also referred to as ‘employer-sponsored volunteering,’ corporate volunteering allows employed individual to be supported by their workplace to contribute towards an external not-for-profit group or organisation. Despite their popularity, recent research indicates that the benefits of corporate volunteering programs can be overstated or unrealised and only a small number of studies have investigated how we can design programs that result in their alleged benefits for all three stakeholders.

This thesis adopts a mixed method research design to develop and test explanations of how corporate volunteering programs might deliver on their promise. Drawing on findings from in-depth, semi-structured interviews with volunteers and representatives from volunteer-providing and volunteer-involving organisations, the qualitative research explores the benefits and challenges of corporate volunteering from the perspective of all three stakeholders and demonstrates how program design and stakeholder perceptions influence program effectiveness. The quantitative research, consisting of multi-source, time-lagged surveys, draws on existing theoretical perspectives to develop a testable model examining the influence of design and perceptions on career progression for the employee volunteer, staff retention for the volunteer-providing organisation and the creation of ‘cause champions’ for the volunteer-involving organisation.

The research shows that individual and organisational motives for engaging in corporate volunteering, and the perception of these motives among other stakeholders in the corporate volunteering partnership, are key factors influencing how stakeholders respond to corporate volunteering programs, and thus their ultimate success. These perceptions about the purpose that corporate volunteering serves, for the self, and others, seems partly influenced by the way that programs are designed. The research thus also illustrates the interdependent role played by ‘temporal’, ‘developmental’ and ‘relational’ dimensions of programs in determining program outcomes for all three stakeholders. It finds that sustained, skills-based and socially engaged programs are best placed to deliver on their ‘win-win-win’ promise.