Job Attitude and Motivation Differences Between Volunteers and Employees from Comparable Organizations Jone L

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Job Attitude and Motivation Differences Between Volunteers and Employees From Comparable Organizations Jone L. Pearce Graduate School of Management University of California, Irvine

Differences in job attitudes and work motivation between volunteers and employees are reported The sample consists of members of eight organizations" volunteer- staffed and employee-staffed newspapers, poverty relief agencies, family planning clinics, and fire departments It was expected that volunteers will report greater intrinsic, social, and service motivation, greater job satisfaction, and less intent to leave and that they will report that their activities are more praiseworthy than will employees The expectation is confirmed for all variables except intrinsic motivation, using 2 (voluntary vs employing) X 4 (task type) analyses of variance These results are consistent with "sufficiency-of-justification" effects The limitations of the present study and implications of the intrinsic-motivation exception for generalizations of laboratory findings to the workplace are discussed

The present study reports differences m proposition has been reviewed by Notz (1975), motivation and job attitudes between volun- Staw (1976), and Guzzo (1979), who found teers and employees doing similar work. These mixed support in work settings. Although a reports provide a unique opportunity to learn diminuation of intrinsic motivation has been about organizational rewards and can be ap- produced m laboratories, none of the field plied to Staw's (1976) generalization of the studies reported this effect (Dermer, 1975; sufficiency-of-justification hypothesis to or- Eden, 1975, Blackburn, Note 1; Cascio, Note ganizational motivation. 2). In his thorough review of this research, Staw (1976), building on the work of Fes- Guzzo (1979) called the basic mtrmsic/ex- tinger (1961), de Charms (1968), and Deci trinsic dichotomy of organizational rewards, (1975), proposed that when both extrinsic and itself, into question He presented convincing intrinsic organizational rewards are abundant, evidence that organizational rewards may vary individuals experience "overjustification" for simultaneously along several attributes their work and are likely to reduce dissonance The two field studies that demonstrated by devaluing the less tangible intrinsic rewards. support for the operation of sufficiency of jus- Similarly when individuals perform work for tification are not dependent on the intrinsic/ which the rewards are few, they experience extrinsic dichotomy of organizational rewards. "insufficient justification," which leads them Staw (1974) examined cadets' attitudes toward to enhance the importance of intrinsic re- the Reserve Officers Training Corps (ROTC) wards. The research developing from this before and after the draft lottery. After the lottery those with high lottery numbers were assured they would not be drafted; it was hy- pothesized that they would experience insuf- This research was supported in part by the Organiza- ficient justification for participation in ROTC. tional Effectiveness Research Program, Office of Naval Those of this group who did not have com- Research, under contract N00014-75-C-0269, NR 17-744 to Yale University, J Richard Hackman, Principal Inves- mitting contracts dropped out of ROTC, tigator whereas committed cadets with high draft An earlier version of this article was presented at the numbers developed more favorable attitudes 41st Annual Meeting of the Academy of Management, toward ROTC than did cadets with low draft Augusts, 1981 numbers Note that we need not posit that Requests for reprints should be sent to Jone L Pearce, Graduate School of Management, University of California, these cadets were more intrinsically motivated Irvine, California 92717 (because participation was enforced by a con-

646 JOB ATTITUDE AND MOTIVATION DIFFERENCES 647 tract), but rather that those cadets with less ence at different levels in an employing or- compelling justification for participation de- ganization, but they did not compare volun- veloped more positive attitudes toward the or- teers and employees on any individual differ- ganization ence variables Pearce (1980) found that Pfeffer and Lawler (1980) demonstrated an volunteers were less willing than comparable effect consistent with insufficient justification employees to assume positions of leadership, on a national sample of college and university but also did not examine differences in mo- professors Uncommitted professors showed a tivation or job attitudes. Sociological studies positive relationship between salary and job based on community-wide surveys have com- satisfaction. Committed professors did not pared the characteristics of those who are show this relationship, and these two effects members of voluntary associations with those were stronger for those who had job alterna- who are not, the dominant finding is that vol- tives. Again, the differences consistent with unteers tend to have higher socioeconomic experienced insufficient justification appear in status than nonvolunteers (Dotson, 1951; attitudes toward the task, not in any difference Phillips, 1967) in the motivation for engaging in the task. Voluntary organizations also provide re- In summary, although there is evidence of searchers with two unique characteristics: (a) change in job attitudes consistent with the suf- Volunteers do not experience the withdrawal ficiency-of-justification hypothesis, there have of a salient reward; therefore, differences in- been no field studies on work motivation that consistent with insufficient justification cannot support the hypothesis. The present report ex- be explained away as an effect of "frustration" amines differences in both job attitudes and or "experienced inequity," as is possible for work motivation expected to be consistent with Staw's (1974) cadets (b) Volunteers can be the sufficiency-of-justification hypothesis selected that perform the same work as em- without reliance on the problematic intrinsic/ ployees do, providing an oversufficient justi- extrinsic motivation dichotomy. fication comparison That is, we do not have This survey was conducted m a setting in to compare Junior League members to steel- which the sufficiency-of-justification hypoth- workers but can match volunteer firefighters esis has direct meaning: voluntary organiza- with salaried firefighters, so that the noncom- tions. Much work is performed by those not pensation rewards available to both are as paid for their labor. In clinics, libraries, or- equivalent as possible chestras, and museums, salaried employees One could argue that many kinds of em- and volunteers work side by side. There is ployed workers experience oversufficient jus- much anecdotal evidence that volunteers often tification. Most professional athletes and com- experience insufficient justification. For ex- mercial artists probably were attracted to their ample, Pearce (1978) quoted a volunteer who professions by the intrinsic pleasures of the stated that volunteers seem to assume a pos- activities themselves. Yet once they command itive attitude about their work because they high salaries, experienced oversufficient jus- often do not know why they volunteered, they, tification might alter both their work moti- therefore, assume they are working because vation and attitudes It may be reasonable to they want to do good. The practical problems assume, therefore, that paid workers perform- of designing organizational reward systems for ing the same tasks for which others are willing volunteers not based on monetary compen- to volunteer could experience oversufficient sation dominates their managerial literature justification (Naylor, 1967; Shindler-Rainman & Lippitt, Therefore, the following research questions, 1971), and the presence or absence of insuf- which are consistent with sufficiency-of-jus- ficient justification has practical relevance. tification differences between comparable vol- Unfortunately, there is very little organi- unteers and employees, are addressed: (a) Will zational behavior research on volunteers or on volunteers report greater nonextnnsic moti- the comparison of volunteers and employees. vation than employees performing the same Smith and Tannenbaum (1963) compared the tasks? (b) Will volunteers report more positive influence of groups at different hierarchical work attitudes than comparable salaried levels in a volunteer organization with influ- workers? 648 JONE L PEARCE

Method gynecological, contraceptive, and related counseling services to women in a New England town The current Sample patient load is 200 women Pregnancy testing is done once a week, and clinics are held 2 evenings a month The office Organizations staffed predominantly by volunteers and is staffed during weekdays by the salaried secretary The those staffed entirely by employees working on the same clinic is run by a core group of 14 female volunteers who or similar tasks were paired Four matched sets, or eight work anywhere from 4 hours a month to over 40 hours a organizations, were sampled two newspapers, two poverty week The volunteers elect their own governing body This relief agencies, two family planning climes, and two mu- organization has been providing these and similar services nicipal fire departments for over 50 years Ten usable questionnaires were completed The volunteer-staffed newspaper is the student newspaper by family planning volunteers for a medium-sized private university located in a north- The employee-staffed family planning clinic provides eastern U S suburb Each week 4,000 copies of the 10- sex education, gynecological, contraceptive, and related 12-page paper are distributed, free, on campus newsstands counseling services to women in a large northeastern city The paper has been published (more or less) continuously Climes are held 4 days and 1 evening a week, and the case for 30 years The newspaper has a staff of approximately load is 4,000 women This clinic is a component of a 30 volunteer male and female undergraduates, six usable municipal health department Twenty women and one man questionnaires were completed by these volunteers are the full-time employees, physicians are hired on an The employee-staffed newspaper is distributed, free, once hourly basis to conduct examinations The clinic has been a week in apartment building lobbies and shops in an serving the community for 7 years Family planning em- affluent residential neighborhood of a large metropolitan ployees returned 16 usable questionnaires city Each week 50,000 copies of this community-news The volunteer fire department provides emergency 12-page paper are distributed The paper is owned by the medical technicians, fire prevention, and fighting services editor and publisher, who hired the present staff of 13 to a rural New England town of about 15,000 They re- men and women All employees are salaried, and the ad- sponded to over 500 alarms in the previous year In an vertising salespeople receive additional commissions on emergency, the town dispatcher is called, she makes an sales Eight usable questionnaires were returned by news- announcement through the radio and blasts a horn so paper employees others will get to their radios The closest fire fighter goes The volunteer-staffed poverty relief agency is a non- to the station to take the apparatus (engine, hook and denommational Christian relief organization m a medium- ladder, or ambulance) to the destination, while other vol- sized northeastern city Its primary task is the distribution unteers proceed there directly in then- own cars The de- of food to those who request it (13,245 deliveries in the partment is composed of four companies—three pump previous year), but it occasionally provides transportation and one hook and ladder Each company elects a house to medical appointments as well If clients need food they administrative group and its officers, the department as a call a number monitored by an answering service, the whole elects the chief and two assistant chiefs The state answering service calls the telephone volunteer on duty allows each company 40 full members (all are men), and (two shifts a day of about 4 hours each) and leaves the there is a waiting list for these positions Thirty-one usable clients' names and phone numbers The telephone vol- questionnaires were completed by the volunteer fire unteer calls the clients, collects information (address, fighters number of people to be fed, whether or not they are on The employee-staffed fire department provides fire pre- welfare, etc ), and tells the clients when to expect the de- vention and fighting services to a northeastern suburb of liveries The telephone volunteer then calls the driving 26,000 The department answers an average of 200 calls volunteer or leaves a message at the central office The a month There is a central firehouse, in which five fire organization has about 180 male and female volunteers fighters and their chiefs are stationed, and two outlying who work one half-day shift each month They elect the stations with two fire fighters each There are four shifts governing committee that hires the two part-time paid working an average 42-hour week (two shifts a day, three coordinators to staff the central office The agency has days on, three days off) The department is composed of been serving the community for over 9 years Members 46 men and one female secretary Eleven usable ques- of the voluntary poverty relief agency returned 11 usable tionnaires were returned questionnaires The employee-staffed poverty relief agency is a municipal department of a medium-sized New England city that is Procedure required by statute to provide emergency relief to those who do not qualify for any of the state or federal relief The data collection procedure followed the same pattern programs In practice, most of their clients are chronic, in each organization Entry began with a telephone call, usually men with drug or alcohol-related problems Clients followed by one or more site visits with one or more must appear weekly to personally receive their checks from subgroups or individuals until a decision was reached to their social workers and usually attend a work or counseling either forego participation or to participate Data collection program Fifty-three men and women work a standard began with interviews with a random sample (with ov- 35-hour week for this agency This service has been pro- ersampung of office holders and supervisors) of 10 or fewer vided by this city for over 300 years, but the present ad- organizational members, followed by distribution and col- ministrative structure was developed during the F D lection of questionnaires Interviewees received a number Roosevelt presidential administration Thirteen usable on their questionnaires so the researcher could match in- questionnaires were completed by poverty relief employees struments, noninterviewees were completely anonymous The volunteer-staffed family planning clinic provides Both pairs of the four matched task sets were studied JOB ATTITUDE AND MOTIVATION DIFFERENCES 649 simultaneously to ensure that the passage of time would Leave is composed of four 7-point Likert scale items, for not confound comparisons between volunteers and em- example, "I rarely think of quitting" (negatively scored), ployees and to allow daily comparisons of their respective "Every now and then I think about leaving" It has an norms and practices Because only one researcher collected alpha of 81, and no corresponding interview question data, the matched pairs were studied serially, in the order Finally, Job Praiseworthiness is composed of three semantic listed above differential items "praiseworthy-unpraiseworthy" (negatively scored), "useless-useful," and "receiving-giving," Measures and has an alpha of 63 and no corresponding interview question All data for these analyses were taken from a single Means, standard deviations, and intercorrelations be- questionnaire, interview responses are used only to dem- tween these scales appear in Table 1 More detailed in- onstrate scale convergent validity formation about the sample, procedures, and measures Motivation scales Based on Guzzo's (1979) critique used in this report are available in Pearce (1978) of the intrinsic/extrinsic dichotomy of organizational rewards, a wide variety of reward items were chosen, based on the work of Pearce (1983) The nine work-reward items Results formed three scales intrinsic, social, and service work rewards Questions concerning pay, fringe benefits, and Although the use of eight organizations promotions are not included because they are unavailable matched on four task types aids m generalizing to the volunteers All nine items consist of the stem "How to the larger population of organizations, it important is this reward to you9" followed by nine work rewards that the respondent rated from 1 (not at all im- presents some unusual problems in data anal- portant) to 7 (extremely important) ysis. It would be desirable to obtain as much The Intrinsic Motivation Scale consists of these rewards information as possible about differences be- "doing tasks that hold my interest," "an interesting job," tween those working on these very different and "enjoyment of just doing the work" (a = 73) Social Motivation is composed of "enjoyment of the company tasks, yet to treat this sample as a set of four of my co-workers," "working with people I like," and "as- paired comparisons reduces statistical degrees sociating with a good group of people" (a = 77) Service of freedom to an unacceptably low level Motivation consists of "the chance to further the goals of Therefore, the best approach appears to be the this organization," "a chance to make a real contribution," use of 2 X 4 (Staff Type [volunteer vs. em- and "identification with the mission of the organization" (a= 69) ployee] X Task Type) analyses of variance Job attitude scales Three job attitudes are used in (ANOVAS) Each of the eight organizations is the present analyses "Job satisfaction" and "intent to placed in a cell corresponding to its volunteer leave" were used by Pfeffer and Lawler (1980) However, or employee staff and its task type (newspaper, an additional variable has been added that is a better poverty relief, family planning, or firenghtmg). approximation of likely sufficient justification cognitions, it is called "job praiseworthiness " Because the cell frequencies are both unequal Job Satisfaction is composed of three semantic differ- and nonproportional, the ANOVAS were run ential bipolar adjectives for "my job" "unpleasant-pleas- with each main effect adjusted for the other ant," "bonng-interesting," and "bad-good " It has an alpha and the interaction adjusted for both main of 73, and a correlation of 61 with the interview question effects When combined with the two-step tapping job satisfaction "All and all, as of today, how much would you say you liked your job7" (scored from analysis used m this study (significant main 1 = very dissatisfied to 5 = very satisfied) Intention To effects considered only if the interaction is

Table 1 Means, Standard Deviations, Reliability Coefficients, and Intercorrelation Matrix

Variable M SD 1 2 3 4 5 6 7

1. Staff type3 2 Intrinsic motivation 5 54 102 07 73 3 Social motivation 5 45 107 -31"* 27" 77 4 Service motivation 5 69 98 - 40*** 27" 50"* 69 5 Job satisfaction 5 79 1 12 - 40"* 17* 30*** 37*« 73 6 Intention to leave 3 26 1.60 52*" -22" - 33*" -44*** - 50"* 81 7 Job praiseworthiness 5 68 1 22 -24" 11 14 21" 45*" -.29"* .63

Note n = 106 "Scored volunteer = 1, employee = 2 *p = .05 ** p= 01 *" p= 001 650 JONE L PEARCE

3 nonsignificant), this treatment of unequal cell es s s sizes is conservative. If either the interaction term or the main effect for task type is sig- vorth i nificant, the relationship between the staff-type

raise \ difference and the dependent variable will be a x> more closely examined. c o —> 00 Motivation

SAG ; "a The ANOVA tables showing staff-type differences in work motivation appear in Table 2; o the means are reported in Table 3 There is

UO I fa. no statistically significant difference in re- c ported intrinsic motivation. However, vol-

Int e unteers are more likely to report that they % work for the rewards of social interaction than are employees. Most interesting is the sub-

"3 stantial difference between the service moti- B vation reported by volunteers and employees. The significant service motivation interaction Ctl O fa. reflects relatively less service motivation

atisf a among both newspaper volunteers and employees than among those performing the more Jo b s purely service tasks of poverty relief, family § I! planning, and fire fighting. 2 c "3 Job Attitudes o

iva t x Tables 2 and 3 contain the analysis of vari- o fa. 8. ance tables and means for job attitudes Vol-

E33IAJ3 J unteers reported greater job satisfaction, less intent to leave, and greater praiseworthmess —' O of their work than did comparable employees. The significant difference effect for job satis- des a faction is the result of lower job satisfaction s 3 among newspaper and poverty relief workers

ati o when compared to family planners and fire > fighters. These staff-type differences support Eo the job attitude findings of Staw (1974) and s: a 3 Pfeffer and Lawler (1980) 0 xn o ^r 00 m <*"> r*^ fN O ation r- —' —^ — Discussion

Mot iv "3 io n Volunteers, doing the same work as employees, are more likely to report that they > 3 fa. work for the rewards of social interaction and i mot i u service to others, that their work is more art B praiseworthy, and that they are more satisfied r- — vo o ^f »^> O O i and less likely to leave their organizations « « (N - That these reports were produced by ex- Vanan < CQ perienced sufficiency of justification must be M i & assumed; sufficiency-of-justification cognitions 1 in this study, as in all of the field studies cited Sourc e H H BO 2 S « 1 X § above, were not directly measured. Alternative 55 F < w JOB ATTITUDE AND MOTIVATION DIFFERENCES 651

Table 3 income from their jobs. Therefore, the em- Means for Work Motivation and Job Attitudes ployee sample may contain a broad range of satisfied and dissatisfied members, but the vol- Task type unteer sample is probably restricted to the sat- News- Poverty Family Fire- isfied (see Pearce, 1982, for an extended dis- Staff type paper relief planning fighting cussion). However, this argument is less plau- sible for motivation. It is unlikely that Intrinsic Motivation employees who remain working because they Volunteer 5 83 4 47 5 63 5 65 Employee 5 50 5 67 5 54 5 79 depend on their salaries would report less social and service motivation than unsalaried vol- Social Motivation unteers, unless they are experiencing oversuf- Volunteer 5 34 5 30 5 53 6 07 ficient justification and therefore deemphasiz- Employee 4 79 5 26 5 15 500 mg the job rewards available to both groups. Among the more striking findings in this Service Motivation study are the insignificant differences in re- Volunteer 6 17 6 20 5 90 6 03 ported working for intrinsic rewards. This is Employee 4 42 5 12 5 58 5 64 particularly interesting because Staw (1976) proposed that it would be intrinsic motivation Job Satisfaction that would be affected by extrinsic rewards. I Volunteer 6 11 5 60 6 50 6 33 would like to suggest that Staw's (1976) prop- Employee 4 37 4 88 5 94 5 64 osition is overly narrow. Why should individuals experiencing insufficient justification Intention to Leave necessarily emphasize the interestingness of Volunteer 3 06 2 67 2 03 2 50 their jobs? Why not attend to the way in which Employee 4 92 3 98 4 23 3 70 saving lives and property from fire is serving 9 Job Praiseworthiness the community Individuals can increase the sufficiency of Volunteer 6 33 6 25 5 60 5 89 the justification for their activities by enhanc- Employee 4 56 5 25 5 75 5 55 ing the importance of any number of rewards, and the targets of this enhancement will depend on the nature of the work. Producing hypotheses include differential selection into newspapers, relieving poverty, staffing clinics, volunteer work and employment and some and fighting fires are, after all, all services to effect of the very different nature of spare-time their respective communities. In addition, volunteer work and holding a job Regarding most of the volunteers in this study had de- differential selection, for this sample there were veloped close friendships over the years. In no differences between the groups in age or contrast, most laboratory experiments provide sex; virtually all of the volunteers were em- few opportunities for meaningful social con- ployed and many of the employees had also tact, and such tasks as copying sheets of ran- been volunteers. This indicates that the vol- dom numbers (Pallack, Sogm, & Van Zante, unteers and employees in this sample do not 1974) or solving puzzles (Deci, 1972) cannot represent different social classes but does not be reasonably regarded as services to others. address the concern that volunteering and There really is nothing else in the setting sub- going to work may represent vastly different jects can use to increase sufficiency of justi- psychological approaches to organizational fication. Laboratory studies are useful for participation. This article presents attitudinal identifying a sufficiency-of-justification effect, differences consistent with one psychological but care must be taken when generalizing the difference—sufficiency of justification—but results to workplace motivation. offers no evidence that this is the only, or even the most important, difference. In conclusion, these results are consistent Differential retention is a real threat to the with, and suggest a broadened understanding interpretation of job attitude differences. It is of, the sufficiency-of-justification concept in much less costly for dissatisfied volunteers to work motivation. In this study volunteers and quit than it is for employees, who derive their employees in similar jobs differed in job at- 652 JONE L. PEARCE

titudes and placed different relative impor- Naylor, H H Volunteers today New York Association tance on the work rewards that were equally Press, 1967 Notz, W W Work motivation and the negative effects of available to both groups. The present study extrinsic rewards American Psychologist, 1915,30, 884- illustrates that Staw's (1976) generalization of 891 sufficiency of justification to organizational Pallack, M S,Sogm, S R, & Van Zante, A Bad decisions motivation may be appropriate once it is sep- Effects of volition, laws of causality, and negative con- arated from the problematic intrinsic/extrinsic sequences on attitude change Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 1974, 30, 217-227 reward dichotomy. Pearce, J J Something for nothing An empirical exam- ination of the structures and norms of volunteer orga- Reference Notes nizations Unpublished doctoral dissertation, Yale Uni- versity, 1978 1 Blackburn, R S The dimensionality of organizational Pearce, J L Apathy or self interest7 The volunteer's rewards Paper presented at the 41st Annual Meeting avoidance of leadership roles Journal of Voluntary Action of the Academy of Management, San Diego, Calif, Research, 1980, 9, 85-94 August 1981 Pearce, J L Leading and following volunteers Implications 2 Cascio, W F Afield investigation of the nature of the for a changing society The Journal of Applied Behavioral relationship between intrinsic and extrinsic rewards Science, 1982, 18, 385-394 Unpublished manuscript, University of Rochester, 1973 Pearce, J L Participation in voluntary associations How membership in formal organizations changes the rewards of participation In D H Smith & J Van Til (Eds), References International Perspectives on Voluntary Action Research Washington, D C University Press of America, 1983 de Charms, R Personal causation The internal affective Pfeffer, J , & Lawler, J Effects of job alternatives, extrinsic determinants of behavior New York Academic Press, rewards, and behavioral commitment on attitude toward 1968 the organization A field test of the insufficient justifi- Deci, E L The effects of contingent and noncontingent cation paradigm Administrative Science Quarterly, rewards and controls on intrinsic motivation Organi- 1980, 25, 38-56 zational Behavior and Human Performance, 1972, 8, Phillips, D L Social participation and happiness American 217-229 Journal of Sociology, 1967, 72, 479-488 Deci, E L Intrinsic motivation New York Plenum, 1975 Schmdler-Rainman, E , & Lippitt, R The volunteer com- Dermer, J The interrelationship of intrinsic and extrinsic mumtv Washington, D C NTL Learning Resources, rewards Academy of Management Journal, 1975, 18, 1971 125-129 Smith, C G , & Tannenbaum, A S Organization control Dotson, F Patterns of voluntary association among urban structure Human Relations, 1963, 16, 299-316 working-class families American Sociological Review, Staw, B M Attitudinal and behavioral consequences of 1951, 16, 687-693 changing a major organizational reward A natural field Eden, A Intrinsic and extrinsic rewards and motives Rep- experiment Journal of Personality and Social Psy- lication and extension with kibbutz workers Journal of chology, 1974, 29. 742-751 Applied Social Psychology, 1975, 5, 348-361 Staw, B M Intrinsic and extrinsic motivation Mornstown, Festinger, L The psychological effects of insufficient re- N J General Learning Press, 1976 wards American Psychologist, 1961, 16, 1-11 Guzzo, R A Types of rewards, cognitions, and work motivation Academy of Management Review, 1979,4, 75- Received August 27, 1981 86 Revision received March 28, 1983 •