Journal of Applied Psychology Copyright 1983 by the 1983, Vol 68 No 4, 646-652 American Psychological Association Inc 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 ser- vices 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