Leisure seeking volunteers in large urban museums: are they committed?

Edwards, DC

Leisure seeking volunteers in large urban museums: are they committed?

Edwards, DC

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Publisher:: Victoria University
Publication Type:: Conference Proceeding
Citation:: To the city and beyond...: Proceedings of the 16th Annual CAUTHE Conference, 2006, pp. 659 - 675
Issue Date:: 2006-01

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Field	Value	Language
dc.contributor.author	Edwards, DC https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8345-9700	en_US
dc.contributor.editor	O'Mahony, GB	en_US
dc.contributor.editor	Whitelaw, PA	en_US
dc.date	2006-02-06	en_US
dc.date.issued	2006-01	en_US
dc.identifier.citation	To the city and beyond...: Proceedings of the 16th Annual CAUTHE Conference, 2006, pp. 659 - 675	en_US
dc.identifier.isbn	0-9750585-1-7	en_US
dc.identifier.uri	http://hdl.handle.net/10453/7558
dc.description.abstract	Within the Australian tourism industry, the prominent use of volunteers occurs in museums and art museums, botanic gardens, zoological parks and festivals and events. Large museums in urban environments, in particular, are heavily reliant on the continuous contribution of a large number of leisure seeking volunteers. These volunteers come from a wide cross section of the community but little is known about their values and commitment. Values are an important construct that offer insights into human belief and behaviour. In the workplace a person's values can influence job satisfaction, turnover and commitment. If museums can understand what volunteers' value in relation to their work then they can place volunteers in situations which will not be at odds with their values. The objective of this paper is to explore how different aspects of work are valued by museum volunteers and the influence these values have on volunteer commitment to the organizations they contribute to. This paper presents results of a study of volunteers at three large museums and art museums in Sydney and Canberra, Australia. Results found that these volunteers place a very high value on the work they do for the institution and their commitment to the institution is a combination of affective and continuance commitment. It also found that volunteer commitment is influenced by Pfeffer (1997) three conditions for commitment; choice, publicness and explicitness. The implications of these findings for volunteer management are discussed.	en_US
dc.publisher	Victoria University	en_US
dc.relation.ispartof	To the city and beyond...: Proceedings of the 16th Annual CAUTHE Conference	en_US
dc.relation.ispartof	Council for Australian University Tourism and Hospitality Education annual conference	en_US
dc.title	Leisure seeking volunteers in large urban museums: are they committed?	en_US
dc.type	Conference Proceeding
utslib.location	Melbourne, Australia	en_US
utslib.location.activity	Melbourne, Australia	en_US
utslib.for	150603 Tourism Management	en_US
dc.location.activity	Melbourne, Australia	en_US
pubs.embargo.period	Not known	en_US
pubs.organisational-group	/University of Technology Sydney
pubs.organisational-group	/University of Technology Sydney/Faculty of Business
pubs.organisational-group	/University of Technology Sydney/Faculty of Business/Management Discipline
utslib.copyright.status	closed_access
pubs.consider-herdc	true	en_US
pubs.place-of-publication	Melbourne, Australia	en_US
pubs.start-date	2006-02-06	en_US

Abstract:

Within the Australian tourism industry, the prominent use of volunteers occurs in museums and art museums, botanic gardens, zoological parks and festivals and events. Large museums in urban environments, in particular, are heavily reliant on the continuous contribution of a large number of leisure seeking volunteers. These volunteers come from a wide cross section of the community but little is known about their values and commitment. Values are an important construct that offer insights into human belief and behaviour. In the workplace a person's values can influence job satisfaction, turnover and commitment. If museums can understand what volunteers' value in relation to their work then they can place volunteers in situations which will not be at odds with their values. The objective of this paper is to explore how different aspects of work are valued by museum volunteers and the influence these values have on volunteer commitment to the organizations they contribute to. This paper presents results of a study of volunteers at three large museums and art museums in Sydney and Canberra, Australia. Results found that these volunteers place a very high value on the work they do for the institution and their commitment to the institution is a combination of affective and continuance commitment. It also found that volunteer commitment is influenced by Pfeffer (1997) three conditions for commitment; choice, publicness and explicitness. The implications of these findings for volunteer management are discussed.

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http://hdl.handle.net/10453/7558