The relationship between corporate volunteering and organisational commitment management essay

The present research aims were threefold. Primarily, the aim was to research the relationship between participation in GlaxoSmithKline’s corporate volunteer programme and cultural intelligence, transformational leadership, organisational commitment and work engagement. Secondly, the research aimed to investigate whether cultural intelligence mediated the relationship between corporate volunteering and transformational leadership. Finally, the research aimed to assess whether work engagement mediated the relationship between corporate volunteering and organisational commitment.Results showed that employees who had taken part in corporate volunteering had significantly higher cultural intelligence compared with employees who had not participated, providing partial support for hypothesis one. This finding contributes to previous literature which suggests corporate volunteering increases cultural intelligence (Marquis & Kanter, 2009; Veleva et al, 2012), advocating corporate volunteering as an effective way to increase cultural intelligence. However as the assumptions for ANCOVA were violated, these finding can only be applied to the current population. Corporate volunteering was found to have no significant effect on organisational commitment, with both volunteers and non-volunteers having high organisational commitment. Although this finding contradicts initial research, which suggests corporate volunteers have higher organisational commitment, compared with their counterparts (De Gilder et al, 2005), Turker (2009) found CSR to be positively associated with commitment without consideration of employee participation. Rego et al (2010) suggested employees attribute higher worth to an organisation if it appears to care about the community, ie through an effective corporate volunteer programme, which in turn facilitates higher organsational commitment. Therefore observation of a corporate volunteer programme may be enough to facilitate higher organisational commitment without personal participation. Similarly, participating in corporate volunteering had no significant effect on work engagement, challenging previous literature (de Gilder et al, 2005). However, it has been found that elevated work engagement was only sustainable under certain circumstances, “i.e. when the volunteer felt social support” (Caligiuri, et al, 2013, pg 23). Such circumstances may not have been met during the volunteers’ assignment, resulting in a lack of elevation in work engagement. Moreover on returning to work, previous volunteers may become psychologically detached from work (Lorenz, Gentile & Wehner, 2011) due to preoccupation with previous volunteer work, leading to a reduction in work engagement. Unexpectedly, there was a significant negative relationship between corporate volunteering and transformational leadership, which contradicts much of the initial research suggesting corporate volunteering increases leadership (Vian et al, 2007). Motivation to volunteer has been found to be higher if employees want to improve their leadership skills (Peloza & Hassay, 2006), suggesting that volunteers are less likely to have leadership experience comparable with non-volunteers. This is supported by the observation that corporate volunteering involves withdrawing from occupational responsibilities for a substantial amount of time, something indispensable leaders are often unable to do. Therefore although leadership may increase from base level after volunteering it may not be as high as comparable employees.Cultural intelligence was found to mediate the relationship between corporate volunteering and transformational leadership, supporting previous research that found cultural intelligence to be an essential part of transformational leadership (Alon & Higgins, 2005; Rockstuhl, Seiler, Ang, Van Dyne & Annen, 2011), although no previous research had reviewed the mediation effect within corporate volunteering. Therefore hypothesis 2 was accepted, contributing to the corporate volunteering research. Work engagement was not found to mediate the relationship, as corporate volunteering did not significantly predict organisational commitment as discussed previously; therefore hypothesis 3 was rejected.

Limitations

Questionnaires were distributed within an organisational setting and involved participant’s attitudes toward the organisation, therefore participants may not have felt able to answer truthfully through fear that management may see the data, even though it was stated as confidential. Moreover the self-report nature of the study may have produced more socially desirable answers then objective data, however all questionnaires had high validity suggesting suitable for use in this manner. Unfortunately within this research, grade could not be controlled for as there was no universal grading system within the organisation. The skills reviewed, transformational leadership and cultural intelligence, would be expected to positively correlate with grade and therefore may have been an important variable within the analysis, therefore it is recommended this is reviewed in future research. This research only reviewed corporate volunteering within the pharmaceutical industry which has been identified as having an increased link to underserved populations, this may affect the corporate volunteer outcomes observed (Caligiuri, 2013; Wang & Qian, 2011). Therefore further industries should be studied in order to increase the generalisability of results.

Implications and future research

The findings of this research have practical implications suggesting that corporate volunteering is a suitable way of increasing cultural intelligence. With further support for cultural intelligence as a mediator between the relationship of corporate volunteering and transformational leadership, cultural intelligence can be seen as an extremely important variable contributing to successful employees. Therefore organisations should encourage cultural intelligence development in order to build a successful workforce that is able to work in multinational settings. However from this research it is seen that corporate volunteering may not be the most effective way of solely developing transformational leadership.Future research should continue to review these constructs to establish further support for the relationships, as many findings challenging the original literature. Repeated measure design and longitudinal studies should be implemented to establish cause and effect, with variables not considered in this study, such as grade, being included.

Conclusion

Although this research did not find corporate volunteering to have a significant effect on work engagement and organisational commitment, significant associations were found between corporate volunteering and cultural intelligence, supporting previous research. Significant results were also found between corporate volunteering and transformational leadership, challenging previous research due to the direct of the relationship. Significant findings add to the literature and support corporate volunteering although it suggests it may not be suitable for increasing all skills, when compared with other employees. Future research should continue to review these variables in relation to corporate volunteering in further populations, to add support to these findings.