Benevene Paula, Dal Corso Laura, De Carlo Alessandro, Falco Alessandra, Carluccio Francesca, Vecina Maria Luisa
Department of Social Sciences, Libera Università Maria SS. Assunta, Rome, Italy.
Dipartimento di Filosofia, Sociologia, Pedagogia e Psicologia Applicata, Università degli Studi di Padova, Padova, Italy.
Front Psychol. 2018 Nov 16;9:2069. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2018.02069. eCollection 2018.
The aim of this paper is to investigate among a group of non-profit organizations: (a) the effect of ethical leadership (EL) on volunteers' satisfaction, affective organizational commitment and intention to stay in the same organization; (b) the role played by job satisfaction as a mediator in the relationship between EL and volunteers' intentions to stay in the same organization, as well as between EL and affective commitment. An anonymous questionnaire was individually administered to 198 Italian volunteers of different non-profit organizations. The questionnaire contained the Ethical Leadership Scale, the Volunteers Satisfaction Index, the Affective organization Scale, as well as questions regarding the participants' age, sex, type of work, level of education, length of their volunteer works, intention to volunteer in the following months in the same organization. The construct as well the effects of EL on volunteers is approached in light of the Social Exchange Theory and the Social Learning Theory. Structural equation models were used to test hypothesized relationships. The results confirm the role of mediation of volunteer satisfaction in the relationships between the variables studied. In particular, EL was found to be positively associated both with volunteers' intention of staying and with their affective commitment. In the first case this relationship is fully explained by the mediation of the volunteers' satisfaction, while the latter is explained by both direct and indirect factors. To the authors' knowledge, this the first attempt to understand the role played by EL on volunteers' behavior and, more in general, in the management of non-profit organizations. Findings are relevant both for practitioners and managers of non-profit organization, since they suggest the relevance of the perception of EL by volunteers, as well as for scholars, since they further deepen the knowledge on EL and its effects on the followers. Limits of the study: the questionnaire was administered only among a group of non-statistical sample of volunteers. Furthermore, the study reached only volunteers from Italian non-profit organization.
(a) 道德领导（EL）对志愿者满意度、情感组织承诺以及留在同一组织的意愿的影响；(b) 工作满意度作为中介变量在EL与志愿者留在同一组织的意愿之间的关系中，以及在EL与情感承诺之间所起的作用。对198名来自不同意大利非营利组织的志愿者进行了单独的匿名问卷调查。问卷包含道德领导量表、志愿者满意度指数、情感组织量表，以及关于参与者的年龄、性别、工作类型、教育水平、志愿工作时长、未来几个月在同一组织继续做志愿者的意愿等问题。依据社会交换理论和社会学习理论探讨了EL的结构及其对志愿者的影响。采用结构方程模型来检验假设关系。结果证实了志愿者满意度在研究变量之间关系中的中介作用。具体而言，发现EL与志愿者的留任意愿和情感承诺均呈正相关。在第一种情况下，这种关系完全由志愿者满意度的中介作用来解释，而后者则由直接和间接因素共同解释。据作者所知，这是首次尝试理解EL在志愿者行为中所起的作用，更广泛地说，是在非营利组织管理中所起的作用。研究结果对非营利组织的从业者和管理者都具有重要意义，因为它们表明了志愿者对EL认知的相关性，对学者而言也具有重要意义，因为它们进一步深化了对EL及其对追随者影响的认识。研究的局限性：问卷仅在一组非统计抽样的志愿者中进行了发放。此外，该研究仅涉及来自意大利非营利组织的志愿者。
