The main objective of this paper was to describe the latest results of a longitudinal study carried out by our research team with a sample of social work volunteers, whose one-year follow-up has just been completed, allowing us to draw up what we have called the “Three-stage model of volunteers' duration”. Use of this model overcomes some of the apparent contradictions between the different models of volunteerism. For example, for the Functional Model, motivations, and more specifically their satisfaction, would be the best predictors of service duration, however, for the Role Identity Model, what best predicts service duration would be role identity. We assume that in the initial phase of volunteerism, motivations and their satisfaction are more closely related to service duration than role identity. Nevertheless, to predict longer duration of service and greater involvement, the fundamental variable is organizational commitment. Finally, the Role Identity Model is that which best explains sustained volunteerism. Instruments used included the Organizational Commitment Questionnaire (Mowday, Steers, & Porter, 1979) reduced and adapted by Dávila & Chacón, and The Role Identity Scale (Grube & Pilavin, 2000, adapted by Dávila & Chacón, 2004).

The objective of this research study was to conduct a systematic review of the research on volunteers using Clary et al.’s VFI (1998). A total of 48 research studies including 67 independent samples met eligibility criteria. The total sample of the studies analyzed ranged from 20375 to 21988 participants, depending on the motivation analyzed. The results show that the Values factor obtained the highest mean score, both overall and in each type of volunteering, whereas the lowest scores were for the Career and Enhancement factors. Studies conducted with samples with a mean age under 40 years obtain higher scores on Career and Understanding scales when compared to studies in older samples. The group of studies with less than 50% women yield higher mean scores on the Social scale than studies with more than 50% women in the sample. All the scales show reliability coefficients between .78 and .84. Only eight of the articles provide data on the reliability of the scale with a mean value of .90. Of the 26 studies that performed factor analysis, 18 confirmed the original structure of six factors.

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.

Differences and similarities between 130 volunteers who remain for more than eight years in the same non-profit organization and 110 volunteers who quit during the first year were analyzed in this paper. Both groups were chosen from a sample of 851 volunteers that were working as volunteers when we assessed the independent variables (Time 1). After a 12-month follow-up (Time 2), 209 (25%) of them had dropped out and 642 (75%) continued in the same organization. Using the previous time, we formed two groups made up of those who dropped out and had been in the organization less than a year and those who continued and had been in the organization more than 8 years. Results show that differences and similarities between both groups are coherent with the three-stage model of volunteer's duration (Chacón, Vecina, & Dávila, 2007). This model includes the functional approach of volunteers' motivations (Clary & Snyder, 1991), and the role identity approach (Callero, 1985), and indicates that people will remain as volunteers insofar as this satisfies the motivations that are relevant for them at the first stage, they develop organizational commitment at the second stage, and they develop role identity as volunteers at the third stage. More specifically, results show that it is possible to predict 85% of the cases correctly using seven variables. Volunteers who remain after eight years feel a higher level of emotional exhaustion, a higher level of organizational commitment, and a strong role identity as volunteers. They are also highly satisfied with the friendships in the organization and have a stronger intention to remain at the long term (2 years).