Committing to refugee resettlement volunteering: Attaching, detaching and displacing organizational ties
研究志愿者在难民安置中的承诺如何受协调员、难民及重要他人的影响，发现组织纽带过弱或过强都可能导致志愿者退出，为可持续志愿者管理提供新视角。
As members of local host communities, volunteers play an important role in effective long-term refugee resettlement. This study investigated the nature of volunteer commitment by organizational volunteers who were assigned a front-line role in organizing material assistance and providing information about cultural practices for newly arrived refugees. Using interview data from volunteers, organizational representatives, and organizational recruitment and training documents, the study found that volunteers’ commitment was structured by the presence and absence of volunteer coordinators, the organization’s clients and volunteers’ significant others. While insufficient ties to the organization or strong, competing ties from significant others led volunteers to detach themselves from the organization, overly strong affective ties with refugees displaced organizational ties, leading to volunteers’ organizational exit. This study problematizes an individual-centric, psychological notion of commitment; instead, it situates commitment as a collective communicative process whereby relevant stakeholders negotiate the relationships that tie them together. It thus expands the range of voices present in decisions about commitment and provides new data on how organizational and relational others impact sustainable volunteer management.