Volunteerism in Corporate America

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The proposed dissertation suggests that employers who support volunteerism are able to increase job satisfaction in their companies. This is seen in the form of proactive employers who form volunteer programs that are in sync with the mission statement of the company. The recently conducted survey revealed that 68% of the respondents wished to enter into voluntary programs that helped to retain valued employees and 58% of the respondents believed that employee volunteering led to greater productivity. (Wallenius, 2003)

The volunteer interests manifested by employees largely influence the choice of volunteer groups to gain support from employers. The organizations which view voluntarism as a part of the corporate culture often benefit greatly from it. At this, connectivity is seen as one of the main aspects of volunteerism. In terms of voluntarism, connectivity serves as a bridge connecting volunteers and those individuals who need their help.

Research design is extremely important when constructing a study. According to Morris 2003, before carrying out research, “researchers should consider the goals of their study to determine the appropriate methodology, and should consider the costs and benefits of using student subjects vs. other consumers in conducting their research.” (p.49) Moreover, planning research, should take into account three basic methodologies of research which include internal validity, external validity, and construct validity. (Leong & Austin, 2005)

Internal validity is usually applied in cause and effect studies. Cozby 2009 posits that “to achieve internal validity, the researcher must design and conduct the experiment so that only the independent variable can be the cause of the results.” (p.149) Internal validity can be used when carrying out a cause-and-effect study exploring the issue of voluntarism; in this case, the cause-and-effect relationships between practicing voluntarism and the resulting job satisfaction among the employees can be considered. Such a study can be based on the assumption that the rates of job withdrawal among voluntary workers are, as a rule, smaller and their rates of job satisfaction are higher. This is connected with the fact that voluntary workers are more committed to their jobs and have concrete goals to attain.

As far as external validity is concerned, its primary focus is on generalizations. As explained by Trochim & Donnely 2008, “external validity is the degree to which the conclusions in your study would hold for another person in other places and at other times.” (p.34) In addition to this, Schram 2005 offers an idea that external validity “is relatively more important for experiments searching for empirical regularities than for theory-testing experiments.” (p.225) There is no place for external validity in the case with the study which is going to be presented in this dissertation. For example, consider that Wells Fargo, Bank of America, and Chase all participated in the survey questioning employee satisfaction. Consider again the results of the study indicated that employee satisfaction was increased because of corporate volunteer support. External validity infers that a study can be picked up and applied to any other situation, for instance to the work of Boeing or ABC Trucking, leading to approximately the same results. This cannot be true in the case of voluntarism and employee satisfaction, because the results are individual for every company.

Construct validity is one of the most central concepts in psychology. Most of the scholars keep to the idea that it is more important than any other of the measurement validity labels. Researchers generally establish the construct validity of a measure by correlating it with a number of other measures and “arguing from the pattern of correlations that the measure is associated with these variables in theoretically predictable ways.” (Westen & Rosenthal, 2003, p.608) Construct validity is significant for the research which is expected to be done in this dissertation. This study will show a correlation between employee satisfaction with their employment and an employer’s willingness to support an employee’s belief through a formal volunteer program. It could be further reiterated that satisfaction levels of employees are positively correlated with employers’ willingness to fund a program such as the one in question.

Validity allows seeing the accuracy of research. The abovementioned three methodologies provide different perspectives on research as such. While internal validity requires a cause and effect relationship, external and construct validity do not. External validity requires duplication of similar situations outside a study. Other methodologies do not have this requirement. Construct validity tests patterns whereas, again, the other methodologies do not.

The external validity threat points out why generalizations can be incorrect. For example, an external validity threat surrounding the correlation between employee satisfaction and an organization that supports volunteer programs could easily arise. Threats could include organizational types, employee personalities, reward program, and other factors that influence employee satisfaction. A threat to construct validity is the reliability of a test. For example, a poorly written survey or an inadequate number of participates would constitute a threat. It would be remiss to forget to mention measurement reliability. Measurement reliability measures something consistently. If this is not done, then another potential threat arises. The researcher is expected to bear all this information in mind before carrying out the research.

Reference List

Cozby, P. (2009). Methods in Behavioral Research. New York: Higher Education.

Leong, F. T.L., & Austin, J. T. (2005). The psychology research handbook: a guide for graduate students and research assistance, 2^nd edition. SAGE.

Morwitz, V. (2003). An incomplete picture. Marketing Research, 15(2), 49.

Schram, A. (2005). Artificiality: The tension between internal and external validity in economic experiments. The Journal of Economic Methodology, 12(2), 225.

Trochim, W. & Donnelly, J. (2008). The Research Methods Knowledge Base. Mason, OH: Cengage Learning.

Wallenius, S. (2003). Get up, get out, and volunteer!: A simple book that will change your life. London: IUniverse.

Westen, D. & Rosenthal, R. (2003). Quantifying construct validity: Two simple measures. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 84(3), 608.

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Volunteerism in Corporate America

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