Volunteers’ Psychological Contracts: Exploring Experiences and Expectations Before and During the COVID-19 Pandemic

Cleveland, M. ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-6302-0293, Gray, D. ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3907-1653, Manning, Rachel ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8450-4104 and Bradley-Cole, K. ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0853-6080 (2025) Volunteers’ Psychological Contracts: Exploring Experiences and Expectations Before and During the COVID-19 Pandemic. Nonprofit and Voluntary Sector Quarterly, Online (First). pp. 1-25. ISSN 0899-7640

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Abstract

Volunteers occupy a unique position in organisations; not paid employees yet operating within organisational structures. Volunteering is also an additional life role, managed alongside home, family and, for many, work roles. Despite such complexities, our understanding of volunteer experiences and expectations is limited. We explore the experiences of 72 volunteers using a psychological contract lens (53 volunteers before the COVID-19 pandemic and 19 volunteers during the first national lockdown). Our findings offer insights into consistency across volunteers’ expectations (i.e., of collective commitment, shared values, and organisational and peer support) and two distinct aspects of experience aligning roles to the COVID-19 imperative (i.e., motivation and role flexibility). Implications for organisations are discussed in relation to volunteer support, engagement and retention, including ‘buddy’ systems, peer support networks and open communication regarding expectations.

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