Sustaining Emergency Volunteer Workforces: Exploring The Interplay Between Leader Behaviour and Volunteer Satisfaction In Australia

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Keywords: leadership, job satisfaction, organizational commitment, leader behavior, volunteering

Abstract: Disaster response and community resilience depend on the service of committed, long-term emergency volunteers. Given the critical role emergency response volunteers play, it is vital to understand how to improve their satisfaction and commitment to continue volunteering. This paper explores the relationships between four different types of leader behaviour (task, relations, change-oriented, and external) and volunteer satisfaction and organisational commitment within the emergency volunteering context. Adopting a mixed-methods approach, we analysed 431 survey responses using structural equation modelling, followed by an analysis of more than 200 free-text responses. Somewhat surprising given extant leadership literature, our findings indicate that external leader behaviour is the only one that is significantly related, both directly and indirectly, to volunteers’ organisational commitment through the mediation of volunteer satisfaction. Moreover, volunteer satisfaction fully mediates the relationship between task-oriented leader behaviour and organisational commitment. The findings of this study have broad implications for both research and practice, including highlighting the critical role of leadership in enhancing volunteer satisfaction and commitment and pointing to specific leader behaviours that may be best placed to keep emergency volunteers volunteering. These insights can guide emergency management organisations in their efforts to train and develop leaders and sustain their vital emergency volunteer workforces.