Exploring commitment and leadership in volunteer organizations

Volunteer organizations, where there is no employment relationship between the member and the organization, represent an interesting context in which to explore the effects of leadership and organizational commitment. We present the results from a study of 212 Canadian volunteer leaders from an international social/charitable organization. Volunteer leaders were more psychologically involved and committed to their organization than comparable leaders from a trade union. The volunteer leaders rated higher than their union counterparts in transformational leadership and socialization. Union leaders were more transactional and held stronger Marxist work beliefs. Both volunteer and union leaders reported similar humanistic views on work. There were no differences with respect to inter‐role conflict that both types of leaders experienced. Discussion of the results focuses on application of these findings to changing organizational environments and their interaction of work and non‐work issues.