Doctoral Dissertation Research: Public Altruism and Bureaucratic Routinization

现有的研究已经产生了重要的知识，关于什么维持员工在私人组织，如思想如何传播，模仿如何运作，以及不道德的行为如何传播。然而，这些文献主要集中在盈利情况下的私人组织；虽然理想主义可能存在于某些行为者身上，但对挣工资的工人和志愿者来说，激励结构是有意义的不同。这项研究提出了一种新的思考志愿服务的方式，它将组织社会学的见解与对这些志愿者动机的细致入微的理解结合起来。本研究采用社会运动的视角来分析和平队志愿者的经历，衡量志愿者的动机，以及他们在服务期间和服务后的利他行为轨迹。这个项目的重点是改变志愿者利他主义身份的组织机制，以及这些转变的政治后果。该研究试图理解：1；1 .志愿者如何理解自己作为志愿者、活动家和专业人士的身份；2 .志愿者对自己作为美国人的认识，以及对-à-vis接待社区成员的认识；志愿者倦怠和幻灭的来源和政治后果；and4。这种激励结构使志愿者在社会和帮助行业中保持活力，尽管他们精疲力竭。这项研究将采用混合方法的研究设计，结合定性和定量方法的优点，包括在三个和平队地点进行实地观察，对回国的和平队志愿者进行在线调查，追踪他们的专业和政治轨迹，进行文件分析，并与和平队志愿者和工作人员进行访谈。研究结果有可能用于那些依靠无私的志愿者来完成任务的非营利组织。具体而言，将提出可用于改进和平队项目的建议，特别是关于志愿者轨迹模式的经验信息。此外，结果可能在某种程度上可以推广到其他帮助组织（如AmeriCorps、Vista、专业活动家组织和非政府组织、慈善基金会和礼拜场所）。这个项目有可能有助于形成一个关于正式组织对组织参与者的理想主义和利他主义影响的综合理论。在美国，培养利他主义具有重要意义，因为美国的民主在很大程度上依赖于公民社会的健康。想要成为志愿者的人必须对他们加入的组织有信心；这个项目将提供如何发酵和保持这种信念的见解。理解官僚机构对理想主义的长期影响是管理一个成功的志愿组织、第三部门和慈善组织、积极和平和参与式民主的关键组成部分。

SES-1434437Nitsan ChorevMeghan Elizabeth KallmanBrown UniversityExisting studies have produced significant knowledge about what sustains workers in private organizations, such as how ideas are diffused, how mimicry operates, and how unethical behavior spreads. That literature, however, is primarily focused on private organizations in profitmaking situations; though idealism may be present for some actors, the incentive structure for wage-earning workers and volunteers is meaningfully different. This study proposes a new way of thinking about volunteering that combines the insights from organizational sociology with a nuanced appreciation for the motives of these volunteers. The research uses a social movements perspective to analyze Peace Corps volunteers' experience, to gage volunteers' motives, and the trajectories of their altruistic commitment throughout and after their service. This project focuses on the organizational mechanisms that transform volunteers' altruistic identities, and the political consequences of those transformations. The research seeks to understand: 1. How volunteers come to understand themselves as volunteers, activists, and professionals;2. Volunteers' understanding of themselves as Americans, and vis-à-vis host community members;3. The sources and political consequences of burnout and disillusionment among volunteers; and4. The incentive structure that retains volunteers in social and helping professions despite this burnout.The research will be completed using a mixed-methods research design that combines the benefits of qualitative and quantitative approaches, including field observations at three Peace Corps sites, an online survey of returned Peace Corps volunteers tracing their professional and political trajectories, document analysis, and interviews with Peace Corps volunteers and staff. Research findings can be of potential used to not-for-profit organizations that rely on altruistically minded volunteers to complete their mission. Specifically, recommendations will be generated that can be used to improve Peace Corps programs, in particular empirical information on patterns of volunteer trajectories. Further, results may possibly be generalizable to some degree to other helping organizations (such as AmeriCorps, Vista, professional activist organizations and NGOs, charitable foundations, and houses of worship). This project has the potential to contribute to a comprehensive theory about the effects of formal organization on the idealism and altruism of the organization's participants. Nurturing altruism has meaningful consequences in the United States, whose democracy turns in large part on the health of its civil society. Would-be volunteers must have faith in the organizations they are joining; this project will provide insights on how to ferment and maintain that faith. Understanding the long-term effects of bureaucracies on idealism is a critical component of managing a successful voluntary, third-sector, and charitable organizations, positive peace, and participatory democracy.