Doctoral Dissertation Research: Public Altruism and Bureaucratic Routinization

SES-1434437 Nitsan Chorev Meghan Elizabeth Kallman Brown University现有的研究已经产生了大量关于如何支持私营组织中的员工的知识，例如想法如何传播，模仿如何运作，以及不道德行为如何传播。然而，这些文献主要集中在盈利情况下的私人组织；尽管某些行为者可能存在理想主义，但对赚取工资的工人和志愿者的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，它结合了组织社会学的见解和对这些志愿者动机的细微差别的理解。这项研究从社会运动的角度分析了和平队志愿者的经历，测量了志愿者的动机，以及他们在服务过程中和服务后的利他主义承诺的轨迹。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。这项研究试图了解：1。志愿者如何认识自己是志愿者、积极分子和专业人士；2.志愿者对自己作为美国人的理解，以及相对于东道主社区成员的理解；3.志愿者职业倦怠和幻想破灭的来源和政治后果；以及4.志愿者对自己的理解。这项研究将使用混合方法研究设计，结合定性和定量方法的好处，包括对和平队三个地点的实地观察，对归来的和平队志愿者跟踪他们的职业和政治轨迹的在线调查，文件分析，以及对和平队志愿者和工作人员的采访。研究结果可能会对依赖具有利他精神的志愿者完成任务的非营利组织具有潜在的借鉴意义。具体地说，将产生可用于改进和平队方案的建议，特别是关于志愿人员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(如美国服务团、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关于正式组织对组织参与者的理想主义和利他主义的影响的全面理论。培育利他主义在美国产生了意义重大的后果，美国的民主在很大程度上取决于公民社会的健康。希望成为志愿者的人必须对他们加入的组织有信心；这个项目将提供关于如何发酵和保持这种信心的见解。了解官僚主义对理想主义的长期影响，是管理一个成功的自愿、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.