Resilience Only Gets You So Far: Volunteer Incivility and Burnout

ABSTRACT

Although multiple factors have been found to induce burnout in volunteers, studies examining relationships among volunteer coworkers as a potential stressor are sorely lacking. Through the lens of conservation of resources (COR) theory, we investigated coworker (i.e., from both paid and unpaid coworkers) incivility as a predictor of burnout in a sample of volunteers. COR theory postulates that environmental stressors lead to burnout or other negative outcomes by depleting an individual’s resources. The present study also explored resilient coping as one factor that might help volunteers cope with the burnout emanating from incivility. Using regression, we found that incivility from paid and unpaid coworkers was positively associated with burnout. Resilient coping was tested and confirmed as a moderator of this relationship. Specifically, resilient coping was a useful buffer when the relationship between incivility and volunteer burnout was weaker, but was less effective at higher levels of incivility and burnout. Implications are discussed.

KEYWORDS:

• Workplace incivility
• volunteer incivility
• burnout
• resilient coping
• coworker incivility

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Sheridan B. Trent

Sheridan B. Trent is a doctoral student in the industrial and organizational (I/O) psychology program at the University of Nebraska at Omaha, where she received her bachelor of arts degree in psychology in 2013, and her master of arts degree in 2017. She has worked with dozens of nonprofit organizations through UNO’s Volunteer Program Assessment group, where she served as the assistant director for 4 years, providing outreach, survey administration, and consultation meetings for nonprofit clients. Her research interests include work/life issues, incivility in the workplace, and volunteer engagement and retention. She can be reached at [email protected]

Joseph A. Allen

Joseph A. Allen, Ph.D., is an associate professor in industrial and organizational (I/O) psychology at the University of Nebraska at Omaha. Before he completed his doctorate (Ph. D.) in organizational science at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte (UNCC) in 2010, he received his master of arts degree in I/O psychology at the UNCC in 2008 and his bachelor of science degree in psychology from Brigham Young University in 2005. His research focuses on three major areas of inquiry, including the study of workplace meetings, organizational community engagement, and emotional labor in various service-related contexts. He can be reached at [email protected]