“Eyes for eyes, teeth for teeth”: positive and negative reciprocity in NPOs

Abstract

PurposeManagement scholars investigated the motivational aspects of volunteers, mainly focusing on their positive reciprocity – individuals feel obligated to reciprocate whenever they receive benefits from others – but neglected the possible role of negative reciprocity, the tendency to retaliate in case of mistreatments. Based on motivational functions theory and the norm of reciprocity, this paper proposes a framework assessing other-oriented and self-oriented motives as the main antecedents of volunteers’ intention to stay in non-profit organizations (NPOs).Design/methodology/approachCovariance-based structural equation modeling (CB-SEM) and the PROCESS macro were used to empirically validate and test the hypothesized conceptual model on a sample of 379 volunteers actively involved in Italian NPOs.FindingsPositive reciprocity partially mediated the relationships between volunteers’ other-oriented motives and self-oriented motives and their intention to stay. Instead, negative reciprocity fully mediated the relationship between self-oriented motives and intention to stay but not the relationship between other-oriented motives and intention to stay.Practical implicationsManagers and marketers of NPOs should pay more attention to volunteers’ attitudinal and behavioral signals to encourage within-organization positive reciprocal attitudes and discourage negative reciprocal attitudes. This represents a strategic lever to prevent volunteers from quitting the organization – which is one of the most critical challenges for NPOs’ management – and improve their intention to stay.Originality/valueThis is one of the first studies that simultaneously investigate the mediating role of both positive and negative reciprocity of volunteers actively involved in NPOs. Moreover, the constructs of other-oriented and self-oriented motivations are statistically validated as two separate psychological dimensions impacting on volunteers’ turnover. Finally, the study has been conducted in the Region of Tuscany (Italy) which, despite its centuries-old tradition of volunteerism, has received scant attention by non-profit scholars.

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“…The current study finding is crucial since reciprocity is regarded as one of the main mechanisms that affect voluntarism behaviors in NPOs (Zollo et al, 2017) by contributing to employees' dedicated behaviors. Indeed, positive reciprocity perceptions of employees were shown to mediate the relationships between volunteers' other‐oriented motives and their intention to stay in Italian NPOs (Zollo et al, 2022).…”

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“…They often pay less attention to or even omit the negative experience and reciprocate with positive reviews only (Moon et al , 2019). On the other side, the unfavorable treatment during social interaction would decrease the possibility of positive reciprocity and even lead to negative reciprocity, which results in vindictive behaviors (Zollo et al , 2021).…”