The aim of this paper is to investigate among a group of non-profit organizations: a) the effect of ethical leadership on volunteers’ satisfaction, affective organizational commitment and intention to stay in the same organization; b) the role played by job satisfaction as a mediator in the relationship between ethical leadership and volunteers’ intentions to stay in the same organization, as well as between ethical leadership and affective commitment. An anonymous questionnaire was individually administered to 198 Italian volunteers of different non-profit (...) organizations. The questionnaire contained the Ethical Leadership Scale, the Volunteers Satisfaction Index, the Affective organization Scale, as well as questions regarding the participants’ age, sex, type of work, level of education, length of their volunteer works, intention to volunteer in the following months in the same organization. The construct as well the effects of EL on volunteers is approached in light of the Social Exchange Theory and the Social Learning Theory. Structural equation models were used to test hypothesized relationships. The results confirm the role of mediation of volunteer satisfaction in the relationships between the variables studied. In particular, ethical leadership was found to be positively associated both with volunteers’ intention of staying and with their affective commitment. In the first case this relationship is fully explained by the mediation of the volunteers’ satisfaction, while the latter is explained by both direct and indirect factors. To the authors’ knowledge, this the first attempt to understand the role played by ethical leadership on volunteers’ behavior and, more in general, in the management of non-profit organizations. Findings are relevant both for practitioners and managers of non-profit organization, since they suggest the relevance of the perception of ethical leadership by volunteers, as well as for scholars, since they further deepen the knowledge on EL and its effects on the followers. Limits of the study: the questionnaire was administered only among a group of non-statistical sample of volunteers. Furthermore, the study reached only volunteers from Italian non-profit organization. (shrink)

The purpose of this study is to examine the relationship between contextual work-related factors on the one hand, in terms of job demands (i.e., risk factors) and job resources (i.e., protective factors), and work-family conflict in teachers on the other. Building on the Job Demands-Resources (JD-R) model, we hypothesized that job demands, namely qualitative and quantitative workload, are positively associated with work-family conflict in teachers. Moreover, in line with the buffer hypothesis of the JD-R, we expected job resources, in terms (...) of support from supervisor, job autonomy, and participation in decision making, to affect this association, which is expected to be stronger when job resources are low. The study was conducted in an Italian secondary school. Overall, 122 teachers completed a self-report questionnaire aimed at determining work-family conflict, as well as job demands and resources. The hypothesized relationships were tested using moderated multiple regression. The results of this study largely support our predictions. First, both aspects of workload were positively associated with work-family conflict. Secondly, job resources, including support from supervisor and participation in decision making, buffered this association, which was stronger when resources were low. On the contrary, job autonomy did not buffer the association between workload and work-family conflict. Overall, the results of this study are consistent with the Job Demands-Resources model and contribute to to the understanding of work–family conflict among teachers. More specifically, our study suggests that teachers with high levels of job resources, namely support from supervisor and participation in decision making, can effectively cope with job demands, in terms of both qualitative and quantitative workload, thus preventing negative consequences such as conflict between work and family domains. Interventions aimed at preventing work-family conflict among teachers should encourage organizations to optimize the balance between job demands and resources, as well as the identification and training of the workers at risk of work-family conflict. (shrink)