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A Dynamic Model for Managing Volunteer Engagement

Baris Ata¹; Mustafa H. Tongarlak²; Deishin Lee³; Joy M. Field⁴

¹ Booth School of Business, University of Chicago, Chicago, Illinois 60637 · ² Boğaziçi University, Bebek, 34342 Beşiktaş/Istanbul, Turkey; · ³ Ivey Business School at Western University, London, Ontario N6G 0N1, Canada; · ⁴ Carroll School of Management, Boston College, Chestnut Hill, Massachusetts 02467

Managing Volunteer Engagement Non-profit organizations that provide food, shelter, and other services to people in need, rely on volunteers to deliver their services. Unlike paid labor, non-profit organizations have less control over unpaid volunteers’ schedules, efforts, and reliability. However, these organizations can invest in volunteer engagement activities to strive for a steady and adequate supply of volunteer labor. The paper, “A Dynamic Model for Managing Volunteer Engagement”, models the volunteer management process. The paper derives a dynamic control policy that judiciously uses the non-profit’s resources for volunteer engagement activities depending on explicit congestion thresholds, thereby lowering the overall cost of the non-profit operation.

DOI

10.1287/opre.2021.0419

Volume

72 (5)

Pages

1958-1975

Language

en

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