PhD defence P.S.M. (Philine) van Overbeeke

Appreciating What Matters: The many dimensions of volunteer value

On Thursday 12 September 2024, P.S.M. van Overbeeke will defend the doctoral thesis titled: ‘Appreciating What Matters: The many dimensions of volunteer value‘.

Promotor
Prof.dr. L.C.P.M. Meijs
Co-promotor
Dr. C. Frey-Heger
Date
Thursday 12 Sep 2024, 15:30 - 17:00
Type
PhD defence
Space
Senate Hall
Building
Erasmus Building
Location
Campus Woudestein
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More information

The public defence will begin exactly at 15.30 hrs. The doors will be closed once the public defence starts, latecomers may be able to watch on the screen outside. There is no possibility of entrance during the first part of the ceremony. Due to the solemn nature of the ceremony, children under the age of 6 are not allowed during the first part of the ceremony.

Brief summary:

Volunteering is broadly embedded in our communities. Academics, practitioners, and media often speak to the value volunteers add to society. Most of the time they do so in financial terms calculating cost savings, based on the argument that volunteers can replace paid staff within an organization. However, volunteers are also described as ‘the glue of our country’, suggesting they are valuable beyond the mere financial. One of the main goals in writing this dissertation was to challenge the simplistic financial take on volunteers and to explore, in much nuance, how volunteers create value in different ways (in comparison to paid staff), and thus become influential beyond being a cheaper replacement for paid staff. The chapters in this dissertation all showcase this in different ways and explore how to move away from a cost-saving approach and towards a value-based framework to make more effective and efficient staffing decisions within volunteer-involving organizations.

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