The Impact of Hospital Volunteers' Service Motivation on Sustained Service Willingness: A Perspective of Psychological Capital and Organizational Support Perception
Volunteer services carried out in hospitals are an essential initiative that serves to drive forward the reforms of public hospitals and foster harmonious doctor-patient relationships. However, the situation where hospital social work departments often deal with "one-time volunteers" exists, and the matter of volunteers' sustained service willingness continues to be a persistent challenge.. Based on the Conservation of Resources (COR) theory, this paper examines the role of psychological capital as an individual resource and organizational support perception as a relational resource in the influence of service motivation on the sustained service willingness. Through the application of a moderated mediation model, the study discovers that the service motivation of hospital volunteers has a positive influence on their sustained service willingness, and this influence is achieved via psychological capital. Psychological capital serves not merely as a bridge for transforming service motivation into sustained service willingness but also as a crucial resource for sustaining long-term service willingness. In contrast to previous studies that view organizational support perception as a positive incentive, this paper identifies a negative moderating effect of organizational support perception between service motivation and psychological capital. When organizational support is at an appropriate level, it can boost an individual's positive psychological state. However, if the support is excessive, it might reduce the intrinsic value of service motivation, and as a result, the positive influence of service motivation on psychological capital will be weakened. The study suggests that hospital social work departments should implement targeted psychological capital enhancement activities for on-duty volunteers to promote sustained volunteer willingness. Additionally, attention should be paid to the strategies for providing organizational support perception. Full consideration should be given to individuals' internal motivations and psychological needs. By appropriately adjusting the support of service motivation to psychological capital through organizational support perception, the volunteer turnover rate can be reduced.
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