Guidelines of integrated management solutions: volunteers’ emotional intelligence, intercultural training and work productivity

ARTICLE INFO Rita Bendaravičienė, Jolita Vveinhardt and Ingrida Vinickyte (2019). Guidelines of integrated management solutions: volunteers’ emotional intelligence, intercultural training and work productivity. Problems and Perspectives in Management, 17(2), 404-414. doi:10.21511/ppm.17(2).2019.31 DOI http://dx.doi.org/10.21511/ppm.17(2).2019.31 RELEASED ON Tuesday, 18 June 2019 RECEIVED ON Monday, 25 March 2019

The aim was achieved not only based on the analysis of scientific literature, but also on the results of previous researches carried out by the authors of the article, i.e. a qualitative study interviewing individuals working with volunteers coming to Lithuania from foreign countries (N = 7) and a quantitative study in which the volunteers were surveyed (N = 174).
The paper, as a result, presents guidelines for the development of emotional intelligence and intercultural competence based on the concept of the expanding efforts by organizations that send, receive and coordinate volunteers. Four intersecting pairs of criteria for emotional intelligence and intercultural competence have been identified, the integration of which could serve to increase work productivity of volunteers in foreign countries.
The value of the article is based on the proposed new idea of integrating emotional intelligence and intercultural competence in order to increase work productivity of volunteers; additionally, it presents their development guidelines for organization management specialists. This study is focused on the integration of emotional intelligence and intercultural competence and identification of interrelated components. For this reason, it would be beneficial in the future to elaborate on the mechanism of how volunteers are prepared for foreign missions with the help of activities by the coordinating, sending and receiving organizations. though it is also noted that both volunteers themselves could be involved more (Brudney & Edward, 2000) and there is no shortage of challenges in the field of volunteer management. According to Haski-Leventhal and Bargal (2008), when pursuing volunteers that are engaged in the activity, there is a poor understanding of their organizational socialization related to the process during which volunteers are learning to work and internalize organizational values and goals in order to be productive. General volunteering principles are laid out by the European Commission (2016) and the EVS Quality Manual (2012, 2015), but they foresee only the principal guidelines that encompass the organization of volunteering and the functions of the sending and the receiving organization. This alleviates coordination of activities, but does not provide a volunteer with necessary guidelines for the development of intercultural competence and emotional intelligence in international organizations. It is common that national organizations operate according to the typical human resource management rules that do not tackle individual cases related to volunteering. For instance, Studer (2016) identifies a number of components that make volunteer management exceptional and unique. According to the author, such principles as the balance of interests, strategic obligation to volunteers, clarity of roles, team spirit, and respect complement the classic concept of human resource efficiency; as a result, volunteers should be treated as an exceptional stakeholder group. However, apart from the management of volunteers as a specific segment of human resource management, there are several other specific tasks that arise. For example, working with volunteers may differ depending on the organization type as well (McAllum, 2013). On the other hand, in a previously conducted study, Haski-Leventhal and Bargal (2008) discussed the stages of volunteer socialization and named emotional participation as one of the principal components. Volunteers encounter different cultures that elicit strong emotions (Mangold, 2012;Furham, 2012) and these become difficult to control for unprepared individuals. This requires knowledge of different cultures, which is identified as an intercultural competence characterized by an ability to adequately and appropriately react to cultural diversity (Cai, 2016;Fantini & Tirmizi, 2006). Still, in recent decades, emotional participation has been widely explored in the context of the ability of emotional intelligence, which helps one establish better emotional connections with people (Goleman et al., 2002;Kunnanatt, 2008;Brackett et al., 2011;Branscum et al., 2014;El-Chaarani, 2016;etc.). While it has been observed that, in a culturally diverse context, emotional intelligence creates the potential to achieve higher work productivity with the help of empathy and social skills (Lilis & Tian, 2009), there is nevertheless a shortage of studies that would combine such components as intercultural competence, emotional intelligence, and work productivity (Vveinhardt et al., 2019). This exact systematic perspective would make it possible to prepare and empower volunteers more effectively. Because of this, the research problem is raised in the form of a question as to how, after evaluating the insights of studies on intercultural competence and emotional intelligence, to formulate the principles based on which work productivity of volunteers would be improved, while making adequate management decisions that would address the development of the volunteers' emotional intelligence and intercultural training.
The aim of the research is to establish the guidelines of integrated management solutions for the increase of work productivity via the development of emotional intelligence and intercultural training of volunteers.
To achieve this aim, the following research goals are set: 1) to introduce the specifics of working with volunteers from abroad; 2) to propose the guidelines of integrated solutions.

The methods of the research
The guidelines of management solutions were established based on the analysis of scientific literature and the problematic areas of working with volunteers from abroad identified in the results of conducted empirical research (qualitative N = 7 and quantitative N = 174), in addition to the utilization of methods of systemization, visualization and modelling.

THE SPECIFICS OF WORK WITH VOLUNTEERS FROM ABROAD
Several principles can be identified that describe the specifics of working with volunteers from abroad. The organizations that send and receive volunteers typically follow the European Commission's (2016) document, the EVS Quality Manual (2012) and other documents. Based on the established practices, each project involves three organizations (the receiving, sending and coordinating ones). In order to become a project participant, each organization has to acquire accreditation that grants them permission to work with volunteers and approves that the organization is ready for it. Usually three individuals participating in the process are singled out, such as a tutor, a mentor and a volunteer. Nevertheless, these outlining documents cannot account for all in-depth actions that take place in the receiving organization in connection to volunteer resources. Thus, general principles are specified that have to be implemented by the volunteer sending and receiving organizations, often based on the existent arrangements for working with volunteers, which may be dissimilar to one another. Work with volunteers begins from the promotion of programs and engagement of participants, whereas later on it proceeds with the volunteers themselves at both national and international levels (  (2008) singled out several phases of socialization: the nomination phase, when the volunteer addresses the organization; organizational entrance transition; newcomer phase; accommodation transition; possible transition (ejection); emotional involvement phase; affiliation transition. These phrases highlight activity, relationships, costs and benefits, emotional participation, and even potential emotional burnout. The latter (i.e. emotional burnout) can be associated with the tensions that volunteers experience in the chain of processes, which encompasses involvement in volunteering, preparation for work, and voluntary work. McNamee and Peterson (2014) revealed four principal tensions of dialectic nature that exist in non-profit organizations: the dialectics of attractiveness and correction in the process of the socialization of new and future volunteers; the dialectics of volunteer supervision: in volunteering and negotiations for volunteers; independence, the dialectics of formalization and flexibility, which is related to the expression of management of expectations of volunteer activity and obligations; the dialectics of intimacy and distance, which is related to the scope and boundaries of volunteer relationships within organizations and beyond them.
Naturally, volunteering experiences are diverse, e.g. experienced volunteers (who spend 10 hours each) take particular care to choose the organizations that are in line with their own values (Einolf & Yung, 2018), which may ensure a better mutual understanding between the organization and the individual, as well as better interactions ( (Lough, 2013). Still, some studies demonstrate that organizations are not always prepared to make use of volunteer work (Handy & Srinivasan, 2005), they should be significantly more flexible and pay more attention to empowering even the highly motivated individuals (Einolf & Yung, 2018). The studies that examine the impact of emotional intelligence and intercultural competence on work productivity of volunteers acknowledge the shortage of integrated research in this field and insufficient volunteer preparation for working abroad, which would assess subjective abilities of volunteers and also dedicate time to the development of their intercultural competence and emotional intelligence (Vveinhardt et al., 2019). In other words, in spite of good intentions of the volunteers themselves, the risk remains that, without sufficient competences in the aforementioned field, working abroad will require greater emotional and temporal resources that could be used for work while avoiding additional stress. The latest study (Vveinhardt et al., 2019) highlighted the value that volunteers with experience in a specific culture have to the training of new volunteers for a mission, as well as the ability of the receiving organization to appoint an individual-friend (in addition to the mentor) who would help the volunteer integrate better. Nevertheless, considering the breadth of the concepts of intercultural competence and emotional intelligence, the need arises to pinpoint the criteria that reveal the common ground between them. The summarized criteria are presented in Table 1.

GUIDELINES OF INTEGRATED SOLUTIONS
Emotional intelligence and intercultural competence complement matching criteria (Table 1). For instance, in the context of emotional intelligence, awareness of oneself and others is focused on emotional reactions and empathy, whereas intercultural competence adds understanding of individual thinking structures, as well as one's own and the surrounding views and the knowledge about others and openness. That is, the conditions are created for a significant increase of opportunities for the volunteer's work productivity. . These documents discuss the activities of the sending, receiving, and coordinating organizations, as well as the participating individuals (tutor, mentor, volunteer). In this context, the mentor bears a significant amount of responsibility. The mentor usually performs various roles while working with the volunteer: as a teacher, a friend, a motivator, an adviser, a role model, a mediator, a coach, and a consultant (Kimming, 2015). Thus, to summarize the aspects discussed above, an allocation of responsibilities based on certain problem areas can be highlighted, which is presented in Table 2.
Even though in all cases the greatest responsibility for the decisions in a particular area falls on the volunteer and his/her motives and his/her responsibility, quite a few of the responsibilities are shared with the tutor and the mentor, which confirms that, as the volunteer is leading and making decisions, all three parties must cooperate closely and coordinate their actions ( Table 2). According to Ochieng and Price (2009), in order to effectively manage an intercultural team, it is necessary to also be familiar with the principles of human resource management where intercultural competence plays a substantial role (Kenesei & Stier, 2017;Majeski et al., 2017), helping one to avoid misunderstandings and conflicts. Still, it is obvious that, in the cases when the volunteer's work is overseen by multiple organizations, the need arises for a better synchronization of work in the field of human resource management, when the organizations themselves also overcome intercul-

Category Criterion Source
Emotional intelligence tural barriers. Kenesei and Stier (2017) observe that cultural differences also have an impact on inter-relationships, which is why learning about the cultures of the other volunteers is essential in order to establish close inter-relationships with them. When one lacks the knowledge as to why people from a certain culture behave one way or another, unavoidably, this creates favorable conditions for conflict situations. Based on the previously discussed factors, general guidelines can be laid down that would enable an integrated perspective on making decisions, which take into account emotional intelligence and intercultural competence ( Figure 1). Emotional intelligence and intercultural competence are proposed to be seen as phenomena that complement one another whose synthesis reveals four possible pairs of related criteria: 1) emotional awareness of oneself and otherscultural awareness of oneself and others; 2) openness to emotions of others, empathyopenness to cultural values of others, sensitivity and tolerance; 3) quality of interpersonal relationships at emotional level -quality of interpersonal relationships at cultural level; 4) stress prevention and management at emotional level -stress prevention and management at cultural level.
In this context, while preparing volunteers for working abroad, receiving them, and managing them, a significant role is played by the coordinating institution in order to determine inter-coordinated procedures of working with the volunteer. These procedures involve cooperation between the volunteer sending and receiving organizations, in which the latter organization establishes tasks related to a specific culture and activity, while the sending one orients volunteer preparation towards the tasks raised by a specific culture.

DISCUSSION
In ). However, we offer a broader approach systemizing these dimensions, the constituents of which are worth discussing in more detail, considering other studies.
Emotional cognition of oneself and others, included in our recommendations of integrated solutions to enhance volunteers' work productivity, has common points with Houghton et al.'s (2012) model of relationships between emotional intelligence, self-leadership, and coping with stress among students of management. The model presented by the authors means that control of emotions and self-discipline, resulting in self-efficacy, may facilitate students' stress coping. In addition, the research conducted by Dajnoki et al. (2017) shows that persons coming from other countries may face hostile stereotypes existing in society, inspired by fear of losing their occupied positions in organizations. Our research demonstrates that cultural awareness of oneself and "different" persons in the context of emotional intelligence and the resulting openness to the emotions of culturally distinguishing persons, empathy can be a meaningful alternative to reduce hostility. This closely relates to openness to cultural values of others, sensitivity and tolerance. For example, the study conducted by Hudson and Inkson (2006) showed that volunteers working abroad not only acquired new skills, but also experienced changes in their personal identity and value approaches. However, it is no less important to develop these qualities still before going volunteering.  (Lough, 2011), and, on the other hand, a significant role is played by the hosting organization, which should help to overcome cultural barriers and establish relationships with the local population. This is also confirmed by the study of Dames and Geeraert (2015), the results of which show that the support received from the hosting country's population was related to less stress than the assistance provided in one's country. Our research demonstrates that in order to reduce stress experienced by the volunteer, the organization's support in developing intercultural competence and making contacts in the local community together with the volunteer's involvement should form a coherent system. Disregard of at least one of the constituents in this system would have a negative impact on the volunteer.

CONCLUSION
Even though studies have shown that intercultural competence and emotional intelligence contribute significantly to the increase of work productivity, and some of the resultant ideas can be used when preparing volunteers for work, attention has to be drawn to the fact that there is still a lack of a unifying perspective, which would combine these components. Furthermore, the classic human resource management theory should be expanded in response to issues related to volunteer work. For this reason, we propose an integrated approach to the development of intercultural competence and emotional intelligence in order to increase work productivity of volunteers by first identifying four inter-related categories that could become the guidelines for the preparation of volunteers who intend to work abroad. In this context, it is noteworthy that a united volunteer preparation system is needed, where responsibilities are shared between the coordinating, volunteer receiving, and sending organization, and the latter is given the final role of introducing the volunteer into a specific culture and field of work. In order to ensure work productivity, guidance is needed not only to the volunteers, but also the coordinating organization, which can significantly contribute to the creation of a unifying system.
Novelty and scientific value. A new idea of integration of emotional intelligence and intercultural competence in order to increase volunteer work productivity has been proposed. The results of our research show that the phenomenon of emotional intelligence, which so far has been little analyzed in the context of volunteering, has close relationships with volunteers' intercultural competence and work efficiency.
Research results can be useful for the academic community in the future, conducting quantitative and qualitative research developing a systematic approach to volunteers' preparation and involvement. In addition, the proposed attitude can be beneficial to institutions organizing international volunteering, seeking that volunteers experience less stress, become part of the new cultural environment more successfully, and that their missions become more efficient.
Practical value of research. It presents integrated guidelines for the development of volunteers' emotional intelligence and intercultural competence, which provide the conditions for organization management specialists to organize more productive work of volunteers abroad.