Factors explaning why people join, remain in, or leave a scholarly society: the Canadian Psychological Assn

Canadian Psychology, Feb 2000 by Skarlicki, Daniel P, Latham, Gary P, Lucas, Colleen, Prociuk, Terry

Abstract

Both theory and subject matter experts (SMEs) were used to generate items for a survey designed to increase understanding of why psychologists join, remain in, or leave the Canadian Psychological Association (CPA). The subject matter experts included current, former, and nonmember psychologists. Two thousand two hundred questionnaires were distributed by e-mail, and 275 were sent by surface mail. The response rates were 20% and 29% for e-mail and surface mail, respectively. Principal components analysis of the survey items resulted in five factors: outcomes, advocacy, organizational justice, annual convention, and professional recognition. Discriminant function analysis results showed that, on the basis of these factors, we were able to correctly classify respondents as current versus former members, and current versus never been members. Current members, former members, and psychologists who never joined CPA were found to differ significantly on their rating of most factors. The factors relevant for retaining members differ from those that attract psychologists to join CPA.

Volunteer organizations are almost completely dependent on their ability to attract and retain members. Without member donation of money and time, many organizations would cease to exist. Despite members' importance, we know relatively little about their motivation to join, stay, or leave professional and volunteer associations (Pearce, 1993). The Canadian Psychological Association (CPA) is a nonprofit organization totally dependent on its ability to attract and retain members for its existence. With a base of approximately 4,100 members, CPA attracted 480 members in 1998, while approximately 550 individuals did not renew their membership.

The purpose of the present study was to address the following two questions: (1) What factors affect a member's decision to join, remain in, or leave CPA? (2) Does a member's score on these factors identify who joins and remains in CPA? Because the study was exploratory, no hypotheses were formulated. Organizational justice theories (Greenberg, 1990), social identity theory (Tajfel, 1982), and social cognitive theory (Bandura, 1997), however, provided a framework for generating survey items.

Organizational justice theory includes the perceived fairness of the processes used to distribute outcomes. This includes applying decision rules with consistency, providing members with a voice in the decision- making processes, and ensuring that processes are representative of the views of the membership, rather than the interests of a select few. Moreover, the theory suggests that few factors kill the desire to belong to an organization more than perceptions that favouritism prevails. Thus, this theory was chosen because the CPA Board of Directors consistently receives feedback from scientists that CPA as an organization favours practitioners; the Board also consistently receives feedback from practitioners that CPA as an organization is biased in favour of scientists.

Social identity theory (Tajfel, 1982) suggests that people derive self-worth from group membership. People join and maintain membership in organizations as a way to enhance their self-esteem and identity.

Social cognitive theory (Bandura, 1997) emphasizes the importance of outcome expectancies in influencing choice. To the degree that expectancies are positive, the probability increases that people will join and remain active in the organization; to the degree that they are low or negative, people do not do so.

Method

PARTICIPANTS

A stratified random sampling procedure was used to ensure that the respondents were representative of psychologists in Canada in terms of geography, employment, and membership in sections within CPA. Using a web site search engine as a resource, psychologists who were current, former, and who had never been CPA members were identified.

Of the 2,475 questionnaires sent out, 2,200 were distributed by e- mail and 275 were sent by surface mail. The response rates were 20% and 29% for e-mail and surface mail surveys, respectively. Questionnaires were returned by 527 respondents: 325 (61.2%) were current members, 128 (24.3%) were former members, and 74 (14.1%) had never been a member of CPA. Of these respondents, 210 were males and 236 were females who resided in Atlantic Canada (n = 88), Ontario (n = 196), Quebec (n = 62) or Western Canada (n = 176), and who worked primarily as an academic (n = 257), practitioner (n = 144) or student (n = 105). There was incomplete or no information on sex, CPA section, geography, or employment category on 81, 218, 5, and 21 questionnaires, respectively.

PROCEDURE

The survey was administered at the request of the CPA Board of Directors; the survey instrument and procedure was approved by the Board of Directors as well as the Ethics Committee at the University of Calgary.

Items for the questionnaire were generated inductively from subject matter experts (SMEs) consisting of 30 current and 20 former CPA members, as well as 10 psychologists who were eligible for membership but had never joined CPA. All SMEs were randomly selected and were requested by surface mail or e-mail to generate items that they perceived as critical in influencing their choice to join, remain in, leave, or never join CPA. Of the 43 (71.6% response rate) who replied, 24 were current members, 13 were former members and 6 never were a CPA member. None of the SMEs completed the resulting survey instrument.