11-18. What do you think about using “volunteers” to do work that other people get paid to do?

In my opinion, the use of “volunteers” to act on tasks which other people would only do when paid is a

smart optimization method of companies. Glancing at this at first sight, it could be mistakenly considered

as an exploitation because people are actually “working” without any pay. However, to judge the

validation of this perspective, we must understand “Why those people want to volunteer?”. There are

two obvious points presented by the case. Firstly, they are “motivated mainly by a payoff in enjoyment

and respect among their peers”. It could be that they love what they do and because they have great

enthusiasm for the company that they volunteer at. Secondly, it is also because by doing so, they can

develop the skills they have long wanted to some extent, given that the companies for which they were

volunteering to. From the two mentioned reasons, it is evident that the relationship between

“volunteers” and companies is not being abused, but mutually beneficial.

Discussing more about this in real life, there are a vast amount of students desire to be just simply a

“volunteer” at companies not only because they could develop the skills related to their major, but it is

also the way they could build up a professional CV in order to be considered as “experienced” when they

graduate, which makes it easier for them to get their desired jobs in the future.

In conclusion, despite regarding those people are “volunteers”, it is evident that they do take something

in return from the company, because in common sense, people do not do things that they could not get

anything in return. Therefore, if a company could benefit from those “volunteers” by getting jobs done

without labor expenses, and “volunteers” could also get things they desire for in the relationship, this is

undoubtedly a great deal that no one would ever turn down.

11-19. If you were in Mark Studness’s position, what would you be most concerned about in this 

arrangement? How would you “manage” that concern?

Using volunteers to create a free customer service network

is smart and cost-efficient, however, if I were in Mark

Studness’s shoes, I would be most concerned about the

loyalty of those volunteers; because without them, this

network would crash. This is a problem that should be

managed well since those “volunteers” are unpredictable. We

could not know when they would leave us because there are no official tights such as wages between the

company and “volunteers”. All we have is a faint connection thanks to the enthusiasm that could be

considered as temporary.

Therefore, taking advantage of volunteers’ enthusiasm, I would manage the concern by turning those

volunteers into loyal customers of the company. The company would give them many promotions and

privileges that only the top 500 volunteers, which are ranked from highest to lowest based on the

developed rating system, would possess and these are only available in their time of joining actively in the

customer service network. These privileges include the right to join in ideation time for a new product,

get the latest product from the company with a highly reduced price, have full access to the many special

services for free. Conducting in this way, we could hit two targets. Firstly, by turning only limited

volunteers into one of the most important customer types at the company, we could increase the

probability of retaining them in the customer service network up to 60% since they all would love to have

the rights of VIP customers without having to spend any money. Secondly, with this database of the 500

“volunteers”, we obtain the pool of deeply loyal customers who will always support any action of the
company regardless of the new product’s launch or any advertising campaigns, and this would create

large movements affecting many other customers types, increasing company’s brand love and awareness.

11-20. How do these “volunteers” fit into an organization’s structure? Take each of the six

elements of organizational design (see Chapter 10, pages 321–332) and discuss how each would affect

this structural approach.

- Work specialization:

The main job that they need to do is to considerably arrange the volunteer to the suitable tasks of work

to the volunteer workers. And they need to keep to the main purpose of work specialization that is high

productivity. There are some influences on the work specialization:

.High productivity:

We cannot deny the fact that most of the volunteers are young, energetic, and enthusiastic. Like the case

study mentioned that the volunteers work in enjoyment. These people have the tendency to like working

in their favorable and interesting jobs rather than earning. And because they have the passion in the job

so that they work without feeling exhausted or boredom over the timeframe. That is the reason why using

the paid-free labor is a very suitable. Moreover, using the volunteer labors could not only gain more

productivity but also could somehow save more expenditure such as employees’ salary.
 .Training:

These volunteer workers are interested in the job so that sometimes they strictly do the research about

it. However, they need to be basically trained the technical skills for filling in what they currently lack of.

And the most important things that they have to fit with the company’ culture. For example: Mr. Studness

cannot let the “volunteers” work in customer service department, without giving them any lessons such

as how to gently reply on their customer services website, without causing any misunderstanding. There

is another example that at Zappo, if you want to be their volunteer, you must be trained in order to know

how to fit with the Zappos’ culture.

There is the big difficult that the manager needs to considerably classify the volunteers into the right

jobs. Because the manager might feel hard to expect whether they do work in the long run or not. And

giving a job for them could be a challenge that the manager needs consider whether it is related about

company’s internal secret.

- Departmentalization:

The manager needs to intelligently divide the volunteer group into the suitable department. For

example: In the Verizon company case study, the volunteers work is customer service. Through the case,

we can see that the working area of volunteers are limited. Nonmanagerial or first line employees of

every department maybe the most suitable position for them. So that’s why we can see the Verizon

mostly put them in answering questions position.

 - Chain of command:

There is no change in the chain of command and the authority. The volunteers are usually arranged in

the lowest levels of the organization and controlled by the authority. The organization must gain more

“acceptance theory of authority” on the volunteers to make sure that the volunteers follow the

company’s culture such as rules. The volunteers are new and lacking lots of the technical skills. So that

gaining more “acceptance theory of authority” is necessary. Additionally, the volunteers could also be

empowered to handle some certain situations which does not have to be strictly under organizational

control. For example: the “volunteers” in Verizon company have the right to answer the question for

customer in their own style, however, they must follow the Verizon’s rule.

- Span of control:

Receiving more volunteer parallels managing more employees. This influences the span of control that a

manager could manage more employees. On the other hands, some companies mistakenly choose

replacing the volunteers into their low productivity employees. This approach is an effective way to saving
more money, but the graph’s span of control would not change much. Because the company still hire

manager to control the volunteers. However, this approach is not possible when the volunteer might be

unstable for long-term activities. So that the company should motivate and reward to keep the

volunteers.

- Centralization and decentralization:

More centralization is the necessity because like we mentioned before that the volunteers are usually

arranged in employee positions. And because they do not have much experience or kinds of skill so that

they must do what the managers decide.

- Formalization:

At first, we do believe that there should be more formalization because the volunteers must seriously

accept what the company decides. It is easy to see that they do not have sufficient experience or skill in

their jobs. That is the reason why they need to follow the criteria as rules or procedures. However, after

that first period, there would be less formalized. Why? Although every employee must accept and do

what the top managers decide to do, which leaves no exception. However, like the case mentioned, the

volunteers do not work at company. They can spend an hour a day just for answering customer’s

questions wherever they are such as the coffee shop, library, or house. So that they do not need to strictly

follow the rule which is obviously used for the people work in the company. For example: a volunteer

works for Verizon arranging customer service online need not wear uniform or be punctual.
11-21. Do you think this approach could work for other types of work being done or in other types of

organizations? Explain.

This is a hard question. And it seems the number of jobs which could be done by this approach is broad.

However, we think this would be most suitable for service major or those jobs that do not include

company’s secrets and match with the volunteers’ expertise, such as volunteers to run company’s events,

to write Facebook pages’ contents… Any organization could apply this approach, they just have to make

sure that no company’s secrets are exposed to volunteers to the job because they do not have any tight

to the company as well as make sure they have an expertise to conduct the job. To particularly mention a

type of organization, I would choose educational organization. Firstly, the students need a place to be on

probation. That is the reason why they choose working as the volunteers. Secondly, the student can join

organizing the medium to large events in campus area. For example: Troy University students in Ho Chi

Minh volunteered to help the university in recruitment campaign without accepting any fees.