Content uploaded by Pernille Eskerod
Author content
All content in this area was uploaded by Pernille Eskerod
Content may be subject to copyright.
Voluntary Enrolment -
A Viable Way of Staffing Projects?
Pernille Eskerod
Anna Lund Jepsen
September 2004
All rights reserved. No part of this WORKING PAPER may be used or repro-
duced in any manner whatsoever without the written permission of IME except
in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.
© University of Southern Denmark, Esbjerg and the authors, 2004
Editor: Eva Roth
Department of Environmental and Business Economics
IME WORKING PAPER 59/04
ISSN 1399-3224
Pernille Eskerod
Department of Environmental and Business Economics
University of Southern Denmark
Niels Bohrs Vej 9-10
DK-6700 Esbjerg
Tel.: +45 6550 4154
Fax: +45 6550 1091
E-mail: pernille@sam.sdu.dk
Anna Lund Jepsen
Department of Environmental and Business Economics
University of Southern Denmark
Niels Bohrs Vej 9-10
DK-6700 Esbjerg
Tel.: +45 6550 1511
Fax: +45 6550 1091
E-mail: alj@sam.sdu.dk
Abstract
Traditionally allocation of personnel for projects has been seen as a manage-
ment task. Recently, however, more and more organisations are treading new
paths when staffing projects. In this article we examine a new staffing proce-
dure, in which enrolment is dependent on employees voluntarily responding to
internal advertising of projects. An important issue in voluntary enrolment is
the employee’s decision to enrol or not. To investigate the enrolment decision
process, we develop a model that we call the ‘Enrolment Readiness Model’.
The key concept in the model is ‘enrolment readiness’, which is a concept we
develop to depict intention to enrol as the outcome of a decision process trig-
gered by the awareness of a project being advertised. The model is tested in a
municipal administration organisation that has staffed projects by voluntary en-
rolment for a number of years. The case study mainly confirms the proposed
model, but also clarifies that voluntary enrolment may cause problems in get-
ting a sufficient number of participants in the proposed projects. The article
concludes by stressing that voluntary enrolment seems to require more attention
and effort from top management than a traditional/conventional staffing proce-
dure and we propose ways that the Enrolment Readiness Model can be helpful
in supporting voluntary enrolment.
An early version of this paper was presented at the research conference, pm
days ’03, Vienna, Austria, October 2003.
Key words: Staffing, Enrolment, Enrolment Readiness Model, Renewal Pro-
jects, Human Resource Management.
Table of contents
Why Voluntary Enrolment? ................................................................................ 7
Need for Better Understanding of Voluntary Enrolment............................... 9
Elaborating on the Concept of Voluntary Enrolment .................................... 9
Modelling Enrolment Readiness ....................................................................... 12
The Case ............................................................................................................ 14
Measuring the Constructs in the Enrolment Readiness Model.......................... 15
Results ............................................................................................................ 18
Enrolment Readiness as a Predictor of Actual Enrolment........................... 19
The Process toward Enrolment Readiness................................................... 20
Social Pressure............................................................................................. 21
Limitations of the Study and Managerial Implications ..................................... 22
References ......................................................................................................... 24
Why Voluntary Enrolment?
A central assumption in the project management literature is that a successful
project demands committed and motivated project participants. However, the
reality is that not all projects are perceived to be interesting by all project par-
ticipants and therefore do not arouse as much commitment and motivation as
expected from the literature [1]. Staffing projects with committed and moti-
vated participants is especially difficult in renewal projects. Renewal projects
typically centre on organisational development and can be observed in many
organisations in the private as well as in the public sector. Staffing these pro-
jects is complicated because renewal projects are typically characterised by be-
ing a unique effort carried out by a temporary team, whose members have to
work partly on their everyday work and partly on the project at the same time
[2, 3, 16]. Therefore, management has to find relevant project participants
among employees who are not necessarily close to management, who are not
involved in project work as their primary task, and who will have to find the
time for the renewal project in their time schedule, which is often already fully
occupied by their primary job. In organisations running renewal projects, an
important task is thus to promote the successful accomplishment of the renewal
projects by staffing them in a manner that enhances recruitment of motivated
employees.
To overcome the problems described above, new staffing procedures have been
developed. Among these procedures is voluntary enrolment, in which enrol-
ment is dependent on employees responding to internal advertising of projects.
Traditionally, when staffing projects, a manager (the project owner and/or the
project manager) estimates the need for resources and competencies and assigns
relevant people, perhaps in cooperation with line or function managers [2, 3]. In
some organisations management asks the employee whether he/she wants to
participate in a given project before final assignment takes place. In other or-
ganisations, employees are simply instructed to participate in the project. Staff-
ing projects by voluntary enrolment is thus different from traditional proce-
dures, as the decisions involved in staffing projects are shifted from manage-
7
ment to employees when it comes to deciding who could be relevant to consider
for the project in question.
The main argument in favour of voluntary enrolment is to be found in an as-
sumption stating that a person who is attracted by a renewal project out of per-
sonal interest will be more engaged in the project than a person who is ap-
pointed to the project, for example because of his/her formal position in the or-
ganisation. This is in line with theory of self-determination [5, 6] stating that a
person is more likely to take action (e.g. take an active part in a project), when
that person feels that his/her behaviour is self-determined rather than controlled
and imposed by others [7]. An additional argument for using voluntary enrol-
ment is that employees in many organisations feel that management insists on
accomplishing too many projects simultaneously [1, 2, 4]. Voluntary project en-
rolment reduces this problem by handing over the decision concerning possible
involvement in a given project to employees. Finally, a third argument in favour
of voluntary enrolment is that voluntary enrolment opens up opportunities for
enrolment of relevant employees, whom management would not have thought
of by itself and, thereby, the pool of possible participants in each project be-
comes larger and more relevant.
An argument against staffing by voluntary enrolment is that the selection of
project participants is based on motivation and not on competencies possessed
by the potential participants. However, some renewal projects are characterised
by not demanding specific professional skills but rather knowledge about the
organisation and in these projects being enthusiastic is imperative. Furthermore,
voluntary enrolment does not prevent that top management in the end decides
who enter the final project group. Another weakness is that voluntary enrolment
as staffing procedure does not secure that projects are carried out as there may
not be a sufficient number of employees enrolling in all projects. This may in-
duce problems in keeping the enrolment truly voluntary if too few employees
enrol in the projects advertised as there may be a danger that top management
then may urge employees to enrol. This problem may be particularly significant
if there are a high number of renewal projects in the organisation.
8
Need for Better Understanding of Voluntary Enrolment
The above suggests that voluntary enrolment potentially benefits both employer
and employee and, therefore, can be a good option for staffing renewal projects.
However, if staffing projects this way is to be successful in terms of accom-
plishing projects, it is important that a sufficient number of employees enrol in
the advertised projects.
Unfortunately, extant PM literature does not provide sufficient information
about how voluntary enrolment actually performs as a procedure for staffing
projects. Therefore, there is a need for better insights into how voluntary enrol-
ment works when applied in an organisation. To establish a better understand-
ing, it is necessary to focus on the process during which an individual decides
whether he/she wants to enrol in a given project. Consequently, the aim of this
article is to provide a better understanding of the determinants for the employee
to voluntarily enrol in an advertised project. In understanding voluntary enrol-
ment, we focus on: the perceptual process that leads an individual to a decision
to enrol; whether intention to enrol can predict voluntary enrolment; and finally,
we discuss managerial implications of the findings.
The underlying assumptions (1) voluntary enrolment leads to more motivated
project participants, and (2) more motivated participants lead to better project
performance and project results, can be questioned, but this is not within the
scope of this article.
Elaborating on the Concept of Voluntary Enrolment
9
To better foresee possible problems in voluntary enrolment, there is a need for a
more detailed picture of how the employee decides to enrol in a proposed pro-
ject. The awareness of a project proposal confronts the employee with the prob-
lem of deciding whether to enrol or not. This decision can be made on impulse
or based on a cognitive decision process [8]. Considering that enrolment in a
renewal project has consequences on workload, and that the number of projects
is probably not very large, we find it safe to assume that the decision process is
mainly a cognitive one. In line with cognitive decision theory [8] we, therefore,
expect that the decision to enrol is the outcome of a cognitive process during
which the proposed project is evaluated. In order for top management to be able
to support voluntary enrolment, it is important to understand at what stage(s) in
this decision process the potential project participants tend to decide to reject
the proposal and, consequently, not to enrol.
To elaborate on the perceptual process leading to a positive attitude towards en-
rolling, we find that Shalit’s Sequential Appraisal Model [11] is a useful tool.
Shalit calls attention to the fact that each individual translates the objective real-
ity into a subjective reality and rests his/her action on this subjective perception.
Different individuals assess the same situation differently depending on their
former experiences and their expectations for the future. In order to react to a
situation (e.g. an advertised project), it is not enough, Shalit argues, that the in-
dividual cognitively assesses that he/she understands the situation, perceives it
as relevant, and considers him/herself able to manage it. In addition to this, the
individual must feel a need, a drive, and a desire to get involved in the situation.
Shalit thus emphasises both the cognitive and the affective aspects of a situa-
tion. Furthermore, he introduces the concept “instrumental assessment”, which
covers the individual’s perception of whether he/she is able to influence the
situation and is ready at the right point in time.
According to Shalit, every individual goes through three perceptual phases be-
fore a decision to act is reached. The phases are presented in table 1.
Every phase contains questions that the individual asks him-/herself. The first
step toward reacting to a situation is a cognitive realisation that a situation de-
manding a reaction exists at all (Question 1). Hereafter, the individual assesses
whether the situation concerns him/her personally (Question 2), and so on. To
react to a situation, in this case to enrol in an advertised project, the individual
must respond positively to all eight perceptual questions and, thereby, proceed
through the whole process. A negative response to a question is expected to be
followed by a negative response to the subsequent questions because, by defini-
10
tion, the individual “leaves” the process at the time he/she decides to reply
negatively to one of the questions in the sequence.
Table 1. The Sequential Appraisal Model
Process Phases
Appraisal Mobilization Realization
Cognitive
1. Is it? 4. Do I understand? 7. What do I do?
Affective
2. Does it
concern me?
5. Do I want? 8. Will I commit
myself?
Instrumental
3. Can I affect it? 6. Am I ready? 9. Do!
Source: Shalit 1988, p. 28.
It is commonly accepted that the decision to act is not based entirely on the per-
son’s own attitude towards the behaviour. To include this Theory of Reasoned
Action [9] provides a helpful frame of reference. According to this theory and
other generally acknowledged attitude models [10], intention to act precedes ac-
tual action and the attitudes of others play a part in the overall attitude towards
action. In the current context this means that intention to enrol precedes actual
enrolment and that the opinions of others, “social pressure”, must also be con-
sidered. In accordance with the Theory of Reasoned Action [9], we therefore
expect the individual’s enrolment readiness to be modified by social norms of
immediate superior, peers, and family concerning enrolment in projects.
11
To capture intention to enrol, we have developed a concept that we call enrol-
ment readiness. We define enrolment readiness as the individual’s incentive to
enrol in a project advertised in the organisation on his or her own initiative.
This means that enrolment readiness for potential participants should be high if
a given project is to attract a sufficient number of participants in the final pro-
ject group. Enrolment readiness is thus, as we see it, a necessary stepping stone
toward actual enrolment and it is, therefore, important to understand both the
elements of the concept and the process leading to enrolment readiness.
Based on the Theory of Planned Behavior [12] and general theory on perception
and attitude formation [10], we anticipate that potential project participants’ at-
titudes towards a given project may be influenced by their own attitudes in gen-
eral towards project work. Also, there might be influences from personal back-
grounds. Finally, based on the same theoretical framework as above, we expect
enrolment readiness to be able to predict actual enrolment.
Modelling Enrolment Readiness
Enrolment readiness is defined as the result of a perceptual process containing
several phases in which the individual in question makes a cognitive, affective,
and instrumental assessment of a given project proposal.
Based on the theoretical frame of reference presented in the section above and
in a pre-study [13], we have developed the following hypotheses:
H1: The likelihood that an individual enrols in a project increases with in-
creasing enrolment readiness of the individual.
H2: In the process toward enrolment readiness, positive assessment is ex-
pected to be highest for the first questions and to fall along the process
as more and more individuals leave the process.
H3: Enrolment readiness is influenced by social pressure from reference
groups and the motivation to comply with these groups.
H4: The individual’s general attitude towards working on projects may in-
fluence enrolment readiness and/or enrolment.
12
H5: Differences in personal background may also influence enrolment
readiness and/or enrolment.
Determinants for enrolment in a given advertised project can thus be visiualised
as shown in figure 1 below.
Figure 1. Model of Enrolment Readiness
In figure 1, enrolment is preceded by enrolment readiness. Enrolment readiness
is determined by the employee’s appraisal of the advertised project and by his
or her consideration of referents’ attitudes towards his/her participation in the
project. In addition to this, personal background and general attitude towards
project work is expected to influence the process in general. Therefore, these
last two factors are not connected to other factors by arrows indicating a clear
causal relationship.
13
The Case
The model was tested in a case study conducted by the authors in 2003 in a mu-
nicipal administrative organisation in Denmark (Helle Kommune, which is
equivalent to a local government or council). The study followed a qualitative
pre-study [13] consisting of interviews with several employees and the CEO. In
Denmark, municipal organisations are responsible for elementary schools, some
health care, minor roads and parks, and social services. Helle Kommune be-
came project-oriented in 1999 when a new CEO was hired and a generational
change in the management of the organisation took place. In the old organisa-
tion, only very few projects were initiated. In Helle Kommune (with 650 em-
ployees) a range of renewal projects have been carried out. Some of the projects
are cross-organisational renewal (COR) projects and involve participants from
all units of the organisation. A COR project typically concerns the whole mu-
nicipal organisation, for example, the introduction of a new health policy for all
employees or diffusion of the official values of the organisation to all units.
Helle Kommune has accomplished 20 COR projects during the last 3½ years.
These projects differ considerably in size, in terms of number of participants,
duration, and in the effort each participant has to invest.
Since 1999 most of the COR projects have been staffed by internal advertising
and voluntary enrolment. The procedure is as follows: Project proposals are
presented in reports from weekly board meetings. A number of “project
seats/jobs” are advertised in the proposals. The reports are sent by e-mail to all
employees. The projects are only described briefly in the reports because the
board believes that project participants will be more motivated to work on a
project if they are responsible themselves for defining the project in detail. Per-
sons who are interested can sign up for the project by approaching the contact
person named in the project proposal. For projects that do not get a sufficient
number of people enrolled, the proposals are reformulated, or the projects are
postponed or dropped. Since 1999, only one COR project has been dropped be-
cause of lack of participants. However, several project proposals have been of-
fered more than once, and for some proposals, employees were encouraged per-
14
sonally to enrol in order to reach a sufficient number of participants. Prior to
start-up of the project, participants in the project group are selected by top man-
agement from among the voluntary enrollers. Thus top management acts as a
gatekeeper and still makes the final decision about staffing the projects.
According to the CEO, the aim of using this staffing procedure is, as expected
from the above mentioned theory, to ensure that project participants are very
motivated when assigned and also to ensure that as many employees as possible
know about projects taking place in the organisation and give them the oppor-
tunity to develop their project work competencies by enrolling. Project partici-
pation is not linked to a potential increase in salary, opportunity for advance-
ment or other incentives. The reason is that management wants project partici-
pation to carry its own rewards, and, furthermore, it does not want employees
with greater possibilities for project participation to have better opportunities
for rewards than other employees in the organisation.
To support project competence on the general level, Helle Kommune offered
courses in project work in 2000 to all relevant employees (approximately 250).
About 125 employees chose to participate.
As the COR projects in Helle Kommune have been renewal projects staffed by
voluntary enrolment and there is accumulated experience in this way of staffing
projects over some time, we find that COR projects in Helle Kommune are very
well suited for testing the validity of the Enrolment Readiness Model.
Measuring the Constructs in the Enrolment Readiness
Model
The stated hypotheses were tested using a survey among all managers in Helle
Kommune, as especially managers are assumed to be potential participants in
the COR projects.
15
To test hypothesis 1 respondents were asked whether they felt ready to enrol
and whether they had actually enrolled in the project in question.
To test hypothesis 2 stating that Shalit’s model [11] describes the employees
decision process, it is necessary to transform the general questions in this model
to the current context. Table 2 below shows the questions concerning an adver-
tised project, posed to cover the appraisal process as seen by Shalit [11]. The
questions were developed on the basis of the qualitative pre-study. Enrolment
readiness is the outcome of this process, and is thus measured by level of agree-
ment to the second last item in table 2.
Table 2. Questions Covering the Appraisal Stages
Question in
Shalit’s model
Question in present survey
Is it? I am aware that this project was advertised
Does it concern me? I thought that the outcome of the project would influence my
daily work
Can I Affect it? I was sure that I would become a participant if I enrolled in
the project
Do I Understand 1? I had a clear picture of the tasks involved in the project
Do I Understand 2? I was able to foresee the workload in this project
Do I want? I thought that this project would be interesting for me to par-
ticipate in
Am I ready 1? I considered myself professionally prepared to participate in
this project
Am I ready 2? I felt that there was space in my time schedule to participate
in this project
How do I do? I had no doubts about how to enrol
Will I commit my-
self 1?
I had a good feeling about enrolling
Will I commit my-
self 2?
I felt ready to enrol
Do Did you enrol in the project?*
Remark: The scales all ranged from 1 (Not at all) to 5 (Certainly) except the question
marked * which was a yes/no question.
16
In order to be able to test the hypothesized ability of enrolment readiness to
predict enrolment, respondents were asked whether or not they actually enrolled
in each project. The wording of this question is also shown in table 2. The ques-
tions were posed for four different projects that were advertised during the past
year. The titles of these projects are displayed in table 3. The projects cover dif-
ferent areas and should, therefore, appeal to different individuals.
Table 3. Projects Included in the Study
Project number Project Title0
1 Ready for E-day 2003
2 Initiating use of Digital Signature
3 Cross Organisational Development of Managers
4 Decentralisation and Simplification in Helle Kommune
To test the influence of social pressure (hypothesis 3), it was necessary to con-
sider whose opinions were expected to be important to the employee. Based on
results from the qualitative study [13], we expected these to be people who
would be directly affected by the employee assigning his/her efforts to the pro-
ject in question. We found these groups to be: Immediate superior, peers, and
family. In order to measure social pressure, we asked about importance of opin-
ion as well as expected reaction from the above mentioned groups.
From the model in figure 1 and hypothesis 1, we expected the enrolment proc-
ess to be influenced by the employee’s attitude towards project work. To meas-
ure this perception, we considered different aspects of opinion. In the qualita-
tive pre-study, we found this to be: The individual’s general attitude towards
project work; towards COR projects; and towards voluntary enrolment. Also
based on results from the qualitative study, we developed a number of questions
aimed at measuring the attitude towards these aspects of project work.
Personal background was also expected to influence the enrolment process (hy-
pothesis 5). Again, based on the qualitative study, we expected the influential
17
factors to be the following: Years of employment in the organisation; proximity
to the decision making processes in the organisation; participation in project
work courses; and gender.
These questions and the questions, aimed at reflecting the sequential appraisal
process, were all posed using multi-item 5-point likert-type scales plus a “don’t
know” option. Because of a rather limited number of managers (40) in Helle
Kommune, it was not possible to pre-test the scales on a larger number of re-
spondents prior to this study. This implies that measurement scales were devel-
oped as a part of the study. This is not ideal but is also not considered to pose a
serious threat to the validity of the study [17].
The questionnaire was published on the Internet. This way of collecting survey
data produces high response rates and few missing values [14]. Also, the re-
sponse structure has been found to be the same as for pen-and-pencil data [15].
Respondents were recruited through an e-mail sent directly to each manager and
personalised by using their name in the e-mail. This e-mail was supported by an
e-mail from the CEO stressing the importance of participation by all managers
in the survey.
Results
We received usable responses from 33 out of 40 managers who were asked to
participate in the study. The response rate is thus 82.5%, which we consider
very satisfying based on generally expected response rates [12]. An investiga-
tion of the non-respondents shows that these are mainly managers from the
health sector, showing that the response rate for the rest of the organisation is
very high and, at the same time, quite poor for this part of the organisation. We
have no explanation for this response pattern.
18
In the following, we present results from the survey concerning the connection
between enrolment readiness and actual enrolment in a given project (hypothe-
sis 1); the process leading to enrolment readiness (hypothesis 2); influence of
social pressure (hypothesis 3); and along the way, check for influence of prior
attitude (hypothesis 4) and personal background (hypothesis 5) on these ele-
ments.
Enrolment Readiness as a Predictor of Actual Enrolment
Hypothesis 1 postulates that enrolment readiness is a necessary stepping stone
toward voluntary enrolment in projects. The aim of this section is to investigate
whether enrolment readiness is a good predictor of actual enrolment. Unfortu-
nately, the number of actual enrollers in the sample is rather limited. In projects
1 and 2, none of the respondents indicated having enrolled in the project,
whereas four persons had enrolled in project 3 and one in project 4. In spite of
the disappointing number of enrollers, we think that it makes sense to investi-
gate the power of enrolment readiness as a predictor of actual enrolment. To do
so, we look further into differences in the process for enrollers and non-
enrollers in project 3 as this is the only project with more than one enroller.
Mean response values for enrollers and non-enrollers are presented in figure 2.
Figure 2 clearly shows a higher level of enrolment readiness for enrollers than
for non-enrollers. This supports the first hypothesis stating that the probability
of enrolling increases with a higher level of enrolment readiness. Looking at
figure 2, we see that the difference in mean values for enrollers and non-
enrollers is quite small at the beginning of the process, except “Sure of becom-
ing a participant”, and does not increase until the question measuring affective
appraisal in the mobilisation phase: “Expected participation to be exciting”. Af-
fective appraisal in the mobilisation phase thus seems to be the critical stage in
the current project, as the difference in levels remains during the rest of the
process, and is even enlarged towards the end of the process. A further investi-
gation into the data using discriminant analysis reveals a significant difference
for two variables: “Space in time schedule” and “Felt ready to enrol”.
19
Figure 2. Mean Values for the Stages in the Appraisal Process, Project 3
1
2
3
4
5
C: Aware project was a dve r tis ed
A:Outc
ome would
influence my daily work
I: Sure of becoming participan t
C:Clear pi cture of tasks invol ved
C: Able to foresee workload
A: Expected participation to be interesting
I:Prof essionally prepared
I:Space in time schedule
C: No doubts about how to e
nrol
A:Had a go od
feeling about enrol ling
A: Felt ready to enrol
Mean,
enrolled
Mean, not
enrolled
Remark: C= Cognitive, A= Affective, I= Instrumental. 1= Not at all, 5= Certainly.
Even though there is a significant difference between enrollers and non-
enrollers on the outcome of the sequential appraisal process, this difference is
far from being able to explain enrolling or not in total. In order to try to explain
this, we added additional variables to the model as stated in hypotheses 4 and 5.
The result of this analysis showed that a negative anticipation of the impact on
performance in everyday tasks along with a feeling that the advertised projects
in general are not relevant have a negative impact on actual enrolment. In con-
trast to this, participation in courses on project work has a positive impact on
actual enrolment.
The Process toward Enrolment Readiness
In the section presenting the theoretical frame of reference, we argued that we
define enrolment readiness to be the result of a perceptual process, as described
by Shalit [11]. Returning to figure 2, we see that the response pattern shows as
20
expected from hypothesis 2, that the average level of agreement to the state-
ments falls as the appraisal process proceeds.
Analysis of the data also showed that the outcome of the appraisal process is in-
fluenced by some of the elements in the general attitude towards project work,
but not by personal background. The influence works as follows: If, in general,
a person finds project work too time consuming, it has a negative influence on
the outcome of the appraisal process. In contrast to this, expecting that the
composition of the group will be better when using voluntary enrolment as op-
posed to a traditional staffing procedure, has a positive influence on the out-
come of the appraisal process. Still, a further investigation into the responses of
the individual employees shows that the standard deviation is relatively large
for the outcome of the process, even when the additional variables are taken
into consideration. This indicates that there are more influential variables than
we have been able to reveal in this study and that there are differences among
employees concerning which stages of the appraisal process are critical.
Social Pressure
According to hypothesis 3, we expected social pressure to influence the level of
enrolment readiness.
Analysis of the data showed that the expected reaction of the immediate supe-
rior and peers to voluntary enrolment was generally a positive one and that
most employees would not think much about the reaction from these groups
when considering whether to enrol or not. However, there were differences re-
garding reactions from the employee’s family. Cross-tabulation showed that the
reaction from family was generally not considered if it was expected to be posi-
tive. However, if the reaction was expected to be negative, it would be taken
into consideration, and further analysis showed that this would have a negative
impact on enrolment readiness. Hence, if the potential participant expects
his/her family to hold a negative attitude towards him/her participating in an
advertised COR project, the individual in question tends to be unlikely to enrol.
21
Limitations of the Study and Managerial Implications
The current study aims to add to the understanding of the process leading to
voluntary enrolment. In order to do so, we developed a model and we tested its
validity using a case study in an organisation that uses this method to staff pro-
jects. We feel that the study has enhanced our understanding of this process.
However, when inferring from this study, it is important to consider some im-
portant limitations of the study. The most important limitation of the study is
that because the number of respondents actually enrolling in a project was very
limited, we had to rely on the study of the appraisal process in one and not four
different projects, as we anticipated when planning the study. This means that
the conclusions in this article are based on a slender empirical foundation.
However, the results are quite clear and, therefore, we feel that it is safe to
make some managerial recommendations based on these results, in spite of
these reservations.
The results found in the study imply that for voluntary enrolment to be success-
ful in terms of number of persons enrolling in advertised projects, top manage-
ment has to consider at which stage in the appraisal process employees in their
organisation generally decide not to proceed in considering enrolment. In the
case of Helle Kommune, it seems that there is a need for an organisation-wide
attempt to organise daily activities in a way that creates more time for partici-
pating in COR projects. In other organisations, the problems could be at differ-
ent stages in the appraisal process.
In addition to initiatives on the general level, our findings show that top man-
agement has to differentiate its behaviour according to an assessment of enrol-
ment readiness of the individual employee concerning each advertised project.
Some employees need guidance on topics relating to the cognitive elements in
the appraisal process, whereas others need support on the affective elements,
and still others do not need support at all. The study did not show any relation-
ship between background variables (gender, age, employment status etc.) and
22
enrolment readiness. Therefore, such characteristics of the employee cannot be
used as a guideline for who needs support during their appraisal process.
To be able to determine at what stages in the appraisal process there may be
problems in the organisation both on the general level and on the level of the
individual employee, we suggest that top managers turn to the questions in table
2 and use them as a diagnostic tool. To identify the relevant areas to focus on in
the assessment of the enrolment readiness of the individual employee, top man-
agement has to draw on its knowledge of the employee in question.
Voluntary enrolment thus seems to require even more attention and effort from
top management than a traditional staffing procedure. It is, therefore, of utmost
importance to investigate whether voluntarily enrolled project participants are
actually more motivated than traditionally recruited participants, and also to in-
vestigate whether more motivated participants perform better. Due to many
situational factors influencing project work, it is, of course, not possible to
reach answers to these two questions that are valid in all situations. Nonethe-
less, we recommend top management to be very conscious about the strengths
and weaknesses of voluntary enrolment before implementing this procedure, as
some of the weaknesses can be offset if top management engages itself in the
process.
Returning to the starting point of this article: Considering the expected motiva-
tion of the project participants, voluntary enrolment seems to be a good way of
staffing projects. However, the results presented show that voluntary enrolment
may not be able to achieve a sufficiently large number of participants in the
projects. Therefore, if the goal of the organisation is a high number of accom-
plished projects, staffing by voluntary enrolment may not be the best option.
However, if the goal of the organisation primarily is to accomplish only pro-
jects that are perceived as worth participating in by a large part of the organisa-
tion, staffing by voluntary enrolment may be the right choice because only pro-
jects that appeal to a sufficient number of people will acquire enough enrollers.
23
References
[1] Packendorff, J. (2002). The temporary society and its enemies: Projects
from an individual perspective, in Sahlin-Andersson K, Söderholm A
(eds.). Beyond project management. Copenhagen Business School Press.
[2] Wenell, T. (2001). Wenell om projekt. Uppsala, Sweden: Konsulent-
förlaget, Uppsala Publishing House (in Swedish).
[3] Mikkelsen, H., Riis, J.O. (2003). Grundbog i projektledelse, Rungsted:
PRODEVO, Seventh Edition (in Danish).
[4] Eskerod, P. (1997). Nye perspektiver på fordeling af menneskelige res-
sourcer i et projektorienteret multi-projektmiljø, Ph.D. dissertation, Soen-
derborg: University of Southern Denmark (in Danish).
[5] Deci, E.L., Ryan, R.M. (1985). Intrinsic motivation and self-determination
in human behaviour. New York: Plenum.
[6] Ryan, R., Deci, E. (2000). Self-determination theory and the facilitation of
intrinsic motivation, social development, and well-being. American Psy-
chologist; 55(1):68-78.
[7] Skinner, H.A. (2001). Promoting health through organizational change,
Toronto: Benjamin Cummings.
[8] Brim, O.G., Glass, D.C, Lavin, D.E. Goodman, N. (1962). Personality and
decision processes. Stanford.
[9] Ajzen, I., Fishbein, M. (1980). Understanding attitudes and predicting so-
cial behavior. Prentice-Hall.
24
[10] Lutz, R.J. (1991). The Role of Attitude Theory in Marketing, in Kassar-
jian, H.H., Robertson, T.S. Perspectives in Consumer Behavior. Prentice-
Hall, Fourth Edition.
[11] Shalit, B. (1988). The Psychology of Conflict and Combat. New York:
Praeger Publishers.
[12] Kidwell, B., Jewell, R.D. (2003). An Examination of Perceived Behavioral
Control: Internal and External Influences on Intention. Psychology & Mar-
keting; 20(7):625-642.
[13] Eskerod, P., Toft, A.S. (2003). Projektbemanding gennem internt projekt-
udbud og frivilling tilmelding, in Tetzschner H, Madsen SO (eds.). Fra or-
ganisation til organisering. Offentlig ledelse i smeltediglen, Copenhagen:
Børsens Forlag, Offentlig Ledelse (in Danish).
[14] Jepsen, A.L. (2002). Spørgeundersøgelser ved hjælp af internettet, Esbjerg:
Syddansk Universitet (in Danish).
[15] Stanton, J. (1998). An Empirical Assessment of Data Collection using the
Internet. Personnel Psychology; 51:709-725.
[16] Blomquist, T., Packendorff, J. (1998). Learning from Renewal Projects:
Content, Context and Embeddedness in Lundin, R.A., Midler, C. (eds).
Projects as Arenas for Renewal and Learning Processes. Kluwer Academic
Publishers.
[17] Churchill, G.A. (1979). A Paradigm for Developing Better Measures of
Marketing Constructs. Journal of Marketing Research; 16:64-73.
25
Department of Environmental and Business Economics
Institut for Miljø- og Erhvervsøkonomi (IME)
IME WORKING PAPERS
ISSN: 1399-3224
Issued working papers from IME
Udgivne arbejdspapirer fra IME
No.
1/99 Frank Jensen
Niels Vestergaard
Hans Frost
Asymmetrisk information og regulering af
forurening
2/99 Finn Olesen Monetær integration i EU
3/99 Frank Jensen
Niels Vestergaard
Regulation of Renewable Resources in Fed-
eral Systems: The Case of Fishery in the EU
4/99 Villy Søgaard The Development of Organic Farming in
Europe
5/99 Teit Lüthje
Finn Olesen
EU som handelsskabende faktor?
6/99 Carsten Lynge Jensen A Critical Review of the Common Fisheries
Policy
7/00 Carsten Lynge Jensen Output Substitution in a Regulated Fishery
8/00 Finn Olesen Jørgen Henrik Gelting – En betydende dansk
keynesianer
9/00 Frank Jensen
Niels Vestergaard
Moral Hazard Problems in Fisheries Regula-
tion: The Case of Illegal Landings
10/00 Finn Olesen Moral, etik og økonomi
11/00 Birgit Nahrstedt Legal Aspect of Border Commuting in the
Danish-German Border Region
12/00 Finn Olesen Om Økonomi, matematik og videnskabelighed
- et bud på provokation
26
13/00 Finn Olesen
Jørgen Drud Hansen
European Integration: Some stylised facts
14/01 Lone Grønbæk Fishery Economics and Game Theory
15/01 Finn Olesen Jørgen Pedersen on fiscal policy - A note
16/01 Frank Jensen A Critical Review of the Fisheries Policy:
Total Allowable Catches and Rations for
Cod in the North Sea
17/01 Urs Steiner Brandt Are uniform solutions focal? The case of
international environmental agreements
18/01 Urs Steiner Brandt Group Uniform Solutions
19/01 Frank Jensen Prices versus Quantities for Common Pool
Resources
20/01 Urs Steiner Brandt Uniform Reductions are not that Bad
21/01 Finn Olesen
Frank Jensen
A note on Marx
22/01 Urs Steiner Brandt
Gert Tinggaard Svendsen
Hot air in Kyoto, cold air in The Hague
23/01 Finn Olesen Den marginalistiske revolution: En dansk
spire der ikke slog rod?
24/01 Tommy Poulsen Skattekonkurrence og EU's skattestruktur
25/01 Knud Sinding Environmental Management Systems as
Sources of Competitive Advantage
26/01 Finn Olesen On Machinery. Tog Ricardo fejl?
27/01 Finn Olesen Ernst Brandes: Samfundsspørgsmaal - en
kritik af Malthus og Ricardo
28/01 Henrik Herlau
Helge Tetzschner
Securing Knowledge Assets in the Early
Phase of Innovation
29/02 Finn Olesen Økonomisk teorihistorie
Overflødig information eller brugbar bal-
last?
30/02 Finn Olesen Om god økonomisk metode
– beskrivelse af et lukket eller et åbent so-
cialt system?
31/02 Lone Grønbæk Kronbak The Dynamics of an Open Access: The case
of the Baltic Sea Cod Fishery - A Strategic
Approach -
27
32/02 Niels Vestergaard
Dale Squires
Frank Jensen
Jesper Levring Andersen
Technical Efficiency of the Danish Trawl
fleet: Are the Industrial Vessels Better
Than Others?
33/02 Birgit Nahrstedt
Henning P. Jørgensen
Ayoe Hoff
Estimation of Production Functions on
Fishery: A Danish Survey
34/02 Hans Jørgen Skriver Organisationskulturens betydning for vi-
densdelingen mellem daginstitutionsledere
i Varde Kommune
35/02 Urs Steiner Brandt
Gert Tinggaard Svendsen
Rent-seeking and grandfathering: The case
of GHG trade in the EU
36/02 Philip Peck
Knud Sinding
Environmental and Social Disclosure and
Data-Richness in the Mining Industry
37/03 Urs Steiner Brandt
Gert Tinggaard Svendsen
Fighting windmills? EU industrial interests
and global climate negotiations
38/03 Finn Olesen Ivar Jantzen – ingeniøren, som beskæftige-
de sig med økonomi
39/03 Finn Olesen Jens Warming: den miskendte økonom
40/03 Urs Steiner Brandt Unilateral actions, the case of interna-
tional environmental problems
41/03 Finn Olesen Isi Grünbaum: den politiske økonom
42/03 Urs Steiner Brandt
Gert Tinggaard Svendsen
Hot Air as an Implicit Side Payment Ar-
rangement: Could a Hot Air Provision
have Saved the Kyoto-Agreement?
43/03
Frank Jensen
Max Nielsen
Eva Roth
Application of the Inverse Almost Ideal
Demand System to Welfare Analysis
44/03 Finn Olesen Rudolf Christiani – en interessant rigs-
dagsmand?
45/03 Finn Olesen Kjeld Philip – en økonom som også blev
politiker
46/03 Urs Steiner Brandt
Gert Tinggaard Svendsen
Bureaucratic Rent-Seeking in the European
Union
47/03 Bodil Stilling Blichfeldt Unmanageable Tourism Destination
Brands?
28
29
48/03 Eva Roth
Susanne Jensen
Impact of recreational fishery on the for-
mal Danish economy
49/03 Helge Tetzschner
Henrik Herlau
Innovation and social entrepreneurship in
tourism - A potential for local business de-
velopment?
50/03 Lone Grønbæk Kronbak
Marko Lindroos
An Enforcement-Coalition Model: Fisher-
men and Authorities forming Coalitions
51/03 Urs Steiner Brandt
Gert Tinggaard Svendsen
The Political Economy of Climate Change
Policy in the EU: Auction and Grand-
fathering
52/03 Tipparat Pongthana-
panich
Review of Mathematical Programming for
Coastal Land Use Optimization
53/04 Max Nielsen
Frank Jensen
Eva Roth
A Cost-Benefit Analysis of a Public Label-
ling Scheme of Fish Quality
54/04 Frank Jensen
Niels Vestergaard
Fisheries Management with Multiple Mar-
ket Failures
55/04 Lone Grønbæk Kronbak A Coalition Game of the Baltic Sea Cod
Fishery
56/04 Bodil Stilling Blichfeldt Approaches of Fast Moving Consumer
Good Brand Manufacturers Product De-
velopment
“Safe players” versus “Productors”: Im-
plications for Retailers’ Management of
Manufacturer Relations
57/04 Svend Ole Madsen
Ole Stegmann Mikkelsen
Interactions between HQ and divi
s
ions in a
MNC
- Some consequences of IT implementation
on organizing supply activities
58/04 Urs Steiner Brandt
Frank Jensen
Lars Gårn Hansen
Niels Vestergaard
Ratcheting in Renewable Resources Con-
tracting
59/07 Pernille Eskerod
Anna Lund Jepsen
Voluntary Enrolment – A Viable Way of
Staffing Projects?
