By REID A. WODICKA

Throughout the United States, volunteer fire departments and rescue squads have been a source of pride for their communities, their members coming together during times of emergency to help protect lives and property within that community. Nearly every volunteer organization boasts decades-long members. Although they may not be active on emergency incidents or fight fires, these members still participate in their organization's administrative functions, are a wealth of institutional knowledge, and continue to play an important role in the organization.

However, a serious issue for volunteer organizations is turnover rate, which is estimated to be between 20 and 50 percent. Clearly, this is a disturbing trend. When volunteer fire companies and rescue squads invest resources into the recruitment, training, and retention of volunteers, there should be a significant incentive to ensure that volunteers remain active within the organization. What is the difference between long-term volunteers and those who quit after a short time? The answer is simple: loyalty.

No organization will ever have a zero-percent turnover rate. Various circumstances in life are obstacles to volunteering. Sometimes, they are out of the organization leadership's control, such as a change in a volunteer's employment status, an illness, and so on. However, many volunteers lose interest in being a part of the department, whether through general apathy or some disagreement within the organization. This article discusses how loyalty can play a significant role in encouraging volunteers to remain involved in their organizations, even if they disagree with or are dissatisfied with certain aspects of the company.

German economist Albert O. Hirschman's 1970 essay, "Exit, Voice, and Loyalty: Responses to Decline in Firms, Organizations, and States," attempts to explain how a member's loyalty to an organization affects his use of the option to exit that organization when he believes, for instance, that it is headed in the wrong direction. For one reason or another, the member is dissatisfied with the organization's policy, such as the chief refusing to install new seat belts in an old apparatus. Hirschman demonstrates that, in the absence of loyalty, a minor disagreement will result in a member exiting the organization following some complaining (known as the "activation of voice"). This lack of loyalty results in a high turnover rate, limits members' aggregate experience level, and reduces the organization's ability to provide effective service to citizens.

In contrast, an organization that has worked particularly hard to develop a strong sense of loyalty in its members will experience those members choosing to exit only after a much longer and much more vocal period of dissatisfaction with organizational policy. Dissatisfied members will stay in an organization longer prior to departure, many times working to improve what is seen as problematic. Hirschman displays this notion in a continuum in which he demonstrates that as disagreement with organizational policies increase, a normal loyalist member will become more vocal about his dissatisfaction with the organization until he threatens to exit (such as the member dissatisfied with the old engine's seat belts). This threat of exit, an activation of voice, is a final effort to make some sort of organizational change. However, if the member continues to disagree with the organization's direction and things get worse, he will continue to increase his complaints and, ultimately, exit the organization.

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