Membership Engagement through Membership Participation and Commitment: The Key to Organizational Stability among Professional Organizations

Abstract

This study aimed to examine the factors that foster the active engagement of members in the Philippine Institute of Certified Public Accountants (PICPA), a professional organization that exists for nearly 80 years. Data were gathered from 459 respondents using both quantitative and qualitative techniques such as surveys and interviews. They were chosen using the stratified random sampling and they were located from the different parts of the country. This study found out that the member respondents have moderate level of participation manifested through attendance in meetings, the active role they played in the organization and the duration of their participation which is on the average 15 years. However, majority of the member respondents were found to be strongly committed to the organization.
Moreover, the data suggest that social resources play a significant role in increasing member participation. As hypothesized, social resources that are mobilized by leaders increase members’ participation. Social resources, in part, explain the leader’s effect on member participation in a professional organization. Leadership, communication and sense of community were also found to be significant factors to members’ engagement while empowerment was found to be not significant at all. This means that communication was found to be a key factor in getting people involved in an organization and in fostering their participation. In this study, e-mails and phone calls were the most frequently used methods of communication. As to the sense of community, it is a catalyst for participation. This study then concludes that effective leadership is the key to members’ commitment and commitment is a compelling factor in the organization’s sustainability and a component of members’ engagement.