Three main tangible resources of a volunteer organizations include physical resources, organizational, and technological resources. Some examples of these resources are buildings, vehicles, and equipment. It is another way of saying that tangible resources are things that can be seen and touched, if one can be found at a given place and time (Barney, 1991). Examples range from simple things like a set of keys to a building to larger items like a high-performance sports car.Three main intangibles include human resources, innovation resources, and reputational resources (Hall, 1992).

Human resources comprise of knowledge, skills, abilities to connect or collaborate well with others, and trust. Innovation resources include the scientific capabilities, capacity to innovate, ideas, and intellectual resources in a community. Reputational resources are formed from people’s perceptions of the organization. Reputational resources include perceptions of product reliability, positive reputation with stakeholders, and brand name.

Innovation resources are important in volunteer organizations, especially in the development of sustainable projects. What are resource sharing and resources, and how can increasing available resources help increase success of an organization? There are a variety of rules that people follow to share their resources.

Reputational resources are very important when starting up because it is how others view an organization. When looking into a nonprofit or community-based organization, individuals want to see whether there is an existing reputation or not. The reputation can be formed from past experiences with the group. This way, it gives people an idea of what the expectations will be like when getting involved with the community-based group. Reputational resources also include brand name recognition, which can either help or hurt a contingent organization in its development stage.

It is easy to identify the main tangible and intangible resources of a volunteer organization. Examples of tangible resources include: physical space (a building), financial resources (funds for a project), and technology (computers). Examples of intangibles are: staff commitment to the mission, public awareness about the organization’s work, positive communication between volunteers and non-volunteers.

This identification was easy since there are many physical items that can be identified. “Intangible resources such as an organization’s culture, traditions and experience” are not easily identified, but the value attributed to them may be important for the volunteer organization. Examples of different intangible resources would be a volunteer organization’s “unique history,” or a “unique work environment.” In other words, how long has it been operating, who are its founders/historical figures, what is unique about its mission statement and how long has it taken to accomplish certain goals. The development of the concept of tangible assets and their assessment is credited to the members of The Volunteer Center. Under this model, tangible assets were only one component of the overall community resource engagement paradigm. As such, they had significant economic value but limited social value. These assessments provide confidence in volunteer organizations that they can easily identify different resources in the organization. Hence, they are able to improve them where necessary and enhance competitive advantage.

Reference

Barney, J. (1991). Firm resources and sustained competitive advantage. Journal of management, 17(1), 99-120.

Hall, R. (1992). The strategic analysis of intangible resources. Strategic management journal, 13(2), 135-144.