Episodic Volunteering in Sport Events: A Seven-Country Analysis

Voluntas: International Journal of Voluntary and Nonprofit Organizations. 2022. Vol. 33. P. 459–471.

Okada A., Ishida Y., Yamauchi N., Gronlund H., Zhang C., Krasnopolskaya I.

Given its ubiquitous nature, sport events are one of the most popular venues for episodic volunteering around the world. This article explores the rare dataset of volunteering in sport events in seven countries—Finland, Ghana, India, Japan, Switzerland, Tanzania, United States—to overview the differences and similarities iden- tified in demography, volunteers’ reactions to hosts’ man- agement strategies, satisfaction, and intention to volunteer again. Key findings include differences in the level of satisfaction, where responses among American volunteers were the highest. We also find that although well-organized management strategies such as quality training, commu- nication, and proper appreciation led to higher satisfaction, these factors did not contribute to volunteers’ intent to volunteer again. Such management style might be too impersonal with less autonomy on the part of volunteers that they may not feel needed in future events. Somewhat messy management might motivate volunteers to partici- pate again.

Keywords: спорт, comparative analysis, Сравнительный анализ, Episodic volunteering, Sport, Event volunteering, Эвизодическое волонтерство, Событийное волонтерство