Does Sport Really Matter to Volunteers?

Successful volunteer management is essential to the effective functioning of sport organizations because the organizations and events could not be sustained without the support of volunteers (Cuskelly, McIntyre, & Boag, 1998). In order to achieve effectiveness in volunteer management, sport organizations should understand what volunteers want and how volunteers feel about their volunteer activities. In the competitive environment of volunteer recruitment, sport organizations should be appealing to target volunteers, emphasizing the uniqueness of sport volunteering on the basis of a basic understanding of volunteer psychology. There have been an increasing number of research studies examining motivation and satisfaction of volunteers in sport management. However, there has been a lack of research testing the idea of whether sport volunteering is more favorable and influential for motivating and satisfying volunteers than other volunteer opportunities are. This dissertation is the first attempt at comparing the characteristics of sport volunteers with non-sport volunteers in order to fill this gap in volunteer research and verify the characteristics of sport volunteers compared with other volunteers. Specifically, the purpose of this study was to compare the psychological differences between the groups of sport volunteers and non-sport volunteers. In order to achieve this research purpose, marathon volunteers (n=321) and music festival volunteers (n=132) were compared in terms of identification, motivation, evaluation of fit, satisfaction, and intentions for future volunteering associated with their current volunteering experiences. The results indicated that there were significant group differences in the level of identification related to the context of volunteering. However, no significant group differences were found between sport volunteers and music volunteers in terms of other constructs. The findings presented herein will contribute to expanding the body of knowledge about volunteers not only in sport management but also in general volunteer management, and will also provide tips for effective volunteer management to event volunteer coordinators. Recommendations are offered for future research based on the current research findings.