Determinants of volunteering in sports
Final Report Abstract
The supported project revealed demographic differences between sport volunteers in Germany and New Zealand which relate to age. This was a consistent pattern among individuals volunteering for non-profit sport clubs and sport events. In addition, predictors of volunteering were tested; in particular, previous volunteering is an important driver for current volunteering. Having high social capital derived from being a member of the sport club, fosters also volunteering. German volunteers have a significant higher social capital than the New Zealand volunteers. Considering drivers of time committed to the voluntary activity, males are more likely to commit increased time to event volunteering than women and young and older individuals are more likely to commit time to volunteering. Being a volunteer in New Zealand has a significant positive impact on time committed. The results suggest that there are fewer volunteers in New Zealand who commit long hours, but that the number of volunteers in Germany is higher. However, they commit less time. Pertaining to what impacts intentions, diverse findings are revealed. Young age and few working hours as well as previous experience are identified as determinants for intentions of sport club members. This implies that sport clubs members who are currently not volunteering, but have previous volunteering experience in any other capacity are more likely to volunteer in the future than those not having it. This is a tricky outcome for volunteer managers since everyone has to start with any form of voluntary engagement at one time. Yet, this finding applied for the German sample and the joint German-New Zealand sample, but not the single New Zealand sample. Thus, there are again differences. For event volunteers, interpersonal motives are an important predictor for future event volunteering. Career motives have a significant negative effect on intentions. In this context, the country does not have any effect on intentions. A major contribution of these studies is related to methodology as the two studies followed the call from Dawson and Downward (2013) for more econometric modelling in volunteering research. Overall, depending on the outcome variables, different demographic, economic, behavioural, sociological, or psychological factors are important. Another contribution relates to applying multi-group confirmatory factor analysis in one of the studies which is still rather novel in volunteer research. In addition, the comparative approach and controlling for country effects determined key predictors for the different outcomes.
Publications
- Non-profit sport club members: What makes them volunteer? Voluntary Sector Review, Volume 8, Number 2, July 2017, pp. 187-204(18)
Hallmann, K. & Dickson, G.
(See online at https://doi.org/10.1332/204080517X14975367943041)
