Volunteering in International Sports and Volunteer Involvement in Sports Management

Sports management is about knowing as well as understanding the way in which marketing and business techniques can be applied into the world of sports. The business aspect of the sports industry permits the workers to pool sports along with their management skills and talents which eventually leads to a completely new range of rewarding as well as exciting job opportunities. Although, in today’s age and time, it can be found that the workers need motivation in order to volunteer in international sports (Nichols & Ojala, 2009). There has been a steady decline in the involvement of community sports volunteering which has had certain negative implications. The retention of the volunteers has become one of the challenging issues that sports industry has had to bear off late. However, very less information is known about the link between the motives of a volunteer and their plans to stay with the sports industry.

Motivation for Volunteering in International Sports

Volunteering is an activity which is unpaid and it depends on the voluntary involvement of the volunteers. This is undertaken with the help of certain organisations or perhaps an agency and these volunteers work for others or for the benefits of the environment along with their own benefits at times. It seems as if the volunteers have become an important or an invaluable set of resources in a lot of the sectors (Ringuet - Riot, Cuskelly, Auld & Zakus, 2014). In order to motivate people to volunteer for international sports, the sports industry must understand what the volunteers bring to the table and how they benefit the sports industry as volunteers seem to be the heart of the broad source of development in international sports.

Taking into consideration the concept that voluntary sport sector as well as the participation of volunteers is crucial for the sports industry to survive, it is a must to constantly motivate the volunteers in order to sustain them for a longer time span. To further develop, understand, and modify the sports system. Based on these four articles, it was observed that there are five distinct volunteer motivations - social adjustment, community concern, personal development, ego enhancement, and altruistic value (Ringuet - Riot, Cuskelly, Auld & Zakus, 2014). While research into these motivational factors of0 sports volunteers has concentrated on the fact that despite the constant innovation and advancement in, there still exists considerable debate on the dimensionality of motivated volunteers. They tend to provide their time as well as effort and their primary source of motivation is to help others and the environment. Other motivational sources should not be forgotten as they hold a significant role too.

Moreover, it was found that enthusiasm is one of the most important contribution by the volunteers as it contributes to the experience as well as the atmosphere of the event or programme. Some of the individual benefits of volunteers are that they have an interest or some particular need. The importance of motivated volunteers can be described with the help of the self - determination theory (SD) where in the individuals prolong general motivational angles towards control as well as autonomy (Schlesinger, Egli & Nagel, 2013). Here autonomy is acting with a sense of desire on their own goals and intrinsic interests. As autonomy is directly linked with ego development, self - consciousness, self - esteem and self-actualization; it is automatically being controlled in the projections of a volunteer so as to avoid any sort of negative consequence.

Local knowledge, another very important factor in sports management volunteering as helping the visitors around the Olympic location is a valued attribute since the attendees can be both the local people and tourists so they might ask questions about the area. It can be noted that the volunteers perhaps brought general skills to the events and might have expanded and gained experience after working. A recent report on the sports clubs affirms that recruiting as well as retaining volunteers is a major issue and might even obstruct to their existence. The main way to motivate the volunteers in international sports is by understanding their needs and expectations and working towards to fulfil the same for them (Schlesinger, Egli & Nagel, 2013). Job satisfaction and incentives is the way to keep the employees, volunteers here, motivated. Volunteer job satisfaction will be an outcome that is based on the emotional and cognitive evaluation of the relationship of the expectations and experience of volunteers of the work circumstances and to what the actual work circumstance provides.

Declining Involvement in Community Sport Volunteering

Since the volunteers remain to be un-motivated to work or help others or participate in community sports volunteering, retaining them became an issue and posed a threat to the sports industry. In order to avoid the declining rate of involvement in the community sport volunteering, the volunteers have to be satisfied with their job and must have be self - motivated to contribute towards the betterment of the society in general (Nichols & Ojala, 2009). One of the most important point to make note of in the community sports organisation is retaining the volunteers. There have been certain trends going around in volunteer participation as well as in retention using the continuity theory. Moreover, there seems to have been some change in the governmental policies as well which has boosted the involvement in community sport.

In addition to this, it was also noted that despite the best efforts being put in by the government to increase the participation of volunteers, there seems to have been an issue to achieve the same as there has been a constant downfall in respect of volunteer work capacity of the community sports system (Hoye, Cuskelly, Taylor & Darcy, 2008). On the basis of the continuity theory, a transition - extension hypothesis was formulated which tried to brief the recruitment as well as the retention of the ex - players and players as the volunteers. These volunteers have to participate in a completely diverse range of job roles and their positions might be that of a coach, umpire, referee, administrator, or a committee member, timekeeper, medical support person, or as a scorer. More often than not, these volunteers have had to perform two roles side by side or maybe even more. So, the job of volunteer demands for a strong commitment as their role is quite time consuming.

The particular issue is a significant issue especially for the sport sector as it stops them from delivering services to the members as well as to the other users. Although, there exists very few articles and research that has been conducted and published on the retention of volunteers in the community sport organisation (Ringuet - Riot, Cuskelly, Auld & Zakus, 2014). The retention capacity of the volunteers can be measured simply by the help of length of the tenure of a volunteer along with several behavioural statements. To successfully address the issue of decline of volunteers in the sports industry it was found that there are three definite variables which affected the retention of volunteers that is, meaningful work, satisfaction, and motives. One major motivational factor that can motivate the volunteers is the concept of attachment to a particular city or region as this factor automatically motivates them to contribute and to help others.

Here, the motives of the volunteer were to be identified as instrumental or altruistic motives where in both the motives contributed towards volunteer retention, although, later on it was found that only the instrumental motives were prognostic of volunteer retention. In order to gradually reduce the rate of declination amongst the volunteers in community sports volunteering, the sports industry must put in place certain motivation schemes such as additional perks, benefits, or incentives along with keeping in mind the motivational factors such as social contact, emotional needs, altruism, and personal interests. It was also noted that at times the volunteers who were paid to work were not motivated as much as the volunteers who were doing it for free, so the reason behind these two situations must be identified as well (Ringuet - Riot, Cuskelly, Auld & Zakus, 2014).

Implications for Volunteer Management

Volunteer management or also known as volunteer engagement defines the concept of working logically as well as systematically with the help of volunteers to achieve and fulfil the goals of the organisation or the industry (Hoye, Cuskelly, Taylor & Darcy, 2008). Here, the volunteer managers usually have to motivate, supervise, and lead the volunteer at a non-profit organisation along with the governmental organisations and certain large-scale event for instance, the Olympics. A volunteer manager mostly has to perform the administrative or the operational tasks while the volunteers have to support and abide by the policies without causing major discrepancies or trouble. The given four articles examine volunteer management along with volunteerism in the community sports organisation from three different perspectives that is, multi-level, institutional, and policy. In addition to this, when it comes to the volunteer management, a relation has been drafted between a ‘membership management’ and ‘programme management’ approach. The approach is quite goal oriented and it includes an event manager planning as the tasks demand to run an event and then eventually allot volunteers to them.

In the other approach, it can be seen that, it is rather socially oriented and commences from the motivational factors and the attributes of a volunteer, then goes on to allotting the tasks to them. Although, in either of the situation, it can be seen that it is inappropriate to simply apply the Human Resource Management (HRM) practices that are made use of to manage the employees who are being paid (Hoye, Cuskelly, Taylor & Darcy, 2008). Furthermore, the benefits or perks of a volunteer work is not that simple or clear as that of a paid employee. Also, the volunteers would be scrutinised less as they are completely under the control of the management. So, it can be deduced that the implication of volunteer management can perhaps be challenging for the event managers as the stress factors come in here that includes energy commitment, intense time as well as effort, insufficient number of volunteers, staffs, public scrutiny, over-demanding workload, and tension amongst the volunteers.

Moreover, the work of a volunteer is considered as a leisure experience as the activity can be opted freely by the individuals as to how and what they find attractive. The implication of volunteer management must be positive and must come from within an individual for instance, an individual who wants to volunteer in a community sports organisation must be self – motivated and work because they want to as per their own beliefs, values and interests and not because someone is forcing them to do so. Also, when it comes to volunteering, there must not be gender biasness. In simpler words, male and female should both be treated equally.

To conclude, the report highlights and discusses in detail the three different aspects of Volunteer Involvement in Sports Management. The different volunteer motivation factors for international sports, declining involvement of volunteers and its implications on the sports industry. Certain reasons that were identified must be taken into consideration by the community sports organisation and reflect on it so as to reduce the rate of decline amongst the volunteers and motivate them to perform effectively and efficiently. Moreover, the goal of the sports industry must be retaining the volunteers for a longer duration and increase their satisfaction level based upon the volunteer motivations. Also, it has been noted that when a volunteer is attached to a particular city or a region, they are automatically motivated to participate as a volunteer so that they could form a connection with their community. Another major motivational factor as the love for sports that people tend to have which makes them volunteer.

From the above report, I have learned a lot about the sports industry as well as about the community sports organisation. The industry has a lot to offer to the players as well as to the guests who come to watch and the volunteers who work and make the event a success. I believe, it can be said that the job role of a volunteer is definitely not an easy task as it requires a lot of commitment, time, effort and self - motivation. In addition, this, I also believe that the volunteers have to diligent in what they do as they represent a huge event as well as their country in front of a large populace. Even though, there are certain limitations to this role, it can be carried out with proper guidance and motivation from the managers. The several limitations in the volunteerism in the sports industry arises from the fact that the needs and requirement of the volunteers are not being fulfilled or met with despite their hard efforts. Generalising from the four given articles, I, personally, came to know that the volunteers can be motivated with the help of certain factors such as the five-dimensional motivational stances such as the ego enhancement, altruistic values, social adjustment, personal development, and community concern. In addition to this, there are certain other factors as well that can motivate the volunteers to voluntarily participate in international sports.

Moreover, it was noted later on that there has been quite a decline in the rate of volunteers participating for the community sports volunteering. The main reason and the most challenging reason to the sports community organisation, according to me, is making the volunteers stay with the industry. This is the most commonly addressed issue as it poses a threat to the mere existence of the industry itself as, when the volunteers are not there, how will the organisation survive as well as operate. All these situations have had a negative impact on the industry and has faced a constant downfall. To address this issue, the sport community organisation should take certain measures and cater to the needs and demand of the volunteers. I also opine that, volunteers who are associated with a particular city or a region tend to perform better as they seem to have a better knowledge about the region and hence can conveniently, explain the visitors in a better manner about the field site. In addition to this, I also think that in this way the volunteers can perhaps develop a better bonding with the city. All these situations can contribute to a growth in the rate of participation of volunteers in the sports community. Lastly, I would also like to state that after getting a thorough understanding about the different concepts of volunteering, every individual must contribute something in a similar way to their hometown or to their country.

References

1. Hoye, R., Cuskelly, G., Taylor, T. & Darcy, S. (2008). Volunteer Motives and Retention in Community Sport: A Study of Australian Rugby Clubs. Australian Journal on Volunteering, 13(2), 40-48.
2. Nichols, G., & Ojala, E. (2009). Understanding the management of sports events volunteers through psychological contract theory. Voluntas, 20(4), 369-387.
3. Ringuet-Riot,C., Cuskelly,G., Auld, C. & Zakus, D. (2014). Volunteer roles, involvement and commitment in voluntary sport organizations: evidence of core and peripheral volunteers. Sport in Society: Cultures, Commerce, Media, Politics, 17(1), 116-133.
4. ]Schlesinger, T., Egli, B. & Nagel, S. (2013) ‘Continue or terminate?’ Determinants of long-term volunteering in sports clubs. European Sport Management Quarterly, 13(1), 32-53.