Motivations, Commitment, and Intentions to Continue Volunteering for Sporting Events

Abstract

Volunteers are an integral human resource of most sporting events organizations in producing successful events. To sustain a volunteer workforce, building a sense of motivation, commitment, and intention to continue volunteering is one of the most important tasks of event organizations and managers. The purpose of the study is to examine the relationships between motivations and commitment as predictors of volunteers' intentions to continue to volunteer for future sporting events. For this purpose, 163 individuals (males = 70; females = 93) who volunteered at the 2005 Life Time Fitness Triathlon participated in a Web-based survey. The results revealed that Interpersonal Contacts, Love of Sport, and Personal Growth as volunteer motivation factors had a significant influence on the volunteers' commitment to the sporting event. The volunteers' Commitment and motivations, Community Involvement, and Extrinsic Rewards were found to be important variables in predicting intentions to continue to volunteer for future sporting events as well. This article provides a better understanding of volunteers' motivations and their relationships with commitment and intentions for sporting event managers in using the information with effective volunteer retention strategies.