An exploration into the motivations and satisfaction levels of sport event volunteers: A case study of the 2016 Edinburgh Marathon Festival (EMF)

Abstract

It is widely acknowledged that volunteers are critical to the running of events, as without such events could experience issues, such as economic challenges (Chelladurai, 2006; Bang and Ross, 2009; Love et al, 2012; Aisbett and Hoye, 2014). Additionally, it is said that the success of events can also be related to the use of volunteers, due to the diversity in skills sets and the providing of free labour to the event (Strigas and Jackson, 2003; Warner et al, 2011). It is stated within current literature, that it is increasingly important to understand what motivates an individual to volunteer, as this can provide event organisers' with an insight into what is most important to the volunteer (Green and Chalip, 2004). Thus, allowing organisers' to create roles, catered towards the volunteers, leading to higher satisfaction levels, and therefore, more repeat volunteers (Green and Chalip, 2004). However, whilst this can be said, supporting research is evidently lacking on the interconnection between all three aspects of motivation, satisfaction and retention (Farrell et al, 1998; Pauline, 2011). This study aimed to contribute to the gap in the literature on these topics, whilst providing an insight into motivations of volunteers within a new context of the 2016 Edinburgh Marathon Festival. In addition, the majority of studies on this topic area were conducted using a quantitative approach therefore to carry out this study, an inductive, qualitative approach was used, to provide further qualitative research into the study of volunteer motivations. A sample of 8 participants was gathered, with semi-structured interviews being conducted.