| dc.description.abstract | The events industry is divided up into various thriving sectors and volunteers play a vital
role in each sector. For most organisations, executing an event would not be possible
without the continued support of volunteers. During this study, the researcher asked the
question of ‘do you find there has been an increase or decrease in volunteering?’ the
answer had a mixed response. Most organisations believe there has been an increase
due to a higher percentage of organisations employing volunteers. Consequently, it is
the event manager’s responsibility to adopt strategies to help with retaining volunteers
because there has been an increase in competition recently.
The purpose of this study is to investigate the commitment organisations receive from
volunteers and what strategies are they using to retain them for longer. Following on an
in-depth analysis of relevant literature, where key themes emerged and thus sculpted the
nature of the study and questions to be asked within the data collection. There are many
factors influencing retention that will be analysed in this research with the two main
influences being motivation and satisfaction. However, the researcher discovers first
hand from the participants that there is more to retaining volunteers than these two
factors.
There are various reasons why the researcher believes this topic should be explored
further such as the topic is relevant and current. For example, ten years from now
organisations will still rely on volunteers to make events feasible. Through understanding
the strategies implied by organisations to retain volunteers, this will help not only the
future of the events industry but the service sector as a whole. Wilks (2014) makes a
valid point that event managers are relying more and more on volunteers as a staffing
provision for their business needs. In correspondence to this research project, the data
collected emphasises Wilks (2014) point of view. Almost all participants coincided this statement, which highlights why this research is important for the future of volunteers and
most prominently the events industry.
The researcher conducted semi-structured in-depth interviews with various volunteer
managers from different organisations. One pilot study was conducted from which the
researcher adjusted some of the questions then conducted six in-depth interviews. The
demographics of the interview participants varied between gender, age and job role. The
researcher did not have a specific criterion for the participants but the researcher believes
using purposive sampling will assist in achieving more rich data. The researcher has
chosen managers of organisations who primarily deal with volunteers and this is the
rationale for choosing purposive sampling. The interview schedule was broken down into
themed sections while the researcher probed to achieve the best results. These themes
emerged from the literature review and are used simultaneously throughout the research
project.
The study presents an in-depth analysis from the collection of data and reviewing any
links to previous research on retaining volunteers. The researcher found the results from
the data collection to be extremely mixed. Some of the responses were particularly similar
and other questions had opposite views. The findings from this study are of value to other
event managers, as they can take note of the positive aspects of retaining volunteers
from the first-hand experience of the organisations that took part in the study. This
research project can also be enhanced and used for future research, where the
researcher could expand the search to UK wide or internationally. | en |
