PDF format. Articles
Abstracts from Volume 8 Issue 3
Volunteering for tourism: discordance and commonality within a
serious leisure context
Dr Margaret Graham, Moffat Centre, part of the Cultural Business Group at
Glasgow Caledonian University
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This article focuses on volunteering in the context of Scottish
cultural tourism, which brings together three distinct serious
leisure perspectives: cultural heritage conservation, tourism and volunteering. Each is highly dependent on the other, which makes the partnership very appropriate.
Leisure-seeking volunteers: ethical implications
Deborah Edwards, School of Leisure, Sport and Tourism, University of Technology, Sydney
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People construct socially salient identities of others that in some cases affect their morally significant perceptions of, and interactions with, those groups. If these perceptions are flawed, this has a bearing on fundamental ethical questions: in particular, how one sees, treats and understands those groups. Museum volunteers are a group that are often viewed with differing positive and negative associations and values. The objective of this article is to explore the values and commitment of serious leisure volunteers in order to make a more appropriate representation of volunteers. The article presents the results of a study of volunteers at three large
museums and art galleries. The results show that these volunteers place a very high value on the work they do for the institution, and that their commitment to the institution is a combination of affective and continuance commitment. These findings challenge typified representations of volunteers, and the implications for ethical volunteer management are discussed.
Boards of directors in nonprofit organisations: their uneasy relationship with by-laws
Mary Catherine Thompson, 6Delta Consulting Ltd, Coaldale, Alberta, Canada
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This article reports on an exploratory study of six boards of
directors of nonprofit organisations in the Province of Alberta,
Canada, and their attitudes and behaviours towards by-laws, the foundational architecture of their organisations. The organisations are all incorporated under the Alberta Societies Act and have human services mandates. Society incorporation requires that boards of directors consist of volunteers, who hold the final responsibility for governance, and thus for all matters of organizational accountability.
The data for this study came from cases that I developed as a
professional consultant to the nonprofit sector over the last seven years and, before that, from my doctoral work in the organisational behaviour of volunteers and my subsequent ten years of teaching in the business faculty of a Canadian university. I describe six instances of by-law contravention by boards of directors and link them to attitudes about by-laws held by the board members, or at least a voting majority of them. Because by-laws are the senior operational guidance resource in nonprofit organisations, contravention carries
with it various degrees of risk for organisational effectiveness and, in some cases, perhaps even the ability to continue. I speculate that boards contravene by-laws, either by commission or omission, because they do not fully understand their organisational roles.
Researching volunteers ethically
Kirsten Holmes, School of Management, University of Surrey
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Research ethics has become a growing concern in the UK, against a background of legislation such as the Data Protection Act and the European Human Rights Act, and a general call for greater accountability. This concern has filtered down to researchers through the UK government’s research councils, and universities have developed research ethics policies and committees. Management research is usually conducted on behalf of, or at least with the
co-operation of, managers, which raises concerns about the
objective role of the researcher and the protection of the anonymity and confidentiality of employees’ data. This is an even greater consideration when researching volunteer management, since volunteers are giving their time freely both to volunteer and to take part in research. This article examines the difficulties encountered in trying to research volunteers ‘ethically’ and proposes an ethical
approach to researching volunteer management.
Facilitating organisational effectiveness among volunteers in sport
Peter Taylor, Sheffield Hallam University
Matthew James and Geoff Nichols, University of Sheffield
Kirsten Holmes, University of Surrey
Lindsay King, University of Northumbria
Richard Garrett, Sector Skills Development Agency
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One of the UK government’s policy positions in sport is to facilitate improvement in the voluntary sector’s effectiveness and capacity, in order to help achieve governmental objectives for sport. However, attempting to change the voluntary sector in sport so that it serves as a more effective agent for government policy carries certain risks, as this sector is largely independent of government. This article
explores the nature of volunteers in sport in order to judge if they are willing to change and willing to act as agents for government policy. It also examines the receptiveness of sports volunteers to an explicit, external initiative designed to facilitate improvement in the sector: Sport England’s Volunteer Investment Programme, which operated from 1997 to 2005. The evidence used is from a national study of volunteering in sport, conducted for Sport England in 2002.
The findings provide mixed evidence of the extent to which voluntary sport in England is capable of responding to the calls of government, and they suggest that if the voluntary sector is used in this way, a high wastage rate is to be expected. Different methods of stimulating the sector are considered.
The motivations and satisfactions of youth volunteers in leisure and sport activities in Quebec: the perspective of the volunteer and the organisation
Julie Fortier and Denis Auger, Département d’études en loisir, culture et tourisme Université du
Québec à Trois-Rivières
Cathy Froment-Prévosto, Loisir et Sport Montérégie, Saint-Hyacinthe, Quebec
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Leisure, sport and culture seem to be among the most important fields to attract volunteers. Young people represent a significant percentage of those volunteers. However, where young people and volunteering are concerned, a negative trend has been developing in Canada. The number of hours of volunteering provided by young Canadians has fallen in recent years. Certain organisations, such as municipalities, schools and sport and recreation associations, face obstacles that complicate the involvement of youth volunteers. This study surveyed young people and organisations in Québec
on a variety of topics relating to their volunteering experience, the recruitment and retention of youth volunteers, the support of youth volunteers and possible solutions to the problems connected with youth volunteers. Motivations and barriers to volunteer participation were identified and guidelines developed.
The Commonwealth Games Pre Volunteer Programme (PVP) as a catalyst for addressing social exclusion
Becky Warrior, Trinity and All Saints College, Leeds
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This article reviews the effects of the Pre Volunteer Programme (PVP), a unique scheme connected to the XVII Commonwealth Games in Manchester in 2002 that offered individuals from some of the most disadvantaged areas across the north-west the opportunity to participate as sports volunteers. In so doing, the PVP acted as a catalyst for addressing social exclusion in the City.
