‘Continue or terminate?’ Determinants of long-term volunteering in sports clubs

This study analyzed the determinants underlying sports club volunteers' tendencies to continue or terminate their long-term commitment to volunteering in order to help sports clubs improve their volunteer management. Their risk of terminating was viewed in terms of subjective expectations and evaluations (satisfaction) regarding club-related working conditions and normative commitments (solidarity) to the sports club. These relationships were tested empirically with an online questionnaire of 441 sports club volunteers in a selection of 45 Swiss sports clubs. Results showed that the constructs orientation toward collective solidarity and volunteer job satisfaction correlated positively with long-term volunteering commitment. The effect of the former was stronger than that of the latter. Volunteers with a higher orientation toward collective solidarity were unlikely to terminate their voluntary engagement in their club. The discussion presents recommendations to help clubs retain volunteers.

Individual and structural factors of member commitment in sports clubs

This article analyses the conditions influencing the commitment of members of sports clubs. It focuses not only on individual characteristics of members, but also on the corresponding structural conditions of sports clubs related to the individual decision to quit or continue their membership. The influences of both the individual and context levels on the commitment of members are estimated in different multi-level models. Results of these multi-level analyses indicate that commitment of members is not just an outcome of individual characteristics such as strong commitment to the club, positively perceived communication and cooperation, satisfaction with sports clubsʼ offers, or voluntary engagement. It is also influenced by club-specific structural conditions: commitment is more probable in rural sports clubs, and clubs who explicitly support sociability, whereas success-oriented sporting goals in clubs have a destabilizing effect.

From school to work: A comprehensive model of work-related motivation in the transition to working life.

Motivation is a core concept to understand work related outcomes and vocational pursuits. However, existing research mostly focused on specific aspects of motivation, such as goals or self-efficacy beliefs, while falling short of adequately addressing more complex and integrative notions of motivation. Advancing the current state of research, we draw from Motivational Systems Theory and a model of proactive motivation to propose a comprehensive model of work-related motivation. Specifically, we define motivation as a system of mutually related factors consisting of goals, emotions, and personal agency beliefs, comprised by capability beliefs and context evaluations. Adapting this model of motivation to the school-to-work transition, we postulate that this motivational system is affected by different social, personal, and environmental variables, for example social support, the presence of role-models, personality traits, and scholastic achievement. We further expect that students with more autonomous work-related goals, expectations of more positive emotional experiences in their future working life, fewer perceived barriers to their career development, and higher work-related self-efficacy beliefs would be more successful in their transition from school to work. We also propose that goal-directed engagement acts as a partial mediator in the relationship between motivation and a successful transition. Finally, we hypothesize that work-related motivation while in school will have meaningful effects on positive outcomes while in vocational training, as represented by more work engagement, higher career commitment, job satisfaction, and lower intentions to quit training. In sum, we advance the point that the adaptation of a broader concept of work-related motivation in the school-to-work transition would result in more powerful predictions of success in this transition and would enhance scientific research and interventions in career development and counselling practice.