Abstract
The role of volunteers is an important factor for the sustainability of mega sports events. Key issues in the literature on sports event volunteers are volunteer satisfaction and its determinants and outcomes. Therefore, the purpose of the current study was to investigate the effects of the fulfillment of volunteers’ psychological needs and Volunteer Management Practices (VMP) on overall volunteer satisfaction, and to test their conditional effects depending on volunteer involvement. Additionally, the present study aimed to examine the effects of volunteer satisfaction on future volunteer activity, word-of-mouth, and host city visitation. For these purposes, a survey was conducted with 2442 volunteers in the context of the 2018 PyeongChang Winter Olympics in South Korea. The results of a Latent Moderated Structural Equation (LMS) revealed that the fulfillment of volunteers’ general needs and volunteer satisfaction with the VMP have positive effects on overall volunteer satisfaction. Interestingly, these effects were differently moderated by the level of volunteer involvement. Overall volunteer satisfaction was found to positively affect future volunteering intention, spreading positive words regarding sports event volunteering, and intention to visit the host city as tourists. In conclusion, sports event managers need to design an optimal work environment that can fulfill volunteers’ psychological needs and improve VMP to enhance the sustainability of mega sports events.
Highlights
Hosting mega sports events, such as the Olympics and the World Cup, can contribute to realizing the sustainable development goals of countries all over the world
In the second section of the questionnaire, participants were instructed to fill out the questions regarding general needs fulfillment, satisfaction with the Volunteer Management Practices (VMP), overall volunteer satisfaction, outcome constructs, and demographic information
The results of Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA) indicated an acceptable fit between the specified measurement model and the data; χ2 (638) = 4737.27, comparative fit index (CFI) = 0.946, Tucker Lewis Index (TLI) = 0.940, root mean square error of approximation (RMSEA) = 0.051, and SRMR = 0.052
Summary
Hosting mega sports events, such as the Olympics and the World Cup, can contribute to realizing the sustainable development goals of countries all over the world. The Secretary-General of the United Nations insisted that hosting mega sports events can advance sustainable economic growth, social development, environmental protection, and educational opportunities, but can promote human rights and peace [1]. In line with this remark on the values of mega sports events, the existing literature has shown that hosting mega sports events generates a wide range of tangible and intangible benefits: economic legacy [2,3,4], reputational legacy [5,6], infrastructural legacy [7,8], sociocultural legacy [9], and environmental legacy [10,11]. Successful mega sports events are not feasible without volunteers; securing volunteers is imperative to guarantee the success and sustainability of mega sports events
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