You Thought That This Would Be Easy? Seeking an Understanding of Episodic Volunteering

Abstract

This article is intended as the leading article in a Special Issue of Voluntas devoted to episodic volunteering from a cross-cultural perspective. This article focuses on summarizing and distilling knowledge about episodic volunteering. Based on a thorough literature review, the authors present state-of-the-art knowledge about episodic volunteering divided into key subsections that include: (1) is episodic volunteering a new area or a new era in volunteering? (2) Defining the concept of episodic volunteering, (3) the singularity of episodic volunteering, (4) assessment of the domains where episodic volunteering is most prevalent, (5) the impact of episodic volunteering on the participating individuals, (6) new parties in volunteer organizations, and (7) managing episodic volunteers. Finally, we present current gaps in our knowledge of episodic volunteers, some of which will be covered in this Special Issue, especially understanding episodic volunteering in non-English-speaking countries.