Ensuring volunteer impacts, legacy and leveraging is not “fake news”

Abstract

Purpose This study aims to explore the legacy potential of the FIFA Women’s World Cup (FWWC) 2015, for the host communities across Canada. Design/methodology/approach The mixed-methods study included a link to an online anonymous survey being sent to all volunteers at the FWWC that explored their prior volunteering experience, motivations for volunteering, perceived skill development and future volunteering intentions. Documents were reviewed, and key stakeholders were interviewed. Findings The results support previous research that mega-sport event (MSE) volunteers are typically older females with prior volunteering experience. Those most likely to indicate they wanted to volunteer more are younger volunteers without prior volunteering experience. While legacy was discussed as a desired outcome, this was not operationalised through strategic human resource strategies such as being imbedded in the position descriptions for the volunteer managers. Research limitations/implications As this study was conducted in the real-world context of a sport event, the timing of the survey was determined by the organising committee. Practical implications Mega sport events typically draw upon existing host-city social and human capital. For future event organising committees planning for and delivering a volunteer legacy may require better strategic planning and leveraging relationships with existing host-city volunteer networks. In the context of a single sport, women’s MSE, multi-venue, multi-province event, greater connection was required to proactively connect younger women for volunteers to their geographic sport and event volunteering infrastructure. Originality/value This is the first research of volunteers for the largest women’s mega single-sport event. There are three theoretical contributions of the paper to: the socio-ecological lens, motivational theory of single event MSE and the contribution of social and human capital to understandings of legacy.

A Case of Leveraging a Mega-Sport Event for a Sport Participation and Sport Tourism Legacy: A Prospective Longitudinal Case Study of Whistler Adaptive Sports

“…While this research demonstrates the value of the TESEF where there is a defined 'intervention' or event. Unlike physical activity interventions, MSE OCOGs have time constraints if hosts are to leverage for legacies, with OCOGs having 'sunset clauses' limiting their ability to leverage far beyond the event [24,25]. Vancouver2010 provided WAS and its stakeholders a once-in-a-life-time opportunity, with unique volunteering experiences, media exposure to raise awareness of WAS and adaptive sports, and infrastructure legacies of office space and accessible accommodation and training facilities.…”

“…Legacies are what remains after the MSE and are event-centered, while leveraging relates to the strategic planning and activities to achieve beneficial MSE outcomes [24,25]. The panoply of MSE legacies include infrastructure (stadia, roads, and transport); volunteering and sport participation growth; and enhanced destination competitiveness [7,19,26,27].…”

Motivations and Future Intentions in Sport Event Volunteering: A Systematic Review

“…Dickson et al [45,46,76] adopted a proprietary scale based on the SEVMS [18] questionnaire. Contrary to this review, Kim [2] found that the most used instrument was the SEVMS, followed by the VMS-ISE.…”

“…A good theoretical base is essential to be able to connect the concepts that are evaluated, providing a base on which to build new knowledge and understand why different events may or may not occur [90,91]. The self-determination theory was the most used in four studies [1,12,74,89], followed by the theory of planned behavior, with three studies [46,67,70], and the theory of social exchange [66,78] and the theory of involvement of the sports fan [32,68], with two studies each. Kim and Cuskelly [79] stated the limitations of the theory of planned behavior in sports volunteering when considering a linear decisionmaking process, which does not consider changes in future intentions and behavior change over time.…”

“…Among the 32 studies included in this review, 6 studies received 15 points or higher out of a possible total of 20 points [1,11,34,[44][45][46]. The rest of the articles scored between 10 and 15 points.…”