Volunteer Management in Nonprofit Organizations: A Bibliometric Analysis

Abstract

The nonprofit organizations rely on volunteers as key human resources. Recent literature emphasizes effective volunteer management to enhance the utilization of volunteers. At present, empirical knowledge on the subject exists in fragments causing difficulties in analyzing its growth. There is a need to evaluate its vast literature using a statistically rigorous method. The study aims to identify the internal structures and hidden inferences on volunteer management in nonprofit organizations using bibliometric data. The study collected 1,605 related journal articles indexed by Scopus from 1956 to 2022. The VOSviewer software was utilized to analyze the data. The results revealed diachronic growth in the area and identified its leading contributors. International collaboration and high-frequency keywords are also illustrated. The results are discussed in terms of article representations, area maturity, impacts of external environment, and emerging opportunities. The study provides insights into the state of knowledge surrounding volunteer management in nonprofit organizations.