More Than Motivation: Reconsidering Volunteer Management Tools

Volunteers provide an essential human resource to sport organizations. Yet measures of motivation and satisfaction have had limited impact on an organization’s ability to improve their volunteer systems. This study applied the Kano Method to categorize volunteers’ perceptions of their experience into four dimensions of satisfaction: Attractive (or Satisfiers), Must-Be’s (or Dissatisfiers), One-Dimensional, and Indifferent. Four types of volunteers (44 sport continuous, 47 sport episodic, 49 nonsport continuous, 176 nonsport episodic) completed a web questionnaire including 26-paired features of their experience, 26 motives, and five key outcome measures. Although motives were deemed important, alone they were poor predictors of key outcomes and were unrelated to satisfaction. Volunteers in the four contexts classified the 26 features in different ways. No Must-Be’s (dissatisfiers) were identified by any group. Although most features were identified as Attractive, the distribution of One-Dimensional and Indifferent features varied by context. One-dimensional items were only identified among features categorized as Supportive Culture, Clear Direction, and Contribution. These features should be prioritized as managers improve volunteer management systems. The Kano Method extends our understanding of the volunteer experience by providing researchers with a tool to distinguish the way volunteers conceptualize their experience. From a practical standpoint, it provides volunteer managers with an additional tool in their efforts to recruit and retain volunteers by prioritizing features that will most immediately impact volunteers.