Measuring the commitment of volunteers in community-based sport

The organisational commitment of volunteers has been recognised as essential for the effective management of community-based sporting organisations. Despite this, there are no adequate measures of commitment that can be used with volunteer populations. This study aims to develop reliable and valid measures of affective and normative commitment to three organisational targets in voluntary sporting organisations: the club / centre, the volunteer work team, and the volunteer role. Drawing on Meyer and Herscovitch's (2001) general commitment model, measures of commitment to each of these targets were developed and the proposed model was tested using partial least squares regression (PLS) modelling. Results provided support for a two-dimensional model within and across each of the targets, and also showed that the measures had adequate discriminant validity and reliability. Implications for research on volunteer commitment in sporting organisations are discussed