Impact of event and community involvement on the behavioral intentions of volunteers in 14th Sports Olympiad for University Students in Iran

Volunteers are an organization's most complete human resource to hold a successful sporting event. Maintaining a volunteer workforce and motivating volunteers to continue their activities is one of the most important tasks of sporting event managers. This study aimed to investigate how volunteers' involvement in the 14th Sports Olympiad for University Students in Iran affected their behavior. For this purpose, 157 volunteers present at the 14th Sports Olympiad for University Students in Iran were randomly selected as the research sample. Researchers collected data using the Zitsmal et al. (1996) Modified Scale of Behavioral Intentions, Doherty's community involvement scale (2009), and Zaichkowsky's Event Involvement Questionnaire (1994). In order to test the hypotheses, structural equation modeling was used. The results showed that the measurement model has appropriate internal consistency, convergent validity and Discriminant validity. It was confirmed that all variables used in the study were accurate. In the structural model results, the index for determining the coefficient of behavioral intentions was 0.44. Showed that social participation and event participation had a moderate and positive correlation with each other (0.40), and community involvement and event involvement, respectively, with path coefficients of 0.45 and 0.34, had an effect on behavioral intentions, so it can be concluded that understanding the psychological and behavioral aspects of volunteers, such as types of involvement, helps sports organizations in attracting volunteers. In this way, they can maximize the willingness of volunteers to involvement in the future.