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What motivates volunteers to help at business events? Reciprocal altruism

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What motivates volunteers to help at business

events? Reciprocal altruism and reflexivity

Hongxia Qi, Karen A. Smith & Ian Yeoman

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to help at business events? Reciprocal altruism and reflexivity, Asia Pacific Journal of Tourism
Research, 23:10, 989-999, DOI: 10.1080/10941665.2018.1513050

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ASIA PACIFIC JOURNAL OF TOURISM RESEARCH
2018, VOL. 23, NO. 10, 989–999
https://doi.org/10.1080/10941665.2018.1513050

What motivates volunteers to help at business events? Reciprocal

altruism and reflexivity
Hongxia Qi, Karen A. Smith and Ian Yeoman
School of Management, Victoria University of Wellington, Wellington, New Zealand

ABSTRACT KEYWORDS
Volunteering literature is yet to examine the motivations for helping at business Volunteer motivation;
events. This paper contributes to closing this research gap by on-the-ground reciprocal altruism;
investigation of volunteer motivations at business events. Drawing upon 22 reflexivity; functional
volunteers from different business events in China, the results identify a variety of motives; business events;
event volunteering; host
functional motives related to self-development. The analysis gives emphasis to the volunteers; China; Chinese
subjectivity and reflexivity with which individuals give meaning to their motivations volunteers; event organiser
and suggests that reciprocal altruism and reflexivity are evident among volunteers.
This paper provides insights into the salience of business event volunteering and
suggests implications for event organisers dealing with volunteers.

Introduction
Tourism and volunteering are intertwined, and there is
a growing body of literature in understanding volun-
teer tourism (e.g. Guttentag, 2015; Raymond & Hall,
2008; Wearing, 2001). While these studies have
focused on volunteer tourists, research on host volun-
teers is still lacking. Although some published studies
(e.g. Anderson & Cairncross, 2005; Holmes & Smith,
2009; Lockstone-Binney, Holmes, Smith, & Baum,
2010) explored volunteer behaviour in tourism desti-
nations such as volunteering at museums, there are
still substantial research gaps, and researchers call
for expanding the research of volunteering in the
local tourism industry (Holmes & Smith, 2009; Paraske-
vaidis & Andriotis, 2017).
As an important part of the local tourism sector, the
event industry has drawn unparalleled interest and
participation over the last few decades due to
different reasons (Bowdin, Allen, O’Toole, Harris, &
McDonnell, 2011; Jago & Shaw, 1998). Events
depend heavily on the participation of a large
number of volunteers who undertake a wide range
of tasks associated with operations and administration
in events. This is not limited to large-scale events; it
also includes local events or festivals. It is evident
that without the engagement of volunteers, it would
be difficult for the event organisers to operate in
both financial and organisational terms. In this sense,
they are often described as “unsung heroes” or
“game makers” (Downward & Ralston, 2006). More
and more volunteers are becoming involved in
events and constitute a large part of host volunteers.
With the increase of volunteer participants in the
event industry, it is of great importance to explore
what motivates them to involve, not only for volun-
teers themselves, but also for the event organisers.
As the event phenomena gained momentum,
there was an increase in research being undertaken,
which focused on an array of topics such as volunteer
motivation, satisfaction, and volunteering legacy per-
taining to the event industry (Mair & Whitford, 2013).
A plethora of research from around the globe
emerged, predominantly focusing on volunteer motiv-
ation at events and, to a lesser extent, focusing on a
variety of issues related to volunteering at sports
events (Smith, Lockstone-Binney, Holmes, & Baum,
2014). While literature is replete with volunteer motiv-
ation at sports events, one area that remains underex-
plored in contemporary studies is volunteering at
business events, which usually includes meetings,
conventions, exhibitions, conferences, trade fairs and
Expos, and they are often called MICE (Meetings,

CONTACT Hongxia Qi hongxia.qi@vuw.ac.nz School of Management, Victoria University of Wellington, Wellington, New Zealand
© 2018 Asia Pacific Tourism Association
990 H. QI ET AL.
Incentives, Conventions, and Exhibitions) industry.
This failing leaves a crucial knowledge gap, which
will be addressed in this research. Irrespective of the
event types volunteers are involved in, motivations
are crucial for their participation and event organisers’
recruitment, management, and retaining of
volunteers.
The present study explores the motivations of vol-
unteers for helping at business events. It does not stop
at just listing the emergent motivation concepts; it
also makes the most of both the authors’ and partici-
pants’ subjectivity and reflexivity during the analysis
process, which leads to highlighting reciprocal altru-
ism and reflexivity. Accordingly, the research demon-
strates the effort to take subjectivity and reflexivity
into volunteer motivation research. Methodologically,
a qualitative research approach is adopted. Specifi-
cally, this study draws interview data of 22 volunteers
from different business events in China. Based on the
coding analyses of volunteer motivation concepts, the
authors discuss the reciprocal altruism and reflexivity
among volunteers. It is anticipated that findings
from the present research extend the research of vol-
unteer behaviour at sports events and festivals to
business events, and will provide useful insights for
understanding volunteering in China.
Literature review
Altruism and volunteering
As for the concept of “altruism”, Paraskevaidis and
Andriotis (2017) reviewed its history and pointed out
that the origins of this term can be identified in the
ancient Greek philosophy with the meaning of self-
sacrifice. Wuthnow (1993) found that the early Chris-
tian philosophy included the idea of selfless and
divine love for humanity, which shared the same
nature of altruism. The concept of altruism has been
gaining increasing scholarly attention since the
1970s (Fennell, 2006; Wilson, 1975, 2012). Nowadays,
altruism, a multifarious and multidimensional
concept, is widely used in tourism and volunteering
studies (e.g. Paraskevaidis & Andriotis, 2017; Sin,
2009; Wearing & McGehee, 2013; Weaver, 2015).
Altruism is widely recognised as the basis for volun-
teering and other social activities (Piliavin & Charng,
1990). Researchers have identified a variety of
reasons for individuals getting involved in volunteer
activities, among which altruistic and self-oriented
reasons are frequently mentioned (e.g. Clary et al.,
1998; Hustinx, Van Rossem, Handy, & Cnaan, 2015;
Unger, 1991). While helping is believed to be an
important reason for individuals volunteering, the
functional and instrumental motives have been
increasingly discussed (e.g. Güntert, Neufeind, &
Wehner, 2015; Phillips & Phillips, 2010; Yeung, 2004).
Due to the highlighting of personal benefits or
egoism, different opinions of understanding volun-
teering such as exchange behaviour have now devel-
oped (Booth, Park, & Glomb, 2009; Drollinger, 2010).
In fact, the concept of reciprocal altruism has been
developed to explain the altruistic behaviour with the
expectation of a return favour (Trivers, 1971). Recipro-
cal altruism refers to a beneficial behaviour involving
two actors in the context of symbiosis, yet “with the
expectation of a return favour” (Fennell, 2006; Paraske-
vaidis & Andriotis, 2017). Until very recently, however,
only a few studies have explored reciprocal altruism in
volunteering context and, due to its fitness for explain-
ing the volunteer behaviour, reciprocal altruism merits
further investigation.
Event volunteer motivations
An entire global industry of festivals and events has
evolved and much scholarly attention has been paid
to this field (e.g. Holmes, Hughes, Mair, & Carlsen,
2015; Yeoman, Robevtson, Dvummond, & McMahon-
Beattie, 2006). Volunteers are an important part of
human resources in the event industry (McMahon-
Beattie & Yeoman, 2004), and they make a great con-
tribution to the success of the events. In the last
decade, a variety of research on volunteering at
events from around the globe has emerged that pre-
dominantly focuses on volunteer motivation at
events and, to a lesser extent, focuses on a variety of
issues related to volunteering at sports events (Smith
et al., 2014). Many researchers have also analysed vol-
unteers’ experience, satisfaction, and volunteering
legacy (e.g. Hyde, Dunn, Wust, Bax, & Chambers,
2016; Koutrou & Pappous, 2016; Lee, Reisinger, Kim,
& Yoon, 2014). However, these papers, which predomi-
nantly focused on sports events and other events such
as the growing business events sector, have not drawn
enough scholarly attention.
Volunteer motivation at events is one area in which
an ample body of research evidence exists. Volunteer
motivation can be understood as drives that push
individuals to commit themselves to the helping
activities (Clary et al., 1998; Pearce, 1983). Clary,
Snyder, and Stukas (1996) argued that volunteers’

motivations and goals vary widely, even for individuals
involved in the same voluntary activities. Motivation
studies demonstrate that event volunteers’ motiv-
ations can be grouped into several factors: personal
development, interpersonal contacts, love of sport,
extrinsic rewards, career orientation, and social
motives. As such, volunteer motivation could be ident-
ified as different patterns and combinations of mul-
tiple motives. Many measurement scales for
volunteer motivation were developed by quantitative
methods, such as Special Event Volunteer Motivation
Scale (SEVMS) (Farrell, Johnston, & Twynam, 1998)
and Volunteer Motivations Scale for International
Sporting Events (VMS-ISE) (Bang & Chelladurai, 2009).
Most of the existing event volunteer motivation
studies are conducted in the context of large-scale
sports events and very few of them explore or test vol-
unteers’ motivations at other event types. Research
has demonstrated that there are contextual motives,
such as the excitement at sports events (Güntert
et al., 2015) and the patriotism at mega events
(Bang, Alexandris, & Ross, 2008). Specific to business
events, many of them are for-profit and commercially
run. Business events are usually held periodically (i.e.
exhibitions and conferences might be held regularly),
resulting in many more opportunities for participants
to get involved, while volunteering at major sports
events is usually depicted as a one-off experience
(Downward & Ralston, 2006). Given the differences
between business events and sports events, it is
unknown whether the motivation concepts identified
at sports events context are equally applicable to a
business event context. Research on volunteer motiv-
ation outside a non-for-profit and sports events
context has been limited.
Study methods
Qualitative research design
In the field of event volunteering, current literature
overwhelmingly uses quantitative methods, which
“often fail to capture the specific motivations” for indi-
viduals choosing to volunteer (Smith & Holmes, 2012,
p. 563). The purpose of this research is to gain a
general understanding of what motivates individuals
to volunteer at business events and seeks to “discover
and understand a phenomenon, a process, the per-
spective, and world views of the people” (Merriam,
2002, p. 6). Hence, a qualitative approach is deemed
to be an appropriate way to conduct this research.
ASIA PACIFIC JOURNAL OF TOURISM RESEARCH 991
Through this interpretive qualitative research, the
authors “study things in their nature setting, attempt-
ing to make sense of, or interpret, phenomenon in
terms of the meanings people bring to them”
(Denzin & Lincoln, 2005, p. 3). Both the authors and
participants’ subjectivity and reflexivity played an
important role in explaining the identified motivation
concepts. This entailed an interpretive qualitative
research paradigm informed by social constructivist
ideologies assuming a relativistic ontology, a subjecti-
vist epistemology, and a naturalistic method,
In this qualitative study, the role of the researchers
is seen as a “human instrument” (Denzin & Lincoln,
1998). They have substantial roles in the whole
research process. The first author has previously vol-
unteered at many exhibitions, trade fairs and confer-
ences as well as sports events. She also worked as a
business event organiser, and her role involved
working with volunteers. Her personal experience
has become an essential part of this research as a
way to gain a full understanding of the phenomenon
from the “insider” perspective. The co-authors have
expertise in event volunteering and qualitative
research, and they act as peer debriefs, providing an
external check of the research process.
Data collection and analysis
Due to the depth of this study, one-to-one, semi-struc-
tured in-depth interviews were conducted with 22 vol-
unteers from different business events in China. A
purpose sampling method was used to identify inter-
viewees that the first author met during her volunteer
experiences. Then, a snowball technique was adopted.
As far as the interviewees’ educational background
was concerned, most of them were students. Their
ages ranged from 19 to 30 years. All interviews were
conducted in Chinese (the native language of the
investigator and interviewees) and digitally recorded.
The interviews ranged from 30 minutes to over an
hour. No new codes emerged from the last few inter-
viewees, but the number of interviewees also
increased to make sure that theoretical saturation
was achieved.
The format of semi-structured interviews allows the
investigators to have an initial set of interview ques-
tions, but also enables participants to freely express
their opinions on a certain topic (Marshall &
Rossman, 2011). The strength of this approach was
to “ensure that the same general areas of information
are collected from each interviewee … but still allows
992 H. QI ET AL.
a degree of freedom and adaptability” (McNamara,
2009, p. 239). Open-ended questions were developed
to address the question of what motivates individuals
to volunteer at business events. Probing questions
were used to elicit more detailed responses from the
interviewees, e.g. How do you understand that? Can
you give me some examples?
The interview data were transcribed verbatim at
the end of the interview stage. The first author read
the transcripts without taking any notes. Following
that, a systematic coding process was conducted for
the text data with the facilitation of NVivo. For the pre-
liminary analysis, line-by-line coding was used and a
number of codes emerged. The initial codes were pro-
visional and they remained open to other analytic pos-
sibilities. The emerged codes were then reanalysed
into categories to convey structural meaning in the
second stage of focused coding (Table 1). Notably,
the coding process was not entirely linear and it
could repeat several times with the deepening of con-
stant comparison (Figure 1). A primary collective nar-
rative about the motivation of volunteering at
business events emerged. During the data analysis
process, the authors tried to maintain a balance
between objectivity and sensitivity. To ensure the
quality and trustworthiness of the qualitative analysis,
investigator triangulation was used, which was
achieved by member checking (Decrop, 2004). The
volunteer participants in this study were invited to
confirm that their meanings had been interpreted cor-
rectly in the data analysis and writing process. The
Table 1. Example of coding process.
Text Open codes
For the reason why I choose to Broaden
volunteer at the First World horizon
Conference on Tourism for
Development, one reason is to
broaden my horizon … I chose to
study my Master in Beijing is also for
the same reason. My hometown is
Henan and I studied my Bachelor
there … I want to go to the big city to
broaden my horizon …
Having volunteering at so many Knowledge
business events such as Auto Show,
Furniture Fair, and Consumer Goods
Fair, I know that most of the
volunteers are students, especially
those studying event and MICE. It is a
good opportunity for them to practise
the knowledge they learn from books,
and also they can learn a lot from the
involvement of whole process of a
certain exhibition.
investigator also followed up with the interview par-
ticipants to make sure that the findings in this study
have represented their experiences and to capture
further “evidence” of their thoughts (Qi, Smith,
Yeoman, & Goh, 2017).
Results and discussion
In this section, the raw data analysis results were pre-
sented and discussed. The identified motivation con-
cepts from interviewees were presented visually by a
figure. For a better understanding of volunteers’
motivations at business events, the authors took a
further step and analysed the reciprocal altruism and
reflexivity among volunteers.
Business event volunteer motivations
A diverse range of individual motivations was ident-
ified. From the initial coding, a variety of responses
emerged, such as “to escape from the boring class”
(P18), “to help organise the event successfully” (P6),
“to visit the exhibition without buying ticket” (P5),
“to gain the credit” (P11), “to enrich college life” (P1),
and “improve spoken English” (P12). The interviewees
also mentioned some other reasons, such as altruistic
motives of helping organise the event and serving
others. After a constant comparison, the identified
motivational concepts formed the following spectrum
(Figure 2).
The findings reveal a great deal of consistency in
the self-development motives for the volunteers at
business events, which include: to learn, to practise,
Categories and utilitarian. To learn was identified as a key com-
Utilitarian ponent of the motives of volunteers at business
events. Many participants saw volunteering at
business events as instrumental for learning, such as
to gain knowledge of the new trends in the industry,
to gain pre-job opportunities, and to learn about the
event industry. Fifteen out of 22 participants acknowl-
edged that their volunteer involvement was motiv-
ated by the learning opportunities. As participant 19
To learn
stated:
It is a good opportunity for me to be a volunteer at the
Beijing International Tourism Expo, as it relates to my
own field. I cannot only gain information on the new
trends in the tourism field, but also get familiar with the
new policies.
Some participants also mentioned that volunteer-
ing at business events was a good way “to practise”,

Figure 1. Analytical framework.
“to improve myself”, “to integrate into the event
industry”, and “to acquire real-world skills like team-
work, networking and language” (e.g. P8, P14, and
P20). The data analysis also demonstrated that utilitar-
ian reasons were significant among interviewees and
they believed that business events have a strong influ-
ential “pull” or attraction that enabled individuals to
gain the experiences and put it on their CVs. Partici-
pants value the experience itself of being a part of
the events, such as the opening ceremony, strong
business atmosphere and large crowd flow (e.g. P1,
P5, P17, and P19). Students talked about eye-
opening experiences (P2), unforgettable experiences
(P17), or unusual experiences in life (P8). It was
named as utilitarian due to the fact that volunteers
cherish the “springboard effect” of the volunteer
activities at business events.
For the participants, altruism and helping were an
important aim of being there and also the basis for
them to be called volunteers. Such altruistic motives
were common among the participants in this study:
“to help the event success” (P8), “it makes me feel
good to help the conference attendees from all over
the world” (P13), “to be part of the event” (P20), and
“to help the attendees and exhibitors” (P6). However,
the participants expressed that this motive was not
purely helping and giving, rather it combined with
self-directed motives, which were aiming to achieve
mutual benefit and a win-win situation. Therefore,
Trivers’ (1971) term of reciprocal altruism is found to
be suitable for describing these motivation concepts.
Meanwhile, participants in this research had a balance
between self-directed motives with social orientation,
what they need and what they like, what they can give
and what they can get from the volunteer activities.
These demonstrate a certain degree of reflexivity. The
following section, instead of explaining the identified
ASIA PACIFIC JOURNAL OF TOURISM RESEARCH 993
motive concepts one by one, focuses on discussing
the two themes emerged from the various motives,
which demonstrates the in-depth and reflexivity of con-
ducting qualitative analysis (Mauthner & Doucet, 2003).
Reciprocal altruism
Helping organise the event and serving others with
intended self-benefit is undoubtedly a prime altruistic
motive. Many interviewees mentioned the concepts of
“to help the event success”, “to be part of the confer-
ence”, and “to provide service to the attendees” (e.g.
P3, P4, P7, and P12). However, this motivation was
combined with the expectations that volunteering at
business events enables the participants to gain
personal benefits and results in positive future
self-related influences. Definitely, such altruistic motiv-
ations are not pure helping, but it should be con-
sidered as true altruism (Molm, Collett, & Schaefer,
2007; Paraskevaidis & Andriotis, 2017; Trivers, 1971).
This was evident in the case of the Chair of a Volunteer
Association, when she stated:
I have met so many volunteers. They have the enthusiasm
and willingness to help, to contribute and to devote.
However, they always expect to gain personal benefits
at the same time. (P1)
Responses of volunteer participants confirm that
the motive of helping and giving is accompanied
with intended future benefits such as learning and
networking. As a volunteer who just graduated from
university mentioned:
One of the main reasons for me [to volunteer at this
business event] is to meet some project managers from
the exhibitors … If they know me now, probably I will
have the opportunity to keep in touch with them.
When they have vacancies, I can get the information. (P3)
994 H. QI ET AL.
Figure 2. Motivations of volunteers at business events.
He even expressed that without the opportunities
to meet the exhibitors, he would not volunteer at
the event. Several interviewees (e.g. P1, P4, and P17)
who volunteered at the First World Conference on
Tourism for Development expressed their direct inter-
est in gaining the new trends in the tourism industry
and build their CVs by volunteering at this inter-
national conference. According to participant 17:
Everyone is busy, including myself. I need to balance my
study and work. As for what drives me to do the volunteer
at this conference, I have to say, to be honest, the oppor-
tunity to attend some of the sessions. As one in tourism
industry, I am keen to gain the information on the new
trends and new policies … It is an international confer-
ence. Putting this experience on my CV is also a main
consideration.
Interestingly, several participants mentioned that
the helping sense was stronger in big events than
that in local or regional events (e.g. P13 and P15).
Responses of the participants confirmed that the
altruistic behaviour was influenced by the contextual
factors (e.g. the onsite lively atmosphere) at business
events.
Reciprocal altruism explained the helping behav-
iour of volunteers at business events. From the inter-
viewees’ statements, the emergent altruistic motives
(e.g. serving others), though not emphasised by the
participants, occurred together with more self-
centred motives (e.g. learning new skills and gaining
experience). Volunteers got involved in business
events not purely for helping, but rather as a recipro-
cal choice. This characteristic demonstrates that the

respondents are “altruistic individualists”, using Reh-
berg’s (2005) terminology. This is in line with
findings from other studies that described volunteer
motives as an altruism–egoism mixture (e.g. Phillips
& Phillips, 2011; Yeung, 2004). As volunteers expected
communal personal benefits from participating the
volunteer activities, this finding also contributes to
explaining the nature of volunteering from the per-
spective of exchange (e.g. Booth et al., 2009; Jones,
2010; Wymer & Samu, 2002). Volunteers at business
events in this study offer their time, skills, and
energy to assist with the event, and experience
various benefits as well as costs in return, which is
inherently an exchange behaviour. The findings in
this research are in accord with Hustinx’s (2001) idea
that volunteering is shifting unconditional commit-
ment to conditional commitment, and the reciprocal
benefits for both the giver and receiver are high-
lighted. This was also confirmed in the studies by Para-
skevaidis and Andriotis (2017), who identified
reciprocal altruism as one motive for participating in
voluntary tourism associations.
Reflexivity among the identified motivations
From the participants’ narratives, self-directed motives
have been combined with helping or social needs
among the identified motivation concepts, although
it is hard to say which one is stronger. Many intervie-
wees (e.g. P1, P3, P7, P10, P11, P15, P16, P19 and
P20) expressed that the main reason for volunteering
at business events is the “springboard effect” of the
activities. They participated in the volunteering activi-
ties with the aim of getting personal benefits such as
work experience, self-improvement, learning, and
building CVs. Personal betterment is one of the main
considerations. Social orientations such as “to
respond the government’s calling for helping the
event”, “to be a responsible citizen”, and “to build a
better society” is also responded concurrently (e.g.
P1, P7, and P19). Motivations of volunteers at business
events show the characteristics of “reflexive volunteer-
ing”, which refers to an individual who combines self-
directed motives with a communal or social orien-
tation when engaging in the volunteer activities, and
this has been considered as another path of volunteer
involvement (Hustinx & Lammertyn, 2003; Qvist, Hen-
riksen, & Fridberg, 2016).
Another example of participants’ reflexivity is when
choosing the volunteer activities; they tended to look
ASIA PACIFIC JOURNAL OF TOURISM RESEARCH 995
for a balance between the functional needs of the
activity on the one hand and their personal desires
and passions of view on the other hand. Many partici-
pants studying events got involved in volunteer activi-
ties to seek business event work experiences and to
enhance their transition between employments or
from education to employment. As the interviewees
(e.g. P7, P13, and P16) proposed, the benefit of
adding value to their identities and CVs was one
important motivation for volunteering at well-known
large-scale events. The volunteer activities have to
be in accordance with individuals’ personal interests
and capacities and they must enable their personal
progress. One typical example of this was this state-
ment from participant 15:
There are always volunteer opportunities. You know, so
many exhibitions and conferences every year. But I
have strong desire for the balance between what I can
get from the [volunteer] experience and what I am inter-
ested. I prefer those that can add value to myself.
While participating in many volunteer activities at
different events, volunteers very often realise that
their own ways of thinking, learning and perspectives
have changed. The desire for the outcome of these
changes is also a main attraction for students. Just to
cite one example, a participant with PhD degree
noted:
I volunteered a lot during my postgraduate study. From
these [volunteer] experiences, I met different kinds of
people from different fields. I realized that my value,
thinking, and horizon changed a lot due to the
influence [of such volunteer experiences]. That is the
most important thing for a person’s future development.
For the young participants in this research, volun-
teering was an activity enabling the construction of
distinctive personal identities and biographies.
Through the volunteer activities at business events,
they can try out their future jobs before putting
them into practice in “real life”, so they are going
towards a more conscious way of planning their
own future study and employment. This demonstrates
that the volunteering at business events stimulates a
certain degree of “reflexive consciousness” among vol-
unteers (Hustinx & Lammertyn, 2000).
For the reflexive volunteers in this research, the
motivations usually arise from experiences of “self-
chosen biographical reorientation” (Rehberg, 2005,
p. 110). In this reflexive volunteering paradigm, self-
development and solidarity motives are valued and
the self-reflexive biographical quest becomes the
996 H. QI ET AL.
driving force for volunteers. This demonstrates the
social process through which individuals give
meaning to their motivations for volunteering and it
can be said it is a consequence of the supposed
post-materialistic attitude of volunteers (Hustinx &
Lammertyn, 2000). The finding is congruent with
Grönlund (2011), who found that volunteering could
be intertwined with deeply personal processes of per-
sonal identity and values. For the young volunteers,
volunteer behaviour is used as a tool to cope with
the future uncertainties. In this sense, it can be under-
stood as “a ‘market of possibilities’ for self-realization”
(Hustinx & Lammertyn, 2003, p. 173).
Conclusions
Upon identifying a lack of research on volunteer
motivation at business events, this study adopted a
qualitative approach to substantiate this issue. To
explore what motivates volunteers to help at business
events, 22 interviews were conducted with volunteers
at different business events including exhibitions,
conferences and trade fairs. For the analysis of the
emerged motivational concepts, the subjectivity,
reflexivity, and self-awareness of both the authors
and participants played an important role. The analysis
did not stop at just capturing the identified motivation
concepts; it also took a further step to explore or
assess them. It focused on the reciprocal altruism
and reflexivity of the identified motivation concepts
in order to provide a deeper understanding of volun-
teer motivations. Both the authors and participants’
subjectivity and reflexivity played a role in under-
standing volunteer motivations at business events.
This represents an example of embracing the insights
of social constructionism, which are a shift in the pre-
dominant paradigms of positivism and post-positivism
in volunteer motivation research. Therefore, this paper
responds to Weenink and Bridgman’s (2017) calling
for a social constructionism in researching volunteer
motivation.
The identified motivations among volunteers at
business events in this study are distinct from other
forms of event volunteer motivations like those at
sports events. Adopting helping behaviour at business
events is characterised by a variety of individualised
instrumental and functional motivations. The motive
items of external traditions and commitments in
Farrell et al.’s (1998) SEVMS are not identified among
volunteers in this research, while several purposive
and solidary items (e.g. to broaden horizons and
gain practical/educational experience) are more
common aspects. Compared with Giannoulakis,
Wang, and Gray’s (2007) Olympic Volunteer Motiv-
ation Scale and Bang et al.’s (2008) VMS-ISE, the con-
textual motives at the Olympic Games and sports
events (e.g. meeting athletes and patriotism) are sub-
stituted by business events contextual factors such as
preparing for the event-related career. The individua-
listic concerns such as self-development are evident
among the business events volunteers. All the ident-
ified instrumental and individualised motivations fit
neoliberal attitudes (Lyons, Hanley, Wearing, & Neil,
2012).
In this study, the volunteer behaviour at business
events is not pure altruism, but rather reciprocal or
mutual help behaviour. The volunteers are not just
being there for others; they also expect some personal
benefits when they choose to do volunteer activities
at certain business events. This is in accord with
Trivers’ (1971) concept of reciprocal altruism. The
findings are in line with existing volunteering litera-
ture, and they suggest that a reciprocal altruism
motive is evident in volunteering and there has
been a shift from unconditional commitment to reci-
procal benefits for both the helper and recipients
(e.g. Hustinx, 2001; Paraskevaidis & Andriotis, 2017).
In tune with other studies (Booth et al., 2009; Bussell
& Forbes, 2002; Jones, 2010), it is suggested that
volunteering at business events is an exchange prac-
tice. Instead of understanding volunteer behaviour
as a “motivated phenomenon, propelled by motiva-
tional forces that lead individuals to seek out volun-
teer activities” (Mannino, Snyder, & Omoto, 2011,
p. 129), this paper give emphasis to the social
context that volunteering takes place and assesses
what meaning the participants give to their
motivations.
Motivations of volunteers at business events were
found to be reflexive. The nuanced analysis of volun-
teer motivations at business events demonstrates
that the helping intention is always companied by
self-development and personal betterment motives.
As altruistic individualists, the participants in this
research volunteer at business events to facilitate
their future careers. The emergent individualised
motivations demonstrate their conscious way of plan-
ning their future, which indicates their reflexive con-
sciousness. It is important to note that the
volunteers in this study not only focus on the func-
tional needs of the activities but also look for a
balance with their personal desires and passions.

They demonstrate the features of “new generation”
volunteers with strong reflexivity. Previous studies
have found that volunteering is used as an opportu-
nity for biographical reorientation (Rehberg, 2005),
and this was echoed in our findings. Of note is that
this finding is quite different from the widely recog-
nised concept of compulsory top-to-bottom partici-
pation in China (Xu, 2017; Zhang, Zhang, & Wang,
2011). One possible explanation for this is that China
is in the wake of the individualisation process, which
is in line with existing literature in the wider field of
sociology (e.g. Gu & Liu, 2006).
This current study is an early research study in
exploring volunteering at business events, which is a
shift from the sports events focus on event volunteer-
ing literature. This exploratory study provides a comp-
lementary analysis to studies on volunteer motivations
at sports events (e.g. Alexander, Kim, & Kim, 2015;
Giannoulakis et al., 2007; Twynam, Farrell, & Johnston,
2002) and has also identified contextual motivation
concepts in business events As Smith and Holmes
(2009) suggest, there is an obvious distinction
between volunteer tourists and host volunteers in
the tourism industry. This study focused on the volun-
teering at host community, and the analysis results
support arguments by several commentators (e.g.
Lockstone-Binney et al., 2010) that volunteers at
local destination are more self-oriented compared to
volunteer tourists. This paper also expands the
notion of host volunteering to the business event
industry.
Although nuanced insights are gained via inter-
views, the main limitation is associated with the inter-
view groups in the current study, most of whom are
young people. Although they are the main force of
volunteers in China, their socio-demographic charac-
teristics could unavoidably impact their motivations
for involving in the volunteer activities. Therefore,
future research is needed to explore business event
volunteers with diverse social-demography (e.g. age
and employment status) in order to clarify whether
they have similar motivations for volunteering. This
study has also identified a number of areas where
further research could be of value. For example,
surveys with larger samples that include volunteers
from a variety of business events are necessary. More-
over, the comparison of volunteer motivation at
business events and sports events can also contribute
to the body of knowledge in event volunteering.
This research has important implications for both
volunteers and business event organisers.
ASIA PACIFIC JOURNAL OF TOURISM RESEARCH 997
Participating in the volunteer activities to gain per-
sonal benefits and self-development opportunities
reflects volunteers’ reflexive consciousness. No judge-
ment should be attached to being clever volunteers
that pursue personal interests through volunteering.
However, the altruism nature of volunteering should
be borne in mind. For the business event organisers,
it is necessary to be clear about volunteers’ expec-
tations and motivations for being involved in the
events. The importance of reciprocal altruism as one
motive suggests event organisers provide volunteer
roles that give participants learning and self-improve-
ment opportunities when helping the events and
highlight the benefits for volunteer themselves that
volunteering at the events can bring in order to
attract people. The identified reflexivity among the
motivations have some useful insights for event
organisers in terms of volunteer management strat-
egies. Volunteers are looking for a balance between
their own personal interests with the needs of the
organisation, hence organisers could provide volun-
teer opportunities that enable participants to con-
struct personal identities and expand self-
development. The findings in this study enable organ-
isers to foster a strategic use of recruitment funding
and form a cohesive match between volunteers’
motivations and event roles, which are useful for
recruiting, training, managing, and retaining
volunteers.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.
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