Could Interdisciplinary Research be a Way to Re-think the Organization of Volunteers?

Volunteering is a global phenomenon and different type of volunteers can be found in different types of organizations. Societal changes in how people volunteer and in how organizations use volunteers have made researchers call for a re-examining of organizing of volunteers. Therefore, this study aims to explore how different types of volunteering are organized in different types of organizations. The study uses an interdisciplinary research (IDR) approach with two perspectives, which in this paper are called Volunteer management (VM) and Volunteer coordination (VC). Four different Swedish organizations with different type of volunteers, two different types of sports organizations, one social organization and an entrepreneurial network are used as cases. The data consists of 18 interviews with project managers and volunteers. The data is analyzed in three IDRinspired steps using both qualitative and quantitative analyses. This study reveals that understanding how to organize volunteering benefits from viewing volunteer organization in a proposed twodimensional model. This model includes management strategies in different phases as well as relational perspectives and strikes a balance between organizational structure and climate. Merging research traditions can contribute to new knowledge in a changing society. Voluntary organizations need to work with everyday structures that allow them the flexibility to develop a sustainable volunteer organization by both managing and coordinating their volunteers.