Suchergebnisse

This paper considers the role and limitations of mutual aid associations in meeting society's needs. It does this by examining responses of community sports clubs (CSCs) in the UK to COVID-19 restrictions. We firstly make the case that CSCs typify mutual aid associations. Using two qualitative research studies we show how the clubs' responses focused on meeting the needs of their own members, expressing bonding rather than bridging social capital. Clubs' resilience was facilitated by the commitment of key volunteers, understood as serious leisure, and the complete overlap of governance and delivery in club management. These insights allow us to discuss the potential and limitations of this particular type of mutual aid association in meeting society's needs, and qualify general assertions that the voluntary sector would respond to the COVID-19 crisis by developing social capital. It reinforces the need for a typology of the voluntary sector to inform understanding and research.

This paper reviews recent work on community asset transfers (CAT): a transfer of management of facilities from the public sector to the third sector, largely led by volunteers. The emergence of CATs is placed in the context of the development of community organisations and their relation to the state. Transfer has been stimulated by cuts in local government budgets since 2010. The review focusses on leisure facilities because these are non-statutory and so more vulnerable to cuts in public expenditure. The experience of CATs is reviewed, including: the motivations of local government and volunteers; the transfer process and management of CATs post-transfer; and the market position of facility types. The methodological approaches and theoretical frameworks used in research are contrasted; in particular, how these have balanced agency and structure in analysing a contested neoliberalist discourse. The practicalities of research in this area are considered before concluding with research questions.

Community Asset Transfer (CAT), where voluntary community groups form to manage local facilities in replacement for local authorities (LAs) has increased. This paper discusses how successful management of the facilities is understood. Factors for this success involve community capital and these capitals underpin understandings of successful CATs. The study reveals perspectives of successful CAT by examining qualitative case studies of two cases of CAT of leisure facilities. Both involve social enterprises forming to conduct the CAT. Interviews with local authority staff, board members, staff, and volunteers within the community organisations reveal the perspectives on successful CAT and what successful asset management involves. Two findings are explored; success concerning outcomes of CATs benefitting residents; and this not being understood across cases. The paper is useful for LAs responsible for CATs and for community organisations considering pursuing a CAT.

This paper reports on research findings on the transfer of public library services to volunteer delivery in the UK between 2014 and 2016, as a result of austerity and budget cuts by local government. The research asked two key questions: are libraries sustainable after their transfer and what lessons can be learnt from these transfers that will ensure success and sustainability? Initial findings indicate that cases in different locations vary and that 'one size does not fit all'.

In England, public sports facilities and libraries provided by local government are being transferred to management and delivery by volunteers. The catalyst for this development has been reductions in local government budgets. However, case studies explore if this asset transfer "offers a way of restoring the ideal of committed public service in the face of widespread bureaucratic failure and retreat", as a form of associative democracy and empowerment of both the volunteers and those for whom the services are provided.

This paper describes a series of laboratory experiments studying whether the form in which items are displayed at the time of decision affects the dollar value that subjects place on them. Using a Becker-DeGroot auction under three different conditions—(i) text displays, (ii) image displays, and (iii) displays of the actual items—we find that subjects' willingness-to-pay is 40–61 percent larger in the real than in the image and text displays. Furthermore, follow-up experiments suggest the presence of the real item triggers preprogrammed consummatory Pavlovian processes that promote behaviors that lead to contact with appetitive items whenever they are available. (JEL C91, D03, D12, D87)

The voluntary sector was central to the COVID-19 response: fulfilling basic needs, highlighting new and existing inequalities and coordinating action where the state had been slow to respond. This book curates rigorous academic, policy and practice-based research into the response and adaptation of the UK voluntary sector during the pandemic. Contributions explore the ways the sector responded to new challenges and the longer-term consequences for the sector's workforce, volunteers and beneficiaries. Written for researchers and practitioners, this book considers what the voluntary sector can learn from the pandemic to maximise its contribution in the event of future crises