Organisational Resilience and Competitive Advantage of United Kingdom (UK) Autism Charities: The Impact of Online Volunteering.

The United Kingdom’s (UK) exit of the European Union is looming and as such, there is political and financial uncertainty for the country. This means that the United Kingdom charities are having to prove that they run efficiently, to ensure that the trusts and foundations, individuals and corporations that donate to them understand that their financial investment is being spent effectively. With advances in technological and digital innovation, this research examines if the introduction of online volunteering is an efficient tool for charities to create organisational resilience and competitive advantage for major funding, talented volunteers and disadvantaged service users. Online surveys and case studies (which included an element of netnography) were the research methods chosen for this study, using a purposive sample of 524 United Kingdom autism charities that are registered with the United Kingdom’s three charity commissions (covering England and Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland). There were 118 survey responses and 5 case studies that provided insight into volunteering programmes, which included both quantitative and qualitative data, as well as using both a positivist and interpretivist philosophy. The results were surprising, due to the unexpected shortage of charities that had not yet taken up online volunteering programmes, however this does demonstrate a need for increased awareness of the efficiency benefits of hosting volunteers online rather than offline (face-to-face). Encouragingly, many charities were using online tools to deliver their volunteering programmes, even if their volunteering opportunities were all customer-facing. Again, the research suggested that there needed to be an increased awareness of the roles that online volunteers could perform, most obviously in support activities.

Name dc:type.qualificationname

mba

Level dc:type.qualificationlevel

masters

Grantor dc:publisher.institution

University of Wales Trinity Saint David

Year dc:date.issued

2019

Author dc:creator

• Winn, Michael

• H Gwyddorau Cymdeithasol (Cyffredinol)
• HD28 Rheoli. Rheoli Diwydiannol

Dc Identifier Grantnumber

UWTSD

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:repository.uwtsd.ac.uk:2985