The role of volunteers in social innovation: A research overview

Despite the consensus that volunteers play an increasingly important role in social development, the topic on volunteers in social innovation has received limited research attention. Drawing from the human resource management (HRM), volunteering, and social innovation literature, this conceptual paper aims to (a) establish the current state of the knowledge in this area, and (b) highlight the underexplored areas in the current knowledge. To this end, we make three key contributions. First, we highlight research gaps in the current volunteer management literature from a HRM perspective. Second, we highlight research gaps in the role of volunteers in design, development, and implementation of social innovation. Third, we propose food rescue as a context to further research in this area.