– The purpose of this paper is to assess the decision-making process of multi-role emergency response volunteers and their preferences for which agency they would choose to volunteer for in an emergency, utilizing the New South Wales Rural Fire Service as an example.
– Large-scale online survey data collection method, which enabled in depth analysis of responses.
– There are a large number of individuals who hold multiple volunteer roles and their decisions as to which service they would prefer to volunteer for is influenced by many complex factors.
– Research in this topic is rare and future research should be undertaken on a wider scale involving both quantitative and qualitative methods.
– Findings will help policy makers and those responsible for providing emergency services with an understanding of the decision-making process of volunteers.
– The results may help to promote understanding of a volunteers social preferences when engaged in work for emergency services.
– This is an area that has had little research undertaken in and is therefore quite an original piece of work that will have resonance for emergency services across the globe.
