Die Relevanz von Sozialkapitalindikatoren für die Mitgliederbindung in Zeiten von Corona

Even before the corona pandemic, more and more sports clubs reported declining memberships, episodic engagement, and difficulties in recruiting and retaining volunteers. Given the complex constraints on sports clubs and social activities during the corona pandemic, the question arises as to how this exceptional social situation affected membership retention in clubs and the importance of social capital. This paper addresses a research gap by estimating membership commitment in the aftermath of the corona pandemic, focusing on the relevance of different social capital indicators. The empirical analyses are based on a representative population survey conducted in late 2020/early 2021. Membership retention of the sports club members remains quite high. Social capital indicators that are narrowly related to the sports club explain little in predicting member retention. In addition to perceived norms of reciprocity in the club, helpfulness and ingroup trust increase retention, while sociability orientation and outgroup trust decrease the likelihood of still being a member of the club after the pandemic. When all predictors are included, the model goodness of fit increases to almost 26%. In addition to a few sociodemographic characteristics, membership-related characteristics (e.g., crisis management of the association) contribute to the variance clarification. Willingness to help, outgroup trust, and a tendency towards sociability are the only significant social capital indicators in the overall model, although they contribute with considerable weights to the variance explanation.