Optimising self-organised volunteer efforts in response to the COVID-19 pandemic

Anping Zhang, Ke Zhang, Wanda Li, Yue Wang, Yang Li () and Lin Zhang
Additional contact information
Anping Zhang: Tsinghua University, University Town
Ke Zhang: Tsinghua University, University Town
Wanda Li: Tsinghua University, University Town
Yue Wang: Tsinghua University
Yang Li: Tsinghua University, University Town
Lin Zhang: Tsinghua University, University Town

Palgrave Communications, 2022, vol. 9, issue 1, 1-12

Abstract: Abstract Crowdsource volunteering efforts have contributed significantly to pandemic response and recovery during the COVID-19 outbreak. In such efforts, individual volunteers can collaborate to achieve rapid mobilisation toward emergent community demands. In this study, we quantitively study this phenomenon using the concept of self-organisation, by proposing a data-driven framework to investigate when and how self-organisation emerged during the pandemic response and how it relates to effectiveness of volunteer organisations in general. Using activity data collected from a mobile volunteer platform in Shenzhen, China, we found that volunteers’ task participation and social and task preferences show multiple phases of self-organisation in response to changing epidemic situations and centralised interventions. Simulation experiments further show that the self-organised volunteer system can become more responsive and more robust in the face of uncertain community demands with minimal centralised guidance.

Date: 2022
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

Downloads: (external link)
http://link.springer.com/10.1057/s41599-022-01127-2 Abstract (text/html)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:pal:palcom:v:9:y:2022:i:1:d:10.1057_s41599-022-01127-2

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://www.nature.com/palcomms/about

DOI: 10.1057/s41599-022-01127-2

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in Palgrave Communications from Palgrave Macmillan
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().