Search Results

Volunteers provide essential services to community sport organizations; thus, it is important to understand the underlying factors in successful volunteer–organization relationships. Organizational identification, an integral component of relationship building for members in an organization, is a useful yet underutilized concept to understand how and why volunteers create lasting, deep relationships with sport organizations. This research utilizes a sequential mixed-method design to examine the evolution of organizational identification among volunteers in a community sport organization. The survey results indicate that new volunteers formed their organizational identification over the course of a single program season, such that, by the end of the season, they were similar to returners. Subsequent qualitative analysis of focus group data indicated that the content and evolution of organizational identities varied for newcomers and returners. These results provide important contributions related to the ongoing nature of identity work of volunteers and offer practical implications for volunteer management within community sport organizations.

The authors investigated the influence of consumer characteristics (prior race experience, gender, age, education, family structure, and area of residence) on event satisfaction and the satisfaction–repeat participation link in the context of a long-distance running event. Based on a survey of runners (N = 3,295) combined with registration data from two races, results suggest characteristics that commonly influence satisfaction in nonsport contexts fail to demonstrate similar effects in participant sport events. Results provide evidence that first-time marathon participation and variety-seeking behavior specific to running represent meaningful predictors of decreased future event participation behavior. Evidence is provided of a linear satisfaction–behavior relationship. In addition, the impact of using behavioral intention as a proxy for behavior in academic research is examined, indicating that caution must be observed regarding inherent differences between the constructs. Results from the current study provide sport organizations with a better understanding of why consumers make repeat purchases of sport-related experience products.

Despite the increasing importance of customer knowledge management (CKM) as a strategic resource for sport service organizations, little sport management research has examined the link between CKM and consumers’ intention to use sport services. Using the psychological continuum model as the theoretical framework, this study examines whether CKM predicts consumers’ intention to use sport services. Participants (N = 686) were recruited from nonprofit sports clubs in Urmia, Iran. Structural equation modeling results revealed positive relationships between CKM, psychological involvement, perceived value, commitment, and intention to use. Furthermore, both CKM and psychological involvement had positive indirect effects on intention to use through perceived value and commitment. Findings from this study highlight the importance of psychological involvement and perceived value in promoting intention to use sport services at nonprofit sports clubs and CKM’s role as a key antecedent.

Emerging technologies not only pose challenges for how sport organizations are managed but also create opportunities for sport organizations to become more competitive by enhancing consumers’ service experience. The integration of wearable fitness technology (WFT) by health and fitness clubs provides an opportunity to examine the influence of WFT on the service experience. Although existing research on technology innovations typically examines either the individual or the organizational perspective in isolation, we use the sport experience design framework to comprehensively examine the influence of WFT on the management and perceptions of service experiences. Participants (N = 37) who took part in the qualitative study included fitness club owners (n = 13), fitness club instructors (n = 7), and fitness club members (n = 17). Findings indicate that integrating WFT enhances the service experience via increased social interaction, gamification, and accountability. However, findings also suggest that technology innovations must be integrated carefully to avoid misalignment between providers’ and users’ perceptions. Despite the potential for misalignment, emerging technologies can enhance and expand the service experience beyond the physical environment, presenting sport organizations with technology-mediated opportunities to engage consumers.

Market trends indicate the distance running event industry is facing a running recession. Since 2013, consumer demand has declined annually while supply increased. The current research provides insight into why running as a recreational activity is declining and implications for organized events’ utility. Based on seven years of participants’ postevent surveys from a long-distance running event, the value placed on hedonic, symbolic, and lifestyle features of running (i.e., running involvement) is gradually declining, which corresponds to a decline in annual event participation. Results are based on analyses of both a time series of cross-sections (N = 23,790) and a panel of multiyear respondents (n = 461). Also, there are gender differences in the rates at which running involvement declined. These results shed light onto a sociopsychographic explanation for the declining levels of running event participation and general interest in running.

Esports, or competitive video gaming competitions, bring together aspects of sports, business, leisure, technology, and digital media, appealing to academics across multiple disciplines. Yet, esports scholarship remains highly fragmented, with scholars operating within traditional academic silos and forgoing opportunities to build on esports’ interdisciplinary nature. The purpose of this integrative review is to synthesize esports scholarship from across disciplines, identify critical scholarly issues, and develop a pragmatic, interdisciplinary research agenda. We find that extant esports scholarship is categorized by literature seeking to conceptualize and legitimize esports via sport parallels, with a focus on the consumers and culture of esports. Scholarly issues include researchers examining esports in their respective academic silos, omitting opportunities to connect conceptually similar streams of literature. Overall, we synthesize esports scholarship, bridge chasms between disjointed streams of literature, and outline a pragmatic research agenda which could benefit from interdisciplinary inquiries based on a shared understanding of esports.

Despite consistent interest in sport brands and the multitude of brands in the sport ecosystem, extant knowledge remains fragmented and unstructured. The purpose of this study is to integrate and synthesize extant sport brand research, appraise the current state of knowledge, and suggest future research directions. Following structured literature review guidelines, we coded 179 peer-reviewed articles published in four leading sport management journals between 2000 and 2020. Results reveal increased publications in sport brand research within the four examined journals, as well as opportunities to increase theoretical and methodological rigor. Based on the mapping and critical review of extant literature, we introduce the Sport Brand Ecosystem and Environment and discuss two distinct and complementary areas related to theory and research designs and topical domains to address existent concerns and guide future research directions.