As corporate community initiatives (CCI) in sport are becoming an important dimension of corporate social responsibility, a key issue is evaluating the quality of the processes by which they are delivered and how they are managed. The purpose of this study was to explore the implementation process of a professional sport team’s CCI using program evaluation theory (Chen, 2005). Interviews were conducted with 42 key stakeholders (team executives, partnership implementers, participants, parents, coaches) from one Major League Baseball team’s CCI to understand critical processes involved in CCI implementation and execution. The findings showed concerns in the quality of program implementation with the: 1) the partnership agreement, 2) the ecological context, 3) protocol and implementation, and 4) target population. We propose an iterative model of program evaluation for use in the sport context. We conclude the paper with recommendations for further research in this area and implications for practitioners.
Lisa Kihl, Kathy Babiak and Scott Tainsky
Stephen Frawley, Daniel Favaloro and Nico Schulenkorf
professional sport organizations, with the intent of providing insights into their experience-based leadership development practices. To achieve this research aim, the paper begins by outlining the relevant leadership development literature and the theoretical perspectives that inform the empirical study. The
Rebecca M. Achen, John Kaczorowski, Trisha Horsmann and Alanda Ketzler
sport scholars to expand empirical studies and provide strong frameworks for studying social media in sport, the purpose of the current study was to move beyond explaining how sport teams are using social media and instead examine how fans are engaging with content posted by professional sport teams on
Matthew Juravich, Steven Salaga and Kathy Babiak
For profit-driven professional sport organizations, organizational performance is argued to be measurable in two ways. One approach considers the financial performance of an organization over some duration of time by measuring the profits generated by a team, primarily through ticket sales and
Lewis Whales, Stephen Frawley, Adam Cohen and Natalia Nikolova
practices before the coronavirus pandemic. Professional sport leagues represent cartel-like structures of organizations that must cooperate to achieve their individual and collective interests ( Smith & Stewart, 2010 ). In the case of the SSN, these include the national sporting organization (NSO), state
Patrick Ward, Johann Windt and Thomas Kempton
and conditioning, biomechanics, performance analysis, biostatistics, and data science. Regardless of their foundation and specific job title, we believe that effective sport scientists working in professional sport should be able to develop systematic analysis frameworks to enhance performance within
April Henning and Jörg Krieger
. 75 Rather, the IAAF defined the trust funds as a “soft transition” from amateur to professional sport. Significantly, the IAAF Council also invited active athletes for the first time to a Council meeting to hear their opinions on the trust funds. The four athletes voiced discontent with the trust
Shani Pitcho-Prelorentzos and Michal Mahat-Shamir
professional sport is considered a highly stressful ( Clowes, Lindsay, Fawcett, & Knowles, 2015 ) and long-lasting process ( Barker-Ruchti & Schubring, 2016 ; McKenna & Thomas, 2007 ) that requires psychological, social, financial, and occupational adjustments ( Taylor, Ogilvie, & Lavallee, 2005 ). Indeed, it
John Nadeau, Ann Pegoraro, D. Floyd Jones, Norm O’Reilly and Paulo Carvalho
This paper reports on an investigation of racial-ethnic congruency among professional sport teams and their local markets. The study empirically tested the relationship between racial-ethnic team-market congruence and market support. Results of the research provide some support for the relevance of team and market congruency in the marketing of professional sport. Although varying by city, by North American professional sport league, and by racial-ethnic community, the results demonstrate that consumers have noticed and used their own reflections in professional baseball teams to influence their level of team support.
Fabian Kautz, Michael Schaffrath and Alex C. Gang
importance of social media in the context of professional football. In embracing social media, sport teams forge stronger relationships with their fans and encourage those fans to remain up to date regarding the teams. Prominent professional sport clubs have begun to recognize the importance of social media
