The most cited articles published since 2010, extracted from Scopus
Volume 14, Issue 1, February 2011, Pages 54-63
JeoungHak Lee | Hyunduck Kim | Yongjae Ko | Michael Sagas
The purpose of this study was to examine the influence of consumers' service quality perceptions on satisfaction, revisit intention and the role of gender in the context of high profile golf club business. Specifically, the researchers investigated (1) the role of gender in predicting their service quality perceptions and (2) the relationship between quality perceptions and satisfaction and intention. A total of 528 golf club members participated in the study. Seventy one percent of the respondents (n=375) were male while twenty nine percent of the respondents were female golfers (n=153). Results showed that Tangibles and Empathy were critical service quality dimensions for determining satisfaction of both male and female golfers. Female golfers tended to pay more attention to physical representations, cleanliness and appearance of service encounters. The findings of this study may suggest meaningful implications (e.g., developing market segmentation and promotional strategies) for managers in the golf industry. © 2010 Sport Management Association of Australia and New Zealand.
Volume 14, Issue 2, May 2011, Pages 188-201
Pamela Wicker | Christoph Breuer
Non-profit sport clubs face several challenges including those relating to human resources, financial capabilities, networks and infrastructural elements. In order for clubs to realise their capacity to respond to encountered challenges, it is imperative for club executives and sport federations to have an improved understanding of the clubs' resource structure and ability to deploy resources. Drawing on the concept of organisational capacity as well as Resource Dependency Theory, the objectives of this study are to provide empirical evidence of the resources of non-profit sport clubs and to show that these clubs are characterised by scarce resources. A large sport club survey in Germany (n= 13,068) was used as the data set for this study. The results indicate that sport clubs seem to have organisational capacity, as they have many different types of resources at their disposal that which can be ascribed to four capacity dimensions. The analysis of longitudinal data reveals changes in resources that indicate particularly human resources (volunteers) and infrastructure resources become more scarce over the course of time. © 2010 Sport Management Association of Australia and New Zealand.
Volume 13, Issue 1, February 2010, Pages 1-13
Aaron C T Smith | Bob K. Stewart
In the world of contemporary sport it is commonly claimed that at its elite end at least, sport's management is complex because the product it delivers to participants and fans is so idiosyncratic. This claim is accompanied by the view that while professional sport is in large part just another form of business, it has a range of special features that demand a customised set of practices to ensure its effective operation. This article aims to re-examine this view in the light of sport's commercial and socio-cultural developments over the last decade. It initially proposes that while both business and sport are concerned with widening market share, building profits, and strengthening brands, the presumption that sport has a monopoly over the delivery of intense emotional experiences, tribal belonging, and strong interpersonal relationships, is difficult to defend. The article concludes that while sport's economic and social progress has created an industry that is built around complex bureaucracies that turn over many thousands of millions of dollars every year, it has also created a more diverse and heterogeneous system of structures and experiences that are difficult to conflate to a handful of neat special features. © 2009 Sport Management Association of Australia and New Zealand.
Volume 14, Issue 2, May 2011, Pages 126-140
Anthony A. Beaton | Daniel C. Funk | Lynn L. Ridinger | Jeremy S. Jordan
The conceptual roots of involvement are considered to better understand the construct's use in sport management research and practice. Sport involvement is conceptualized as a multifaceted construct representing the degree to which participation in a sport activity becomes a central component of a person's life and provides both hedonic and symbolic value. An empirical analysis of marathon runners (N= 3117) was conducted using three involvement facets of hedonic value, centrality and symbolic value to classify participants into theoretically meaningful groups within the broader, stage-based theoretical framework of the Psychological Continuum Model. The classification revealed behavioural differences suggesting runners with stronger psychological connections increasingly engage in the frequency, depth and breadth of running-related behaviours. Managerial implications are discussed. © 2010 Sport Management Association of Australia and New Zealand.
Volume 13, Issue 3, August 2010, Pages 181-197
Aaron C T Smith | Bob K. Stewart | Sunny Oliver-Bennetts | Sharyn McDonald | Lynley Ingerson | Alistair R. Anderson | Geoff Dickson | Paul R. Emery | Fiona M. Graetz
This article reports on 11 narrative-based case histories which sought to: (1) uncover the attitudes of players and athletes to drugs in sport, and (2) explore contextual factors influencing the formation of those attitudes as informed by social ecology theory. Overall, participants viewed the use of banned performance-enhancing substances as cheating, 'hard' non-performance-enhancing recreational or illicit substances as unwise, legal non-performance-enhancing substances as acceptable, and legal performance-enhancing substances as essential. In short, attitudes were sometimes quite libertarian, and contingent upon first, the legality of the substance, and second, its performance impact. Results also indicated that athletes' attitudes about drugs were fundamentally shaped by sport's culture. Other significant factors included its commercial scale, closely identifiable others, early experiences and critical incidents of players and athletes, and their level of performance. © 2010 Sport Management Association of Australia and New Zealand.
Volume 14, Issue 1, February 2011, Pages 1-12
Marvin Washington | Karen D W Patterson
One of the current dominant theories in the management literature is institutional theory. Scholars within the institutional theory tradition have examined the creation and evolution of institutions, the impact that institutions have on organizations and their actions, and the constraints that institutions place on arenas of organizational activity. Much of institutional theory is reflected within in the sport management literature. However, we argue in this review piece, that there is more to institutional theory than the concepts that are currently being used in the sport management literature. First, we provide a review of the dominant concepts of institutional theory, and a summary of how institutional theory has been used in the sport management literature. Then we offer two broad discussion points about the use of institutional theory in sport management research. The first point is a call for further elaboration of institutional theory in sport management by examining issues of institutional change and organizational field dynamics. The second is point as to suggest that scholars extend the use of institutional theory into different types of sport management questions. © 2010 Sport Management Association of Australia and New Zealand.
Volume 13, Issue 2, May 2010, Pages 129-141
Joris Drayer | Stephen L. Shapiro | Brendan Dwyer | Alan L. Morse | Joel White
The growth of fantasy sports into a multi-billion dollar industry has made it an important component of the sports industry. Sport leagues must acknowledge the impact fantasy sports have on the way its participants consume their sport. This study examines the impact of fantasy football on the consumption of NFL-related products and services using an adapted version of the attitude/behavior model developed [Fazio, R. H., Powell, M. C., & Herr, P. M. (1983). Toward a process model of the attitude-behavior relation: Accessing one's attitude upon mere observation of the attitude object. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 44(4), 723-735]. Using qualitative methods, the data indicate that fantasy football participants utilized various media sources, specifically the Internet, television, cellular telephones, and a variety of print media, at much higher levels as a result of their interest and participation in fantasy football. Further, contrary to previous literature on fan loyalty, team and player outcomes were found to alter perceptions towards a favorite team or a fantasy team. © 2009 Sport Management Association of Australia and New Zealand.
Volume 13, Issue 1, February 2010, Pages 25-38
May Kim | James Zhang | Daniel P. Connaughton
The purpose of this study was to modify the Volunteer Functions Inventory (VFI) to be specifically applicable to assess volunteer motivation in youth sport settings. Based on a comprehensive review of literature, the VFI items were first modified to reflect the context of youth sports. Testing of measurement properties was accomplished through two studies. In Study One, the modified VFI was administered to volunteers (N = 515) of a nationwide youth soccer organization. Data were randomly split into two-halves: one for exploratory factor analysis (EFA) with principal-axis extraction and oblique rotation, and the other for confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) with maximum likelihood estimation. In the EFA, six factors emerged which were consistent with the dimensions of the VFI; however, 12 items were eliminated due to double loading or misspecification, resulting in 18 items being retained. The CFA revealed that the data fit the 6-factor model well. In Study Two, the resolved scale was re-validated through a sample of 262 volunteers of local youth sport leagues. Overall, findings of these two studies suggest that the modified VFI for youth sports is a valid and reliable scale. This scale may be adopted to study various volunteer motivation issues associated with youth sport organizations and events. © 2009 Sport Management Association of Australia and New Zealand.
Volume 13, Issue 2, May 2010, Pages 106-117
Eric W. Macintosh | Alison J. Doherty
This investigation examined the impact of organizational culture on job satisfaction and intention to leave the organization through a survey of fitness staff. Organizational culture is commonly known as the values, beliefs and basic assumptions that help guide and coordinate member behaviour. The Cultural Index for Fitness Organizations (CIFO) was developed to measure organizational culture in the fitness industry specifically. Exploratory factor analysis revealed eight factors that represent cultural dimensions common to this context: staff competency, atmosphere, connectedness, formalization, sales, service-equipment, service-programs, and organizational presence. Path analysis was used to examine the relationship among the organizational culture factors, job satisfaction and intention to leave. Results produced a partially mediated model of organizational culture that explained 14.3% of the variance in job satisfaction and 50.3% of the variance with intention to leave the organization. The findings highlight the multidimensionality of organizational culture and its complexity in the fitness industry. © 2009 Sport Management Association of Australia and New Zealand.
Volume 13, Issue 2, May 2010, Pages 118-128
There is increasing evidence that NGOs and Government agencies are turning to sport events as a tool for reconciliation and inter-community development (Burnett, 2006; Gasser & Levinsen, 2004; Stidder & Haasner, 2007; Sugden, 2006), yet the different roles and responsibilities of the organising 'change agent' within development projects have not received much empirical investigation. To address this gap, this paper analyses the different roles and responsibilities of an international sport event change agent in the ethnically divided Sri Lanka. Following an interpretivist mode of inquiry, findings of this research are derived from the analysis of 2 focus groups and 35 in-depth interviews with Sinhalese, Tamil, Muslim and international event stakeholders. Findings suggest that the change agent holds nine key roles and responsibilities in the inter-community development process. These are being an agent for community participation; a trust builder; a networker; a leader; a socially responsible advocate; a resource developer; a proactive innovator; a financial supporter; and a strategic planner for the long-term sustainability of projects. This research suggests that it is important to fulfil these roles to secure active community participation, to achieve positive socio-cultural event impacts and outcomes, and to provide a strategic framework for sustainable inter-community development. © 2009 Sport Management Association of Australia and New Zealand.
Volume 14, Issue 4, November 2011, Pages 311-326
Alexis Lyras | Jon Welty Peachey
In recent years there has been a growing social movement toward the use of non-traditional sport practices as a vehicle for social change, reaching communities with messages in ways traditional sport practices cannot. However, scholars have suggested that the effectiveness of sport to promote positive social change has been minimal. The absence of scientific evidence and an undergirding theoretical framework of how sport can work for social change indicate significant gaps between theory and practice. Thus, the purpose of this paper is twofold. First, we provide the theoretical foundations of sport-for-development theory (SFDT) to showcase how sport interventions can most effectively promote social change and development. Secondly, we utilise the SFDT programme recommendations as a blueprint to compare and contrast two sport interventions that use sport as a vehicle to promote positive social change, one at the global and the other at the local level. Based on this analysis, suggestions for future research and practice are provided. © 2011 Sport Management Association of Australia and New Zealand.
Volume 13, Issue 3, August 2010, Pages 214-224
Pamela Wicker | Christoph Breuer | Tim Pawlowski
This paper analyses the sport expenditures of people who are members of non-profit sports clubs (N= 10,013) in Germany. Adult members, active in 21 sports, were asked about their sport expenditure relating to several defined categories. The results show that members spend an average of €1610 per year on their chosen sport. Sport specific analyses reveal big differences in expenditure between sports, ranging from badminton (€338) to equestrian (€7902). According to sport-specific regression analyses, personal income, level of performance, and weekly time of participation are the main predictors of sport-specific expenditures. Compared to other studies, these results show that the financial status of members of non-profit sports clubs is very strong. © 2009 Sport Management Association of Australia and New Zealand.
Volume 13, Issue 3, August 2010, Pages 235-254
Lesley Ferkins | David Shilbury
It is well established that the strategic function is a central role of the non-profit sport board. Little is known, however, about board strategic capability in any context. This study investigated how boards of national sport organisations might develop their strategic capability. "Interpretive" action research focusing on the case of Tennis New Zealand (TNZ) found that the board's strategic role is significantly impacted by its inter-organisational relationships. In particular, the board's ability to enact its strategic priorities could be enhanced by creating a more collaborative partnership with its regional entities and engaging in a power-sharing approach that seeks to develop regional capability. © 2010 Sport Management Association of Australia and New Zealand.
Volume 14, Issue 1, February 2011, Pages 13-24
Masayuki Yoshida | Jeffrey D. James
The service quality construct has been long understood as a combination of the quality of a service outcome and the quality of the interactions between customers, frontline employees, and the service environment. Although service quality has been described as a multidimensional, multi-level factor model, the aesthetic aspect of service quality still remains unexplored. The current study is one of the first attempts to develop measures for capturing three dimensions of service quality: aesthetic, technical, and functional. Data were collected from sport spectators in Japan (n=283) and the United States (n=343). The results provide evidence for a seven-factor model of service quality, which underlies the three second order dimensions. Furthermore, the effects of the three primary dimensions on respective criterion variables are reported. Including the aesthetic dimension, the results extend previous service quality research that has focused primarily on the functional and technical aspects. © 2009 Sport Management Association of Australia and New Zealand.
Volume 14, Issue 4, November 2011, Pages 370-388
Michael D. Clemes | Gregory J. Brush | Mark J. Collins
Strategically managing spectator perceptions of service quality and understanding how these perceptions affect value, satisfaction and behavioural intentions is very important if sports organisations are going to succeed in today's competitive entertainment environment. As a response to variations in the service quality dimensions found in previous sport and leisure studies, outcome focused sport satisfaction and process-dominant service quality factors are integrated with higher order attitudinal and behavioural constructs to develop a hierarchical model of the professional sport experience. Eleven first-order sub-dimensions are present in the hierarchical factor structure. The study's findings also support inclusion of the second-order primary dimensions of service quality: interaction quality, physical environment quality and outcome quality. Fanship (enduring involvement), service quality, value, satisfaction and behavioural intentions are found to be positively related. The third-order hierarchical model significantly improves on the explanatory power of previous service quality and sport spectator satisfaction models. © 2011 Sport Management Association of Australia and New Zealand.
Volume 15, Issue 2, May 2012, Pages 160-170
Heather J. Gibson | Kyriaki (Kiki) Kaplanidou | Sungjin Kang
Scholars have suggested that small-scale sports events may be a sustainable form of tourism development for communities (e.g.,. Higham, 1999). The purpose of this study was to examine six small-scale sports events and the work of a local sports commission in the context of the three pillars of sustainability: economic, social, and environmental. Small-scale sports events are largely competitor or parent-as-spectator based, often annual, and attract little media attention. The six events were: a marathon, Senior Games, archery, soccer, softball, and swimming. The participants or spectators of the six events were surveyed onsite or online over an 18-month period and additional data from the sports commission, where relevant, were included. Sample sizes ranged from. n=.68 to. n=.447. The results suggest that a small-scale sports event portfolio consistent with a community's infrastructure and human and cultural capital may be a viable form of sustainable tourism development. © 2011 Sport Management Association of Australia and New Zealand.
Volume 14, Issue 4, November 2011, Pages 453-461
George B. Cunningham
The purpose of this study was to examine the relationships among sexual orientation diversity, diversity strategy, and organizational performance. Data were gathered from 780 senior-level athletic administrators in 239 organizations. Moderated regression analysis indicated that, while main effects were not observed, there was a significant sexual orientation diversity × proactive diversity strategy interaction. Organizations with high sexual orientation diversity and that followed a strong proactive diversity strategy outperformed their peers in objective measures of performance. Results are discussed in terms of contributions, implications, and future directions. © 2010 Sport Management Association of Australia and New Zealand.
Volume 15, Issue 1, February 2012, Pages 1-12
The number of aid organisations, NGOs and government agencies pursuing the Millennium Development Goals and seeking to improve the everyday needs and social life of disadvantaged communities has been growing over the past decade. Particularly in divided societies, Sport-for-Development projects have increasingly been staged to contribute to intergroup togetherness, social cohesion and community empowerment. While the analyses of individual sport and event initiatives highlights their capacity to impact positively on people and groups, they do not provide strategic guidelines, models or frameworks for community empowerment. However, such models are needed to foster practical research in the area of community development that can inform sport and event planning, management and leverage. In an attempt to fill this gap, this paper presents and discusses the Sport-for-Development (S4D) Framework, which can be used to guide the strategic investigation of sport and event projects and their contribution to understanding and measuring direct social impacts and sustainable social outcomes for (disparate) communities. The S4D Framework presents a holistic yet flexible management tool that can take account of cultural heterogeneity and program diversity, while shaping implementation, directing evaluation, and encouraging future planning of development initiatives. To conclude, this paper suggests different ways in which the S4D Framework can be empirically tested and validated through both qualitative and quantitative research. © 2011 Sport Management Association of Australia and New Zealand.
Volume 14, Issue 2, May 2011, Pages 141-152
Sheranne Fairley | B. David Tyler | Pamm Kellett | Kari D'Elia
This case highlights issues associated with the Formula One (F1) Australian Grand Prix held in the city of Melbourne, Victoria. The event receives substantial government funding and therefore the worth of the event receives consistent public scrutiny. Jim Kranger, CEO of the Victorian Major Events Corporation, is put in charge of assessing the value of the event to the State of Victoria. The results of Kranger's report will determine whether the government will continue to financially support the event. Kranger realizes that he must consider economic, social, political, and environmental issues. The case highlights the challenges that Major Events Corporations, and by extension, the government face in providing public funding to a sport event. The case also highlights the problems with economic impact studies and the need to focus on the triple bottom line approach by examining the economic, social, and environmental issues associated with the event. Further, the case highlights issues relating to the use of secondary data sources to make decisions. The case encourages students to consider the theoretical and practical issues at the cross-section of sport event, destination, and stakeholder management. © 2010 Sport Management Association of Australia and New Zealand.
Volume 13, Issue 3, August 2010, Pages 198-213
Matthew B. Walker | Milena M. Parent
This article examined the concepts of corporate social responsibility, corporate social responsiveness, and corporate citizenship (CSR1, CSR2, and CC, respectively) in relation to the activities reported by organizations in the sport industry. We expand on the idea that social involvement differs amongst sport organizations based on type, scope, direction, and target audiences. Therefore, in contrast to the majority of positivist models of social responsibility, we propose an integrated model of social involvement which notably includes the spatial (i.e., geographical) orientation of social involvement in sport. To begin distinguishing between the various forms of social involvement, we content analyzed the websites of nearly 100 sport entities to provide both typicality and a systematic variety of teams, leagues, and organizations to reveal general social involvement practices in the industry. We conclude that social involvement varies considerably in the sport industry and this variation can be partially explained by geographical reach, stakeholder influences, and business operations of the organizations. For example, multinational organizations are more likely to adopt CC activities than those operating in more localized context and the magnitude and scope of the social involvement tends to reflect the profile and size of the organization. © 2010 Sport Management Association of Australia and New Zealand.
Volume 13, Issue 1, February 2010, Pages 14-24
Andy Rudd | Robert Burke Johnson
Despite the popularity and strong advocacy for combining quantitative and qualitative methods, few mixed methods approaches are found in the sport management research. As a result, this article examines the frequency with which mixed methods research has been used in recent sport management research, and demonstrates ways in which mixed methods can help improve the validity of research findings in sport management related topics. Because research in sport management often is concerned with causal questions, this article provides mixed methods designs for improving causal inference. Examples are provided from three areas of sport management research, including marketing, organizational behavior, and finance. The designs that are provided are based on the mixed methods design dimensions of time order and priority of quantitative and qualitative data. © 2009 Sport Management Association of Australia and New Zealand.
Volume 13, Issue 2, May 2010, Pages 142-157
Kevin K. Byon | James Zhang | Daniel P. Connaughton
The purpose of this study was to develop the Scale of Market Demand to assess general market demand factors affecting the consumption of professional team sports, which was completed through the following five steps: (a) formulation of a theoretical framework, (b) development of a preliminary scale, (c) exploratory factor analysis (EFA), (d) confirmatory factor analysis (CFA), and (e) examination of predictive validity through conducting a structural equation modeling (SEM) analysis. Following a community intercept method, professional sport consumers (N = 453) in four southeastern metropolitan areas responded to the scale. Data were randomly split into two halves: one for EFA and the other for CFA. In the EFA with alpha extraction and promax rotation, six factors with 31 items emerged: opposing team, home team, game promotion, economic consideration, sport epitome, and schedule convenience. In the CFA with maximum likelihood estimation, five factors with 17 most pertinent items were retained, without the sport epitome factor. This five-factor model displayed good fit to the data, discriminant validity, and high reliability. The SEM revealed that home team, opposing team, and game promotion were predictive of game re-attendance behaviour. © 2009 Sport Management Association of Australia and New Zealand.
Volume 13, Issue 2, May 2010, Pages 91-105
Daniel F. Mahony | Mary A. Hums | Damon P S Andrew | Stephen W. Dittmore
Research on organizational justice in sport has evolved during the past fifteen years. Much of that research has focused on the perceived fairness of equity, equality, and need when making resource distributions (distributive justice) in intercollegiate athletics. Generally, those involved with intercollegiate athletics believe resource decisions based on equality and need are the most fair, but decisions appear to be based on different principles. Scholars have also begun examining the fairness of decision-making processes (procedural justice) and the communication of those decisions (interactional justice), and how organizational justice impacts organizational outcomes, such as job satisfaction. Additionally, research has expanded to include sport settings beyond intercollegiate athletics. This article summarizes the state of research by first reviewing the general organizational justice literature to conceptually describe the constructs of interest before providing a detailed examination of sport management specific research. The paper concludes with suggestions for future research on organizational justice in sport management. © 2009 Sport Management Association of Australia and New Zealand.
Volume 14, Issue 3, August 2011, Pages 246-257
Matthew Lamont | Nerilee Hing | Sally M. Gainsbury
Commercial gambling providers (CGPs) have recently intensified the promotion of their products and services through sport sponsorship. Consequently, gambling products and services now gain substantial exposure to large audiences via media broadcasts of sport. Due to the mainstream appeal of some sports, television audiences and fan-bases can include youth, at-risk and problem gamblers, who may be prompted to gamble, or to increase their gambling, by the direct marketing, alignment of gambling with a 'healthy' activity and increased normalisation of gambling. Therefore, sport sponsorship by CGPs promotes a potentially risky behaviour and may exacerbate the public health issue of problem gambling. Regulatory measures have been implemented by governments and private organisations in relation to sport sponsorship by tobacco companies in recognition of the potential harmful impacts of this form of marketing. Subsequently, the involvement of 'unhealthy products' including alcohol, junk food and gambling in sport sponsorship has been publicly questioned. This may lead to further regulatory changes that would directly affect the management of sport organisations. Few studies have examined these issues and there is little knowledge of the impacts that sport sponsorship arrangements have on society. Research is needed to inform prudent decision-making about the appropriate regulation of sport sponsorship. This paper reviews the current gambling sport sponsorship landscape and proposes a conceptual framework aimed at facilitating a systematic, interdisciplinary research agenda for examining corporate social responsibility issues pertinent to the sponsorship of sport by CGPs. © 2011 Sport Management Association of Australia and New Zealand.
Volume 15, Issue 1, February 2012, Pages 91-108
Woosoon Kim | Matthew B. Walker
Sport mega-events have taken on an elevated profile and assumed a key role as urban and regional development strategies. While a number of studies have investigated the potential impacts of these events, most (not surprisingly) have focused on economic, rather than non-economic outcomes. The purpose of this study was to investigate the non-economic features associated with a high profile mega-event in the United States. Based on Crompton's (2004) psychic income paradigm and a comprehensive review of the extant literature, this article describes the development and validation of a self-report scale designed to measure the psychological impact of Super Bowl XLIII on the residents of Tampa Bay, Florida. The research method followed standard scale development techniques. Initial scale validation (i.e., face and content validity) was assessed through a panel of experts and a field test. Principal component analysis (PCA) and confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) were conducted; the results of which revealed that mega-event psychological impact can be examined using 22 items under five factors: (1) community pride as a result of enhanced image, (2) enhanced community attachment, (3) event excitement, (4) community excitement, and (5) pride in efforts to improve community infrastructure. © 2011.