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More than a New Business: A Theology of Play for Sport Entrepreneurship

Sport Entrepreneurship

ISBN: 978-1-83982-837-9, eISBN: 978-1-83982-836-2

Publication date: 25 August 2020

Abstract

Within entrepreneurship literature, the conventional approaches inspired by Schumpeter's “creative destruction” have largely emphasized the role of human cognitive processes to come up with new business ideas. In contemporary studies, however, there is a recent research stream wherein creativity is aestheticized. As a research line of the aesthetic approach, there is an increasing interest for playfulness and other signals of enjoyment that can also stimulate the entrepreneur's creative acts.

This chapter is a reflexion about the liberating and creative role of play in the context of sport entrepreneurship, particularly, in the fitness industry. It aspires to give to the recent development of the sport entrepreneurship field a novel twist by relating it to a theology of play. Drawing on the work of one of the most influential twentieth-century theologians who has approached play theology, Hugo Rahner, we present how his theological approach may be used to widen our understanding of sport entrepreneurship. This theological perspective allows us to develop alternative thoughts based on concepts that transcend the typical rationalist business approach and its instrumental language.

Keywords

Citation

Toledano, N. (2020), "More than a New Business: A Theology of Play for Sport Entrepreneurship", Sport Entrepreneurship, Emerald Publishing Limited, Leeds, pp. 9-26. https://doi.org/10.1108/978-1-83982-836-220201006

Publisher

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Emerald Publishing Limited

Copyright © 2020 Emerald Publishing Limited