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This chapter critically evaluates whether football can attain recognition as a national sport in China. Article No. 11, released by the Chinese government in 2015, aimed to develop a new national strategy centralised on the sport of football to foster consumption and enhance national soft power. Consequently, this also means encouraging Chinese football fans to support the national football team. Comparing the significance of local football clubs and the national football team to Chinese football fans is deemed meaningless and unable to generate useful information to comprehend Chinese people's attitudes towards local and national communities. Through literature comparisons with established Chinese national sports such as Chinese martial arts, badminton and table tennis, the discussion reveals that football currently falls short of meeting the general criteria of invention and popularity to be considered a Chinese national sport. In the specific Chinese context, it also proves that football fails to meet the criterion of politics, hindering its identification as a national sport. Consequently, the chapter rebuts the assumption and advocates for the validity of comparing how fans assess their fandom for local and national football teams.

This chapter explores how the development of football fandom for the Chinese national team and local football clubs is strongly associated with societal changes. Although the performances of Chinese football teams, especially the national team, have failed to impress the world, football remains the most popular because of millions of supporters with loyalty and passion. Most studies related to fans mainly focus on the economic and political implications of spectatorship along with the rise of China. Nevertheless, few articles are available to answer the fundamental questions, such as ‘When did these supporters come out?’ and ‘What were the factors of the development of fandom?’. By going through archival records and published documents over the last decades, this chapter offers a comprehensive and historical analysis of the development of football fandom in the People's Republic of China (PRC) and deals with these unanswered questions. As such, this chapter does not intend to be the most authoritative one but is one of the rare sources to lay down the foundation for research on Chinese football fandom. Furthermore, this chapter also proves that studies on football fandom can be a useful window for observing Chinese society.

In the past 10 years, the scale of running events in China has increased dramatically, and the forms of running events have also become rich and diverse. Running is not only a social phenomenon but also a historical and cultural phenomenon as an organic part of human culture with its own sociological values in China. This chapter offers insight into the development of Chinese running culture and how this has emerged from ancient and modern Chinese running cultures based on Foucault's disciplinary power theory, biopower and the technologies of the self. This chapter argues that running culture in China constructs the subjectivity of the Chinese runners under the joint action of the technologies of power and the technologies of the self. The findings acknowledge how Chinese Runners present and express themselves by showing a ‘sense of presence’. Runners illustrate the implicit or explicit meaning and value of a particular way of life through running. Runners regard running as the technology of the self for self-expression and self-creation so that individuals can control their bodies and soul, thoughts, behaviours and ways of existence. Emerging technologies of power provide possibilities for the production of running culture in China, and the current policy under the technologies of power meets the needs of runners. In Chinese running culture, power was not oppressive but productive.

This chapter discusses how the real options theory can be useful for understanding the adoption of human resources management (HRM) practices. The authors review how the real options theory has provided insights into the processes through which firms manage uncertainties involved in the adoption of HRM practices. The authors offer propositions for future HRM research from the real options perspective. The authors contend that analyzing HRM practice adoptions through the lens of real options theory can enhance our understanding of the mechanisms through which firms choose which HRM practices to adopt and how they adjust the timing, scale, and methods of investment in these practices. Specifically, the authors suggest that differences in information relevant to valuation of HRM options are the source of distinct choices of HRM options across firms. Finally, the authors propose advancing knowledge on HRM practice adoptions by using a portfolio of options approach, as well as considering factors like competitors, path dependence, and switching options.

In contrast to other Chinese sports, which attract enormous commercial interests and relates to a kind of political kudos and ideological significance, Chinese baseball represents a singular case for the author to investigate the way in which China responds to sport globalisation due to its peripheral position in, and limited resource from, the domestic sport system and powerful stakeholders from the global society. The study examines the development of Chinese baseball and its interplay with the global sport giants and international events (i.e. the Olympic Games and the Major League Baseball [MLB]). Given the influence of sport globalisation, the author also identifies the consistent dominance of Chinese sport authorities and the spectrum of local stakeholders' reaction towards globalisation. The chapter ends with a discussion of the relationship between marginal position of Chinese baseball in the local sport system and the rationale of its response to sport globalisation.

This study combines perceived knowledge, perceived psychologic risk with Theory of Planned Behaviour (TPB) to examine the influence on tourists' intention to choose a safe destination and willingness to pay (WTP) more for safety measures. An online survey was conducted in 2021 to approach tourists globally. After 10 weeks, we received 365 valid responses. SmartPLS software version 3.3 was applied to run structural equation modelling to test the proposed hypotheses. Research results reveal that intention to choose a safe destination mediates the relationship between perceived knowledge of COVID-19, perceived psychological risk and the WTP more for safety measures while moderating role of educational level is also addressed. In turn, perceived psychological risk mediates the relationship between perceived knowledge of COVID-19 and intention to choose a safe destination. As a result, this study implies that destination managers should take actions to promote their WTP more for safety measures.

The inclusion of esports as an official event in the Hangzhou Asian Games is an important step towards the institutionalisation of esports. The significance of this event marks that Asia once again takes a lead in the global esportisation. This chapter investigates a series of history events in the inclusion process of esports into the comprehensive Games in Asia using process sociology and actor network theory (ANT). This study will analyse the type characteristics of esports events in Hangzhou Asian Games, whilst examining how key stakeholders' interact and balance in the network composed of international sports organisations, host of the event, emerging esports organisations and esports game companies. The chapter also examines the functions of global game industrial economic geography, local cultural politics, esports geopolitics and Olympic values in esports sportization, aiming to reveal the implications of esports inclusion in the Asian Games on the debate of whether esports meets the criteria to be classified as a ‘sport’ and its enlightenment of digital strategy to the inclusion esports in the Olympics.

While government is known to provide political guidance and exercising its executive function, it is also has regulatory powers through laws it enacts. In fostering sustainability, it is important to inquire how government's role can be innovated to facilitate sustainability, particularly in the travel and tourism industry. By reviewing tourism governance literature and mapping governance roles in the travel and tourism industry, this chapter creates a policy framework that underscores a new approach to tourism governance. We underscore that government's role must pivot toward being more developmental than regulatory so that it can effectively stimulate the market to sustainability by fostering value creation, supporting manpower capacitation, ensuring health and safety, and protecting the environment. This can be done if government will not fix the market and promote free market policymaking.

The chapter articulates the transition to and evolution of the commercialisation of Chinese professional football. It is periodised based on major turning points. The research yielded two major findings. First, there exists a distinct ‘Chinese way’ of commercialising football. However, it does not indicate that Chinese football doggedly avoided the Western governance model. For the club governance, Chinese football authorities set about recommending privately operated enterprises, large and medium-sized state-owned enterprises. Second, the commercialisation transitions of professional football in China were triggered by exogenous policy shifts, rather than endogenous changes in market structures, resulting in higher horizontal financial fragility than is associated with the commercialisation model adopted in more developed Western markets. The applicability to voluntary football clubs is assessed as well.