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Football, or soccer as it is known in the United States, is one area in which managerial positions are hugely volatile with what is often called a ‘merry-go-round’ of managers sacked for poor performance at their club and reemployed by another club. Not only does this practice often not increase performance but it is also very costly. Considering the nature of football, that is, the relatively high impact of chance on the rare events that goals are, and the high correlation between success and the wage bill, the influence of managers on performance is often over-estimated. However, potentially better preparation of future managers might help to increase competitive advantages. In this chapter, we are looking in depth at leadership in the context of football and the lessons we can draw for other contexts.

This research systematically analyzed the effect of leadership (coaches and owners) on organizational performance in the National Football League (NFL) during the 1970 through 1992 seasons. In addition, it examined the relation of stable individual differences in personality of NFL leaders with performance outcomes for both coaches and owners. Results revealed that leadership added substantially to the prediction of performance in the NFL, even after controlling for non-leadership variables such as quality of competition and year. Furthermore, one facet of Conscientiousness – Deliberateness – showed strong linear relations with all performance measures. The results of both studies also revealed that hierarchical level of leadership was an important moderator, with coaches having greater impact than owners. The desirability of studying leadership in the context of the NFL was recognized and suggestions were provided on the direction that research might take.

Association Football (football) is currently recognised as the world's most popular women's sport (Andersson & Barker-Ruchti, 2019; Dunn & Welford, 2017). In this chapter, we build upon a Foucauldian-informed feminist body of work (e.g. Barker-Ruchti & Tinning, 2010; Liao & Markula, 2009; Markula, 2003) to analyse the impact of the ‘shift in approach and purpose’ in the women's game (Rosso, 2010). And, in doing so, seek to explore how the relations of power operating in the context of women's elite and professional football have changed over the last 20 years. Moreover, we consider the implications of these changes for both elite female players and those responsible for their development and welfare. To achieve our aim, we compare the experiences of two players (Christine and Maria, pseudonyms) from opposite ends of the last 20 years, all the while recognising that the partial and situated insights we provide in relation to these shifts are inevitably tied to the intersections of marginalised (female) and privileged (white, able-bodied, heterosexual, middle-class) subject positions.

In the highly competitive professional sports industry, managers of a newly established competition face many challenges, including “converting” or gaining the allegiance of new groups of consumers (fans, spectators) to their colors. One critical aspect in the converting process relates to the “ideal” game-day experience as perceived by would-be consumers. Gaining knowledge about this area could be critical to professional sport marketers in enhancing the perceived quality of sport events. This study examines the ideal football experience among 1,412 fans of an Australian A-League football (soccer) club. The importance of a lively atmosphere, that of high turnouts of spectators and the opportunity to watch quality and attacking football are highlighted in most comments, even relegating the game’s final score (winning) to a more marginal level of importance. Some of the implications of the findings for professional football marketers and avenues for future research are presented and discussed.

Although Leutwiler's initiative in taking to the field has been well-documented by scholars and the University of Illinois alike, the role of the UPenn figure, “Benjamin Franklin” or alternately in Illinois narratives “William Penn,” has received little attention (Spindel, 2001; King & Springwood, 2001). Leutwiler's adoption of the “Chief Illiniwek” persona, which will be discussed in-depth later, was not a response to inquiries by the UPenn band who hoped to utilize their articulated personae of “Benjamin Franklin” during a halftime skit as other scholars have suggested. Leutwiler adopted the untitled personae that became the basis for the “Chief” two years earlier during experiences as a Boy Scout and for performances at his alma mater, Urbana High School.⁶ Although the University of Pennsylvania solicited the Illinois band and assistant director Raymond Dvorak in particular, to create its own figure to interact with “Benjamin Franklin” in a show of “good sportsmanship,” Lester Leutwiler was already performing as an “Indian” before the supposed 1926 inception.⁷ In fact, his performance was so well known to his classmates at Urbana High School that the yearbook contained multiple references to Leutwiler's penchant for dressing as his Indian persona at school events (Urbana High School, 1925). Importantly, then the UPenn invitation can be read as the opening of a new arena for performances of Indianness – the sports field – not as an inciting event in the creation of “Chief Illiniwek.” Focusing on “Chief Illiniwek” as a sports mascot has eroded the larger cultural context of performances of Indianness that was being undertaken in local and national venues including Urbana High School.

This volume is dedicated to furthering our understanding of the importance of context in the development and application of leadership theory, advancing our knowledge of when, how, and under what conditions context matters most. Leadership is fundamentally a contextual phenomenon, constantly evolving, changing, and being applied in a specific environment. In this introductory chapter, I highlight key themes and aspects of dynamic and often paradoxical leadership across a wide domain of industries and contexts. First, I examine the importance of context across the chapters of the volume, including different domains, to different degrees, and from different theoretical angles. In some of the domains, context shapes the style or type of leadership that is needed, while in others, the context highlights to an extreme degree the aspects of leadership that may be invisible or less salient in different settings, but nevertheless characterize most leadership situations. I subsequently provide an overview of each of the chapters of the volume, examining leadership in the context of sports and competition, extreme “life or death” contexts, creative industries, and values-based and caring organizations. The four parts of the volume highlight leadership themes and connections across contexts and settings, including adaptability, dealing with paradox, and relational leader–follower and team dynamics.

This chapter examines English print media coverage of the England national women's football (soccer) team during the 2015 FIFA Women's World Cup. It draws on a content analysis of five English national newspapers from 24 May to 14 August 2015. A wide body of research has demonstrated that women's sport continues to be greatly underrepresented in the media but our findings are important as they demonstrate that during this tournament, women's football received a significant amount of print media coverage and that this coverage was largely positive. We argue that we have entered a new age of media coverage of women's sport in the United Kingdom, with a shift towards greater gender equality, and position this within the context of emerging professionalisation in the sport.

This chapter explores social enterprises as an alternative and addition to traditional entrepreneurial ecosystems (EEs). It reviews the substantial social enterprise literature in order to identify the myriad of competing tensions constraining development and success of social EEs in areas of significant poverty and economic deprivation. Following this, the findings of several contemporary and novel studies are discussed. These collectively evidence ways social enterprises are overcoming the seemingly immutable constraints they operate under. In particular, the Social Enterprise Places initiative has been highly effective in supporting the development of flourishing social EEs in many locations in the UK. However, the growth of social enterprises, both in number and economic importance, presents further challenges that social enterprise owners and managers will have to contend with. Consequently, these organisations and their allied ecosystems require continued structural, financial and skills support.