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Niche sports such as women's professional sport leagues face many challenges to developing and expanding their fan base. Understanding sport fans, segmenting consumer bases and targeting them effectively can assist in both developing the fan base and competing for investments like sponsorships and media rights. The purpose of this study was to explore consumer segments of the National Pro Fastpitch (NPF), a niche softball league, by identifying demographic and psychographic characteristics of the segments and developing a persona for each segment.

Data were collected from 3,463 NPF consumers with the assistance of NPF league officials using their social media outlets. A two-step cluster analysis was performed employing both categorical and continuous variables to inform the segmentation, which was followed with chi-squared statistics and two MANOVAs to compare the segments' demographic characteristics, points of attachment (POAs) levels and attendance and viewership of NPF games.

Three distinct consumer segments with unique demographic, POA and softball participation characteristics were identified. Differences among these segments' consumption of NPF games validated the existence of three distinct consumer segments.

This research is the first to examine consumer behavior in women's softball, and it expands the sport marketing literature through the identification of consumer segments of a niche sport league with a novel cluster analysis. Blending theory and practice by incorporating both demographic and psychographic variables into market segmentation, the research uniquely serves this niche sport and thereby informs improved marketing practice.

The purpose of this study is to explore how event volunteers, athletes and onsite spectators perceive the impact of sport event sponsorship on future purchase intentions of the event sponsor brand.

The research problem was based on propositions by Novais and Arcodia (2013) and proposes relationships between sponsor–event fit, brand attitude, perceived brand quality and sponsor brand purchase intentions. Data were collected from 352 Greek sport event consumers from the 2013 Classic Marathon event, in Athens, Greece, using onsite surveys targeting non-sponsor brand consumer spectators, volunteers and athletes.

The results reveal that sponsor–event fit indirectly influenced sponsor brand purchase intentions via brand attitude and brand quality across all three groups. However, the fit did not directly influence perceived brand quality of the sponsor across all three groups and directly influenced purchase intentions of the athlete group.

Because of the duration of the event (one day), the sample sizes were not very large. In addition, the study was delimited on one sponsor from a single sport event. Therefore, the findings need to be tested with larger samples and additional sponsors and events to arrive to more robust conclusion about the purchase intention formation and its antecedents across multiple sport event consumer groups.

This study explores the power of sponsor–event fit among non-consumers of the sponsor brand and how the “interface” of event consumption through the lenses of three groups, namely, volunteer, spectator and athlete, influences brand attitude, perceived brand quality and sponsor brand purchase intentions.

This study aims at providing exploratory insights into the initiative and capabilities of Chinese SMEs to develop and utilize diverse networks to support internationalization. Such network development and utilization efforts are fundamental to the analysis and explanation of Chinese firms’ internationalization patterns and outcomes. Extending from the existing network studies in the Chinese context that generally put emphasis on strong‐tie and ethnic‐oriented networks, this paper investigates and explains explicitly the use and effects of both strong‐ and weak‐tie networks in the international development of Chinese SMEs. Indepth case studies on four rapidly internationalized Chinese SMEs are conducted. The case findings demonstrate that weak‐tie networks are essential to the firms’ business development in foreign markets; and were proactively developed and utilized in the course of the firms’ development. The cases also provide alternative perspectives to the beliefs and values underpinning strong‐tie networks presumed in existing literature. The findings draw attention to the changing business values and approaches of the Chinese firms aiming at developing internationally. Managerial implications concerning the significant influence of effective networking on internationalization are pinpointed.

Making Safeguarding Personal (MSP) is a national programme to increase the involvement of adults at risk in the adult safeguarding process. The paper aims to discuss this issue.

The implementation of MSP in the London Borough of Sutton involved three areas of analysis: a quantitative analysis of 47 safeguarding cases in which adults at risk were asked what they wanted the safeguarding intervention to achieve and whether or not these outcomes had been achieved; qualitative analysis of the service users’ experience of the safeguarding process using focus groups led by creative arts therapists; and interviews with social workers, team managers and administrators on their experience of the implementation of MSP.

In 81 per cent of safeguarding cases, outcomes were achieved satisfactorily. The focus groups identified the importance of freedom of movement, freedom of association, being listened to and regular communication with a consistent person. The practitioner interviews identified themes of increased efficiency, increased effectiveness, empowerment; the transformation of relationships and the practice of new skills.

This research shows that focus groups led by therapists can be used to explore safety and safeguarding and supports the effectiveness of MSP in achieving person-centred outcomes. No baselines or control groups were used, so the extent of effectiveness is difficult to determine. The sample size is relatively small, so results may not be generalised.

A number of learning points for practice are identified including how to chair and where to hold safeguarding meetings and changes to practice required to implement MSP.

This is the first research into MSP using art, drama and music therapists to explore the experiences and view of adults at risk of safety and safeguarding.

This study aims to analyze the association of information technology and non-information technology reviewer information and advertisement format, and also demographics and theory of planned behavior variables for watching a new movie release.

The authors surveyed 809 college students about various advertisement topics of traditional media/print, Internet, social media, and both print and online reviews.

For advertising, outdoor billboards and YouTube video were each positively associated with watching a new movie release while reviewer information of critic reviews in print, critic reviews online, and user reviewers were each not associated with watching a new movie release. For race/ethnicity, Hispanics were positively associated with watching a new movie release while South Asians were negatively associated with watching a new movie release. For theory of planned behavior variables, behavioral control and intentions were each positively associated with watching a new movie release.

In conclusion, movie production companies should dedicate large portions of their advertising budget to YouTube and outdoor billboard advertising. Also, movie production companies should continue to advertise and possibly even tailor advertising to Hispanics.

This is the first study for watching a new movie release to simultaneously include predictors of advertisement format including from many types of social media platforms, reviewer information whether from professional critics or user reviews, and the theory of planned behavior.

This paper attempts to provide an understanding of gift‐giving for a more systematic assessment of relationship building to succeed in an Asian realm. This study proposes to examine the underlying linkage between the intensity of gift‐giving and constructing relationships. The goal is to provide both researchers and businesses an insight into how to successfully manage profitable relationships in a culture‐rich environment that is growing ever more demanding and complicated. Gift‐giving is seen as an act of reciprocity, and often misconstrued as bribery by Westerners, yet it appears to be an important constituent of the Asian culture and can be seen as a form of relationship investment, that if cultivated well, can uplift interactions between businesses.

China’s economy is transforming at a brisk pace. A partially dismantled command economy and introduction of competition have fueled consumer demand for a greater selection of innovative new products in the retail market. The challenge for retail buyers is to adjust their procurement processes to respond to consumer needs in an efficient and effective manner. This study examines factors influencing buyer‐supplier relationships in a transition economy. We present a model to explain the factors driving retail buyer dependence on suppliers. We find that retailer evaluation of supplier credibility mediates the relationship between retailer perceptions of a supplier ability to add value to its business and the ability to achieve its desired goals. In part, this is due to the supplier’s market orientation. Interestingly, guanxi ties have no impact on the retailer perceptions of the supplier credibility, but have a positive affect on retailer dependence on its supplier partners.

This paper aims to investigate the importance and prevalence of Guanxi in business interactions in network-based societies such as China, few studies have the phenomenon from a dyadic view. In a business dyad, one partner may not value Guanxi and take it as a template for actions as the other does.

The authors propose that such collective and asymmetric Guanxi orientation influence both the creation and distribution of relational rent in a Guanxi dyad. Furthermore, relationship-specific investments (RSIs) moderate the relationship between dyadic Guanxi orientation and relational rent creation and distribution.

Based on a matched sample of supplier-buyer dyads in China, the authors find that joint Guanxi orientation is positively related to joint pie creation, whereas Guanxi orientation imbalance has a positive effect on the pie distribution imbalance.

These results contribute to the literature by revealing how dyadic Guanxi dynamics and practices affect dyadic performance and providing managers with meaningful implications for dyadic Guanxi management.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate two competing hypotheses about the relationship between a country’s human rights violation and social entrepreneurship entry.

Using multilevel logistic regression with random effect, this paper tested the hypotheses on a sample of 110,460 individuals in 49 countries using data from Global Entrepreneurship Monitor’s Adult Population Survey and the Survey of Social Entrepreneurship for the year 2009. This paper takes advantage of the Cingranelli-Richards Human Rights Data Project to measure a country’s level of human rights protection.

Human rights are positively related to social entrepreneurship entry. The findings also indicate that public sector expenditure strengthens the relationship between human rights, measured by the judiciary independence and social entrepreneurship entry.

This study contributes to the social entrepreneurship literature by conducting a novel empirical investigation of the direct relationship between a country’s human rights and social entrepreneurship entry.