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The purpose of this paper is to examine specific stressors present in mega‐event work and the coping strategies used by long‐term mega‐event employees.

Using a general inductive approach to analyze the data and identify themes, semi‐structured interviews with six employees from organizing committees of subsequent National Football League (NFL) Super Bowls, and four employees from the Special Olympics in Greece helped to assess the presence of specific stressors and the corresponding coping strategies.

Patterns relating to the specific stressors (i.e. workload, time pressure, role stressors, job insecurity and work‐family conflict) and several themes emerged across all stressors including the selflessness of the participants in making personal sacrifices due to work demands. A sense of time and place emerged since the participants were cognizant of their role in a prestigious event. Time was also relevant as the end‐date approached which was simultaneously a source of stress and the date when their stress would be over. For most, the period after this end‐date was marked by a sense of sadness and a desire to repeat the experience. Finally, the career paths of the participants appeared to influence their actions and coping strategies.

Work in mega‐event organizing committees has not been examined from a stress and coping perspective; this study is the first to examine issues in this unique work setting by applying stress theory. Moreover, the findings suggest that organizing committee employees appraise and cope with stress differently than in more traditional contexts.

The purpose of this paper is twofold: first, to examine the influences of theory of planned behavior (TPB) constructs (i.e. attitude, subjective norm, and perceived behavioral control (PBC)) on individuals’ volunteer intention for future sporting events, and second, to investigate the moderating effects of brand reputation and moral obligation in the relationships between TPB constructs and volunteer intention.

The sample consisted of 107 volunteers at the 2009 NCAA Men's Basketball Tournament. Moderated hierarchical multiple regression analysis was used to test the hypothesized relationships of the model.

Subjective norm and PBC were significantly associated with volunteer intention. Brand reputation was found to be a moderator in the relationships between attitude and volunteer intention and between subjective norm and volunteer intention, and moral obligation moderated the relationship between PBC and volunteer intention.

Sporting events/volunteer managers must understand individuals’ decision-making process with respect to volunteering at sporting events and important insights into new strategies to increase volunteer recruitment, retention, and reliability.

Because sporting event managers face considerable obstacles in recruiting and retaining a volunteer workforce, an enhanced understanding of volunteering may highlight new ways to remove obstacles to being a volunteer to the benefit of individuals and society.

This paper emphasizes the importance of brand reputation and moral obligation as moderators of the effects of the TPB constructs on volunteer intention in the context of sporting events.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the determinants of Halal meat consumption within international Muslim students’ population in China using the theory of planned behaviour as a conceptual framework. The role of self-identity (SI) as a Muslim, dietary acculturation (DA) in the host culture, moral obligation (MO) to purchase Halal meat and trust on the authenticity of Halal meat is explored.

Cross-sectional data were collected through a questionnaire survey with 436 international Muslim students mainly originating from Muslim countries and currently studying in China. Data were analysed by stepwise multiple regression analyses to test the model and the moderating effects of SI, DA, MO and trust on behavioural intention.

The results indicate that a positive personal attitude towards the consumption of Halal meat, personal conviction and the perceived control over consuming Halal meat predict the intention to eat Halal meat among Muslims.

Limitations include the use of a snow-ball sampling technique and the focus on only four individual characteristics related to religious food consumption, namely, SI, DA, MO and trust.

Practical implications extend to dealing with food policymakers and food marketing managers in companies who might pursue identity-, acculturation-, MO- and trustworthiness-related strategies in their distribution and communication efforts targeted at the growing local as well as international market of Halal food.

This study is one of the first studies investigating the determinants of Halal meat consumption among international Muslim students in China and a first application of the theory of planned behaviour-related religious food consumption context by considering four individual characteristics, namely, SI, DA, MO and trust.

The purpose of this paper is to examine how residents in Qatar, the host country of the 2022 World Cup, interact, socialize and acculturate in order to create a more harmonic society, a critical factor for the event delivery and preparations.

Data were collected from Qatari nationals and expatriates residing in the country of Qatar using a survey. A stratified random sampling approach was applied using as sampling framework all households having a mailing address with the country’s electric company. In total, 2,398 Qataris were contacted and 1,020 completed the survey. From the expatriate population, 1,852 were contacted and 1,134 completed the survey.

The results showed Qatari nationals were favorable toward Arab and Asian expatriates but not as favorable as Arab and Asian expatriates were toward them. Both groups of residents showed high quality of life (QOL) perceptions, with the locals having slightly higher QOL. Finally, Asian expatriates were more open to socializing with the locals and Arab expatriates.

The results of the study shed light into the acculturation process in host societies of mega sport events such as the 2022 World Cup in Qatar.

This is the first study that examined a mega event’s host country resident’s cultural interactions to identify potential issues that can arise and interfere with the event experience of the 2022 World Cup in a very diverse society.

Problem-solving approaches to research have dominated the not-for-profit festival management field. Little attention has been paid to how festival organizations successfully create cultures where knowledge transfer is practised within the high intensity of a festival life cycle. Drawing upon insights from social practice theory and appreciative inquiry (AI), the purpose of this paper is to offer a different conceptual approach to understanding how knowledge transfer “works” as an organizational practice to produce a collaborative festival culture.

This paper draws upon an ethnographic case study with the highly acclaimed Queensland Music Festival organization in Australia. The research questions and methods were framed around an appreciative approach that identified formal and informal practices that " worked " rather than a conventional problem-focused analysis.

This research focused on appreciating the cultural context that shaped the interrelationships between formal and informal knowledge transfer practices that enabled trust and collaboration. A range of knowledge transfer practices was identified that contributed to the creation of a shared festival ethos and the on-going sustainability of the festival vision.

The not-for-profit sector brings numerous challenges for festival organizations, and there is a need to appreciate how collaborative and creative knowledge transfer can occur formally and informally. Festival organizers can benefit from understanding the relational and practice dimensions of knowledge management as they are performed within specific organizational contexts.

An appreciative understanding of knowledge transfer practices has not yet been applied to not-for-profit festival organizations, where problem-solving approaches dominate the field.

“A knowledge of different literatures is the best way to free one's self from the tyranny of any of them.” Jose Marti, Cuban writer, poet and statesman.

The purpose of this paper is to examine mega-event volunteers’ motivations and their impact on volunteer satisfaction. Additionally, this study investigated motivational differences between volunteers based upon four demographic variables: age, gender, educational level, and income.

A modified version of the Volunteer Motivations Scale for International Sporting Events (Bang and Chelladurai, 2009) was administered to 8,000 Super Bowl volunteers via Survey Monkey with the permission of the Indiana Sports Corporation. In all, 24 percent (n=1,928) of the volunteers completed the survey. Exploratory factor analysis was used to reduce the survey questions into a smaller number factors. Multivariate analysis of variance was utilized to compare differences in the four demographic variables on the factors. Multiple regression was used to predict satisfaction on the basis of the four factors.

Volunteers were motivated by four factors: Community Support, Love of Sports, Personal Growth, and Career Development. These four factors all significantly predicted satisfaction with the volunteer experience. The overall MANOVA was significant and revealed that ten of 16 group comparisons possessed significant differences. Females rated Community higher than males, while males rated Love of Sports higher than females. Older volunteers and those with higher household incomes were motivated more by Community Support, while younger volunteers and those with lower incomes were motivated by Career Development. Likewise, less educated volunteers placed a higher value on Career motivations than more educated volunteers who placed a high value on Personal Growth.

Dissatisfied volunteers may have chosen to not participate in the study. Follow-up interviews with dissatisfied volunteers might provide insight for event organizers that would shed light on factors that influence retention and recidivism.

The findings of this study suggest that mega sport volunteer managers should recognize that motivational differences among volunteers do exist and utilize this information for creating recruitment materials targeted to specific groups. Then volunteers can be assigned to tasks that tap into their desire, thus enhancing potential volunteer satisfaction and their return as a volunteer at future events.

This study was conducted in the context of America’s largest mega event in a city that hosted the event for the first time. In addition to collecting one of the largest number of responses for volunteers at mega-sporting events, the development of the Community Support factor was unique within the context of this study. The Community Support factor was rated as the most important by volunteers and tied to other questions such as wanting to help make the event a success, helping others, and creating a better society. This indicates that volunteers had pride in their community and wanted to help the event be successful by helping the city’s visitors.

The coronavirus disease (COVID-19) has increased food delivery service demand, which generates massive amounts of solid waste, specifically plastic material. Therefore, this study aims to examine the determinants of consumers' intention to reuse food delivery containers (ITR) using the extended theory of planned behavior (TPB). Moral obligation was included as an antecedent, while behavioral expectation (BE) ahead of behavioral intention was an immediate predictor of consumers' pro-environmental behaviors.

The hypotheses were tested on 348 food delivery service users in Malaysia and analyzed using the partial least squares structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM).

The findings indicated that consumers' ITR is directly influenced by perceived behavioral control and attitude. Perceived behavioral control and attitude had a positive partial indirect effect on ITR through BE. Meanwhile, subjective norms and moral obligation had a positive full indirect effect on ITR through BE.

The findings can be directly applied to practical situations of food delivery companies and environmental protection organizations managing solid waste among food delivery services.

Understanding consumers' ITR could promote practical environmental sustainability. Practically, the study provides insights to the food delivery service industry, policymakers and relevant stakeholders to encourage consumer behavior change by reusing food delivery containers in line with Sustainable Development Goal 12.

The study enhances the existing literature by extending TPB with two psychological variables: moral obligation (independent variable) and BE (mediating variable). To the best of the authors' knowledge, this study is the first attempt to empirically investigate BE in consumers' pro-environmental behavioral intention in a high-context culture and developing economy. This study could benefit food and beverage merchants, food delivery companies, governments, non-governmental organizations and pro-environmental behavior researchers in this industry.

Intangible legacy encapsulates the essence of Olympism and its manifestation, the Olympic Games. Despite significant interest in the capacity of the Olympics to produce notable changes in society, conceptual difficulties in defining and measuring intangible legacy persist. The study develops a conceptual definition of intangible Olympic legacy.

The study follows a four-step concept definition approach. It examines and integrates three strands of literature including intangibles, social interactions and public value, which is combined with insights from a longitudinal empirical investigation of intangible Olympic legacy for National Sport Organisations (NSO).

The proposed concept of intangible legacy defines it an emerging combination of attributes, interactions, processes and technology, with the goal of creating public value which is the ultimate goal of the Olympic Games. Since intangible legacy is qualitative rather than quantitative, a reconsideration of the current research paradigm is also proposed.

The study develops a new analytical device for the investigation of intangible legacies for specific publics such as NSO.

The study carries practical implications for Olympic and events/festival promoters as it allows defining and operationalising the key attributes of the concept.

This is the first study to conceptualise intangible legacy of mega events.