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There remains a critical issue in sport management scholarship in that the field lacks a well-defined framework for delineating practical implications in research. This research aims to answer the following research questions: (1) What types of practical implications can be identified in sport management research? (2) How can sport management research frame the practical implications of the study in a way that is both theoretically sound and useful for practitioners?

Through a scoping review and within the lens of Jaworski (2011)'s framework for managerial relevance, the study examined 427 articles from European Sport Management Quarterly, Journal of Sport Management and Sport Management Review published between 2000 and 2020.

This study presents a five-pronged framework that identifies target managers, organizational tasks, time horizons, philosophical impact and desired outcomes. Furthermore, the current research offers suggestions for how to present managerial implications in sport management research.

The findings shed light on the managerial relevance of the recent sport management body of work, developing an important framework for practical implications for the field to reflect and incorporate into future studies. With a theoretical understanding of how to frame the practical implications of sport management research, the gap between academia and industry can continue to narrow, and the relevance to the industry may be more pertinent than ever before.

This paper investigates whether career capital (CC) development abroad, expatriate type, career type and career stage affect expatriates' career success in terms of perceived marketability and the number of promotions.

The study presents findings from a 2020 follow-up study among 327 expatriates, including assigned expatriates (AEs) (n = 117) and self-initiated expatriates (SIEs) (n = 220), who worked abroad in 2015 and 2016. Among that group, 186 had continued their international career, while 141 had repatriated. Structural equation modeling with robust maximum likelihood estimation was used to test this study's hypotheses. MPlus 8.6 software supported the analysis.

The study outlines that CC developed abroad positively impacts perceived marketability and the number of promotions. Second, repatriates reported a greater degree of perceived marketability than those continuing an international career. Career type did not predict the number of promotions. The expatriate type did not influence any of the career success measures. Finally, expatriates in their late-career stage did not achieve a similar level of career success as those in other career stages.

All the expatriates were university-educated Finnish engineers and business professionals, and the career benefits of expatriation could differ for different sample groups. The study calls for more context-sensitive global careers research. The findings have positive implications for self-guided career actors considering working abroad. Organizations could focus more of their global talent attraction, management and career efforts on SIEs.

To analyze the impacts of these four antecedents on the career success of expatriates, the authors cooperated with two Finnish labor unions in 2020 to explore the careers of 327 expatriates, having surveyed the same group in 2015/2016. Such follow-up studies are not very common in expatriation research since it is difficult to keep track of expatriates who change locations and employers.

This paper aims to explore the potential configurations of governance, brand governance and social media strategies leading to effective organizational performance.

A fuzzy-set Qualitative Comparative Analysis including 28 Canadian national sport organizations (NSOs) and six conditions highlighted two sufficient configurations for effective organizational performance, defined as either budget per capita or athlete numbers.

Although no single component of governance, brand governance, or social media strategy is necessary to succeed overall, brand reputation and the strategic use of social media to communicate NSO identity were common to both identified configurations. Accountability was important for effective organizational performance in terms of budget per capita, while transparency was more important for higher athlete numbers. Thus, condition specificity is paramount in non-profit organizations that often have multiple objectives.

This study provides substantial theoretical and managerial implications, including the need to integrate brand governance and social media in non-profit organizations' overall governance activities.

Agricultural and food systems in the Mekong Region are undergoing transformations because of increasing engagement in international trade, alongside economic growth, dietary change and urbanisation. Food systems approaches are often used to understand these kinds of transformation processes, with particular strengths in linking social, economic and environmental dimensions of food at multiple scales. We argue that while the food systems approach strives to provide a comprehensive understanding of food production, consumption and environmental drivers, it is less well equipped to shed light on the role of actors, knowledge and power in transformation processes and on the divergent impacts and outcomes of these processes for different actors. We suggest that an approach that uses food systems as heuristics but complements it with attention to actors, knowledge and power improves our understanding of transformations such as those underway in the Mekong Region. The key transformations in the region include the emergence of regional food markets and vertically integrated supply chains that control increasing share of the market, increase in contract farming particularly in the peripheries of the region, replacement of crops cultivated for human consumption with corn grown for animal feed. These transformations are increasingly marginalising small-scale farmers, while at the same time, many other farmers increasingly pursue non-agricultural livelihoods. Food consumption is also changing, with integrated supply chains controlling substantial part of the mass market. Our analysis highlights that theoretical innovations grounded in political economy, agrarian change, development studies and rural livelihoods can help to increase theoretical depth of inquiries to accommodate the increasingly global dimensions of food. As a result, we map out a future research agenda to unpack the dynamic food system interactions and to unveil the social, economic and environmental impacts of these rapid transformations. We identify policy and managerial implications coupled with sustainable pathways for change.

This paper aims to explore how the argument of “eco-reproductive” concerns was mobilized in climate change trials in Switzerland. Looking at social movements' advantages and constraints when having recourse to the law, the authors interrogate why the symbolism of reproduction and kinship represented a political opportunity to defend the activists in a judicial system where judging is seen as an apolitical act.

This paper is grounded in legal research and research on social movements. While legal research focuses mainly on the study of legal and written sources, the authors used ethnography and conducted interviews to cross the perspectives of activists, their lawyers and judges.

In a context where positivist legal tradition remains strong, the “eco-reproductive” argument represented the advantage of being “apolitical,” thus audible in court. Used as socio-political tools, “eco-reproductive” concerns translated the activists' political claims into the legal arena. However, judges' conservative beliefs on family reinforced the depoliticization of activists' claims.

While research on “eco-reproductive” concerns has been significantly quantitative and exploratory, the authors look in depth at one case of application and highlight the limits of “eco-reproductive” concerns to appeal to decision-makers.

A growing number of multinational enterprises (MNEs) are engaging with the United Nation’s sustainable development goals (SDGs) and trying to link the SDGs to their foreign direct investments (FDI). They are searching for ways in which they can contribute to the economic, social, and environmental dimensions of the sustainable development of host countries while pursuing their commercial and competitive objectives, that is, creating shared value (CSV). One type of foreign direct investor that has long-standing experience with balancing profit and impact is development finance institutions (DFIs), that is, public, or semi-public institutions investing in private commercial projects in developing countries with the aim of creating impact. Through the conceptual lens of organizational theory of hybrid organizations, this chapter analyzes how the large Danish DFI Investment Fund for Developing Countries (IFU) has balanced its SDG mission with financial profitability. This balance is achieved by focusing on the SDGs as the value driver at the organizational level; by applying a portfolio perspective on the balance between SDGs and profitability; and by applying rigorous impact measurement methodologies along with financial accounting at the project level. The chapter suggests that this kind of experience from DFIs may have important implications for other foreign direct investors, such as MNEs, seeking to engage with the SDGs. It also contributes to the literature by bringing an understudied foreign direct investor, that is, DFIs, into the international business (IB) literature on SDGs and by providing a conceptual framework for analyzing how MNEs can create shared value in their FDI.

This article examines the influence of market opportunity, risk, and distance on the choice of destination country for Mexican franchises.

The research hypotheses are developed under the theoretical approaches of institutional theory, agency theory, and transaction costs theory and were contrasted on the data obtained from 52 Mexican international franchisors operating in 37 countries as of 2016. This study uses linear regression with ordinary minimums using the STATA 13.1 software.

The results reveal that a larger market size, a greater level of economic freedom, and a smaller geographic distance are determining factors in the choice of destination country. No statistical significance was found in the variables GDP per capita, level of democracy and cultural distance.

This research contributes to the theoretical and practical field. On the theoretical side, this study integrates institutional theory, agency theory, and transaction cost theory to evaluate the factors of the destination country that influence the internationalization process of the franchise. Another contribution of this study is to apply theories and models of developed economies to the process of internationalization of franchises in an emerging economy. Additionally, this study is based on a model that considers the distance, opportunities and risks that are considered by Mexican franchisors in the selection of the international markets in which they maintain operations. This study contains important practical implications that can serve as relevant information for decision-making in the franchise sector and its internationalization. This data is valuable for new models of Mexican franchises that decide to start their internationalization process.

Conventional wisdom tells us that mediation without ripeness is a fool’s errand (Zartman and Touval, 1985). What, then, is Türkiye’s motivation for mediating the war in Ukraine in lieu of ripeness – and what can its behavior as a mediator tell us about that motivation? In pursuit of this question, this paper inductively analyzes Turkish mediation in the Ukraine war to unpack the relationship between a contextual (ripeness) and actor-level (motivation) variable. Of particular interest is the decision-making and behavior of third parties (like Türkiye in Ukraine) who elect to mediate highly complex conflicts in which ripeness is indiscernible. The purpose of this research is not to propose or test a causal relationship between obscured ripeness and mediation, but rather to examine mediation behavior in situations where ripeness is obscured.

The impact of weaponized information on ripeness and third-party mediation is evaluated through an original, systematic and inductive case study analysis of Turkish mediation in the Russia–Ukraine war. As an intense theater of operations for information warfare for well over a decade, the war in Ukraine serves as an especially apt choice for an analysis of “obscured ripeness.” Likewise, Türkiye’s anomalous position as the only substantive source of mediation in the conflict lends significance to an empirical examination of its motivation and behavior as a mediator.

This research reveals that the pervasive use of weaponized information in the Russia–Ukraine war has distorted and disordered the information environment, thereby obscuring the ability of third parties to determine if the conflict is or could be ripe for mediation. However, the condition of obscured ripeness that prevails in the conflict has not proven a deterrent for mediation by Türkiye, which, as the only mediator in the conflict, has used a transactional approach to mediation motivated by self-regarding interests and animated by a manipulative mediation strategy. In sum, this inductive analysis of Turkish mediation in Ukraine reveals that the use of weaponized information in a conflict indirectly selects on transactional mediation (and mediators). The significance of this finding is magnified by the widespread use of weaponized information in contemporary conflicts as well as the declining frequency of third-party mediation.

There have been few, if any, systematic assessments in Turkish mediation of the Russia–Ukraine war, and none specifically concerned with the effects of weaponized information. Additionally, the paper proposes a typology of mediator motivation that is used to structure that assessment, while also introducing a new concept (“obscured ripeness”) and linking that concept both to the existing literature on ripeness and to the use of weaponized information in contemporary armed conflicts. As such, this manuscript represents an important contribution both to the empirical and theoretical landscape with respect to the study of mediation and international conflict management.

The purpose of this study was to explore the process of change in existing professional sport organisations as they initiate a women's team.

Three Australian Football League clubs with licenses for professional women's teams were examined, with semi-structured interviews held with three key department managers from each club.

The findings suggest organisations adopt either a community-focused or commercially focused approach, the selection of which is a response to the interplay of institutional pressures (e.g. league demands), resource demands (e.g. human and financial) and the strategic choices of a few, key “idea champions”.

This study provides insight into the approach change taken by clubs as they introduce a women's team into their existing organisational structure.