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The Egyptian Premier League (EPL) holds a prominent place in Egypt’s sporting culture and serves as the stage for some of Africa’s most competitive soccer clubs. However, the actual competitive balance in this league has come under scrutiny in recent years as the two historically dominant Cairo clubs, Ahly and Zamalek, continue to retain the EPL championship. A major concern is that the competitive imbalance of the EPL may actually be hampering the league’s progress and the progress of soccer in Egypt. In order to more closely assess this situation, the purpose of this paper is to use historical EPL performance data to conduct a series of competitive balance analyses on league results from 1948 to 2014. The findings revealed that competition in the league is almost nonexistent as Ahly and Zamalek continue to enjoy a number of direct and indirect financial benefits that are unrealized by their competitors. The dominance of these clubs has compromised the elements of match uncertainty and drama that are traditionally viewed as being important to the prestige and financial achievements of leagues and teams. Discussion is therefore offered for how the EPL could go about resolving some of its organizational and competitive balance issues.

This study adopted four basic measures of competitive balance to conduct descriptive analyses on EPL data that were collected from egyptianfootball.net and the Rec Sport Soccer Statistics Foundation. These analyses began with the EPL’s inaugural season (1948-1949) and extended to the conclusion of the 2014-2015 season. During this timeframe, seven seasons were canceled due to global and political tensions and four more went unfinished. Because these seasons were excluded, the total sample size consisted of 56 seasons, each of which contained between 10 and 24 EPL teams. The data were analyzed using variations of the following competitive balance measures: the range and standard deviation of winning percentages, the ratio of the standard deviation/Noll-Scully approach, the Herfindahl-Hirschman Index, and five-club concentration ratio.

The results confirmed that the league is largely imbalanced, leading the authors to recommend systemic and structural changes that could help promote competitive balance in the league. The call for competitive balance in the EPL was bolstered by a literature review of studies that advocated for parity in professional sports leagues. In the end, the researchers recommend the EPL to improve its organizational policies and consider a revised revenue-sharing system that would allow the small-market teams to survive and thrive.

The EPL holds a prominent place in Egypt’s sporting culture and serves as the stage for some of Africa’s most competitive soccer clubs. The primary purpose of this study was to perform a series of competitive balance analyses on EPL results from 1948 to 2015 in an effort to better understand the various degrees of competitiveness in the league during this time.

Since 2014, “sport for all” has been promoted as a new national strategy in China, which injects powerful dynamism and vitality for its development in numerous aspects. However, there has been very little feedback on sport service provision in community, and the satisfaction level of community participants is largely unmeasured. To promote physical and mental health of residents and form a stronger foundation of sport culture, more attention should be directed to community sports. The purpose of this paper is to examine the impact of community-sport service provisions on participants’ satisfaction and, in turn, on their sport participation behavior.

Community-sport program participants in China (n=576) responded to a survey measuring the proposed concepts.

Structural equation modeling analyses revealed that community-sport services in the areas of sport facility, grassroots sport organizations and sport activity programs had strong influences on participant satisfaction and, in turn, their desire for participation, which highlighted the demand for high-quality sport service provision by community.

The study contributed to the literature by proposing two clear dimensions (core sport service and peripheral sport service) for the measurement of public sport service provision in community sports. A second theoretical contribution of the study relates to the clarification of the relationship between the two dimensions of community-sport service provision (both core and peripheral services) and community participants’ satisfaction levels.

This study aims to address customer focus as an important component of total quality management (TQM) and explore the key drivers of member satisfaction in tennis clubs via a novel theory-based member satisfaction index (MSI) model with high explanatory and predictive power. Furthermore, the study aims to investigate the relationship between satisfaction and behavioral intentions (willingness to stay; WTS) with consideration of the mediating effect of identification with the club.

This study uses variance-based partial least squares structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM) to estimate the MSI model, which was tested in a leading tennis club in Germany (n = 185).

The results reveal that club atmosphere, club facilities and the price/quality ratio of the membership fee are the most important drivers of member satisfaction in tennis clubs. Member satisfaction has a large influence on the WTS of tennis club members. Identification with the club, when included as a mediator in the model, increases the variance explained in WTS considerably.

The small sample limits the generalizability of findings, and further research is recommended.

The MSI model is a useful benchmark tool for club managers who want to quantify the satisfaction and WTS of their club members. In addition, because of the integrated formative measurement models, the PLS-SEM results show which indicators can be used to positively impact satisfaction with each of the service quality dimensions, overall member satisfaction and WTS. The most important of these results are discussed in an importance-performance map analysis.

The MSI model is a multi-attribute index model through which members' evaluations of various dimensions of service and value are derived through multivariable linear function with each dimension weighted according to its importance in one holistic model. The model shows the strong impact of satisfaction on WTS of sports club members and reveals that findings of previous research on the relationship between fan and spectator identification and loyalty are transferable to sports club members. The MSI represents a new contribution to the literature; it was applied here to tennis clubs but is also suitable for application to other sports clubs.

This study investigated the effectiveness and applicability of China’s innovation-driven policies on encouraging sports firms to invest in research and development (R&D) activities.

Through a series of multiple linear regression models, this study examined the direct and interaction effects of innovation-driven polices and firm characteristics on R&D investment for sport firms listed on the New Third Board in China.

Results showed that financing constraints and certification as a high-tech enterprise were not themselves significant predictors of R&D investment; instead, the number of R&D staff and a firm's total assets were identified as key internal factors predicting the level of a firm's R&D investment. Other effective policy tools for stimulating Chinese sport firms' R&D investments included pre-tax deductions of R&D expenses, government R&D subsidies and income tax relief for high-tech enterprises, although their effects were heterogeneous.

This study observes a new theoretical discovery that when the financing constraints do not limit R&D investment, innovation-driven strategies remain effective tools to stimulate the R&D investment of sports firms.

The findings provided practical guidance for both government–industry policymakers and sport business managers to prioritize the identified areas of significance when promoting R&D.

First, this study focused on sport firms, which constitute a quickly growing industrial sector in China. The findings offered important insights for the government as well as corporate management with regard to promoting new industries and new enterprises. Second, this paper analyzed the effects of three special innovation-driven policies on R&D investment and explored enterprise innovation development in more detail. Third, this paper discussed not only the effects of innovation-driven policies on R&D investment but also the heterogeneity of their effects. The related conclusions could help improve the development, implementation and assessment of innovation-driven policies.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the key factors that affect the formulation of regional strategies for developing and advancing the sport industry in China.

Guided by the comparative advantage theory, qualitative and quantitative research procedures were carried out to analyze the variables that were deemed necessary for the development of regional advantages.

The findings of this study indicated the importance and relevance of understanding these comparative advantage factors when developing regional strategies for sport development in China or other countries with a developing economy.

This study was largely exploratory in nature, meaning that future confirmatory studies are necessary in order to solidify the results and to encompass the wide-ranging diversity of the total sport industry.

The study provided practical implications for other countries to address the needs to discern among varying sectors of the sport industry and prioritize factors that are specific to regions, communities, and local environments in the strategic planning process.

The findings of this study highlighted the importance and relevance of four comparative advantage factors and the varying sectors of the sport industry variables in the region.

For this study, the Jordan case provided the context for investigating Chinese trademark law with the purpose of answering how and why Jordan lost the legal rights to the Chinese version of his name in China. The results from that investigation were used to better explain the phenomena of transliteration and trademark squatting in relation to sport brands and athletes. The purpose of this paper is to formulate suggestions for protecting sport brands and athletes from trademark squatting in China.

The authors used traditional legal methodology to investigate the influence of transliteration on trademark squatting in China based on the real-life context provided by the facts in Jordan. First, all reported materials from Chinese courts on the Jordan case were collected and analyzed by the research team, which included an investigator who is fluent in Chinese. Second, the authors conducted a collection, review, and analysis of China’s trademark law, the international trademark law that controls court decisions in China, and the literature on trademark squatting in China. The results from the investigations were used to formulate a description of Jordan that details how the process of transliteration facilitates trademark squatting in China.

The findings revealed a loophole within the Chinese administration of trademark regulation through which trademark squatters use the process of transliteration to infringe on trademark rights belonging to senior, foreign brands. Furthermore, the findings lead us to suggest that sport brands are particularly vulnerable to this type of trademark squatting in China. In Jordan, Qiaodan Sports exploited the transliteration loophole to obtain trademark ownership of Qiaodan to the detriment of Brand Jordan and, to a lesser extent, Chinese consumers.

This study contributes to the literature by conceptualizing a “transliteration loophole” that facilitates trademark squatting in China. Further, this is the first study to focus on how the concepts of transliteration and trademark squatting influence celebrity athletes and sport brands.

For foreign celebrity athletes and sport brands, the case should alert them of their vulnerability to trademark squatting of transliterations assigned to them by sport broadcasters or sport consumers in China. For instructors of sport law and sport marketing courses, the Jordan case provides teachable lessons on the value of trademark, the process of trademark squatting, and the process of transliteration and its relation to trademark squatting in China.

Socially, studies in trademark squatting and Chinese trademark law are needed as China continues to expand its intellectual property regulations. The People’s Republic of China started regulating trademarks in the 1980s and since then, there have been three major modifications. Still, controversies exist in terms of trademark squatting of foreign brands and research is needed to better understand why this happens, and how it can be avoided.

The focus on sport as well as the suggestions offered for sport brands and celebrity athletes makes this study the first of its kind within the literature on trademark squatting in China. The importance and impact of the Jordan case is one that attracts attention and should result in significant impact in the literature and practical impact for the field.

This study of philanthropy donors in Appalachian Ohio was conducted with the purpose of understanding giving within a rural region. The research was initiated with an ultimate goal of increasing endowed assets in communities that are experiencing philanthropic poverty. The data collected from donors utilizing post-positivist qualitative research methods revealed not only donor giving rationale, but also steps community leaders can take to encourage giving communities and build philanthropic assets that will permit communities to help themselves.

With the number of doctoral degrees awarded increasing and full-time and tenure-track jobs decreasing, doctoral graduates are entering a fierce job market. Lack of knowledge and support about navigating the job market can impact graduates' mental health and chances of securing long-term employment, but many graduates claim their programs provide little professional development in this area. The purpose of this study is to understand doctoral students' job preparation after participating in a departmental seminar.

The current explanatory sequential mixed methods, single case study investigated students' perceptions following a year-long seminar in job market navigation.

Students attending the seminar did not differ from those who did not attend on feelings of preparedness, number of application documents completed, or curriculum vita quality scores.

Researchers may have limited ability to implement graduate student interventions given the power structures of faculty life and the lack of graduate student time.

The results suggest informal seminars may not be enough to support doctoral students' job market skills.

This has implications for department chairs and deans to create faculty development opportunities to pivot to a student-centered culture rather than relying on faculty or external support to help graduate students prepare for the job market.

This case study provides insight as to how graduate students' job market anxieties are at odds with the current demands and structure of educational doctoral programs.

This article uses a Value‐at‐Risk approach to derive an estimator of the failure probability of a financial institution. The proposed approach can be applied to any profit/loss distribution, although Extreme Value (EV) theory also tells us that the most appropriate distributions are EV. The estimator suggested here is superior to the “Z” indicator of failure risk, which is sometimes used in the literature. Illustrative results confirm that the distribution selected makes a considerable difference to the results, and that estimates of failure probabilities based on the assumption of normality are too low to be valid.

Transgender and gender diverse (TGD) individuals who choose to begin a gender affirmation journey often find the experience challenging. This can be a highly stigmatized process, and TGD consumers must strategically interact with brands and products to successfully construct authentic identities. Therefore, the purpose of this study was to obtain a better understanding of the TGD individual’s identity transformation within the consumption context.

Interviews were conducted with 27 TGD individuals about their gender affirmation journeys. The process of in vivo coding and thematic coding were applied for inductive analysis. Through subsequent analysis, parities with concepts from stigma management theory and Alvesson’s (2010) self-identity metaphors were identified.

The results of this study illustrated seven themes of TGD consumption patterns in relation to the gender affirmation journey. Awakening marks the watershed realization of a TGD identity, a cessation of some consumption habits and an emergence of new ones. Exhibiting is a form of information control and often transpired with new clothing purchases. Shifting one’s name and pronouns on identification documents is a means of covering. Remaking typically involves the procurement of medical services such as hormonal prescriptions and/or surgical procedures. Disclosing to individuals in one’s reference groups is a method of assessing (and maintaining) the wise, the curious and the oblivious. Rebelling against the stereotypes of masculinity and femininity in media portrayals and leisure activities is a technique to express one’s eccentricity and quirkiness. Finally, releasing describes the potentially waning TGD label and a somewhat stabilizing pattern of consumption. A model of TGD consumers is presented, and key assertions are discussed.

The variety and complexity of consumer purchases associated with gender affirmation journeys were investigated, and it was revealed that many of these consumption choices aided in the TGD individual’s stigma management as well. The key assertions presented here progress the literature on gender affirmation journeys by predicting patterns of consumption.