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Pressures from non-profit sport organizations’ (NPSOs) external environment influence governance structures and processes. Thus, this study explores the impact of external factors on NPSO board decision making.

Using a sample of six NPSO boards (two national, four provincial/territorial), data were collected via 36 observations, 18 interviews, and over 900 documents. A thematic analysis was conducted via NVivo 12.

Results identified two external factors impacting NPSO board decision making: the sport system structure and general environment conditions. External factors impacted NPSO board decision making in terms of duration, flow, interaction, and scrutiny.

Results demonstrate the need for NPSO boards to engage in boundary-spanning activities whereby external information sources from stakeholders are incorporated to make informed decisions. Practically, NPSO boards should harness virtual meetings to continue their operations while incorporating risk management analyses to assess threats and opportunities.

This study explores the motives and objectives of sports sponsorship in China, taking into account the sports, social and cultural contexts. It also adopts a comparative approach to examine the sponsorship of elite and grassroots sports events in China.

This study adopts a qualitative approach, employing semi-structured interviews with representatives of nine companies sponsoring elite and/or grassroots sports events in Western China. The data were analyzed through reflexive thematic analysis.

In China, sponsors are frequently driven to sponsor elite sport events by a sense of obligation and responsibility to the country, whereas their motives to sponsor grassroots sport events is primarily influenced by sincerity and goodwill. Chinese companies consider brand awareness, exposure and the relationship with the government and authorities as key factors for sponsorship, and use sponsorship to achieve market-related objectives.

Companies’ sponsorship motives and objectives have received significant attention in the literature, but mainly in Western countries. In the context of China, this study identifies how sponsors utilize social networks to shape their motives and objectives. It also reveals certain patterns common with the current literature, as well as specificities such as how the roles of the government and authorities are linked to the contingent economic and social context of the country. Furthermore, the differences between elite and grassroots sports events sponsorship are explained.

Some sports organizations have a strategic objective of promoting human and social development through sports. However, it can be challenging to ensure that these objectives, conveyed by the board, are fully internalized by the athletes. From the perspective of inter-organizational networks, this dissemination can occur through strategic alignment and diffusion of social capital. Therefore, the authors wanted to analyze if organizational policies from sports organizations are related to athletes' perception of social capital and strategic alignment.

The authors conducted a sequential mixed-method research. Firstly, a pilot study was conducted with two exploratory interviews with key informants from a sports organization, supported by documentary data from this organization. A thematic content analysis was carried out to identify relevant categories and subcategories to prepare a quantitative research instrument. In the second phase, a questionnaire was applied to 159 student-athletes from this organization. The collected data were analyzed by multiple linear regression.

From the pilot study, a set of five elements of strategic alignment, and three elements of social capital in the sports organization context were provided. In the quantitative phase, the authors identified that social capital is related to athletes' perception of shared values internalization in a sports organization, but strategic systems were not.

Sports managers could better promote internal policies if there is social capital among athletes rather than implementing top-down deployed communications.

Policymakers could better predict the effectiveness of a foment request by sports organizations considering not only strategic systems communication deployment but also the existence of social capital in a sports organization. It is a broader mechanism to understand the capacity of a sports organization in disseminating good values among their members.

Different from traditional companies, in sports organizations, only social capital is related to the internalization of organizational policy by athletes rather than strategic alignment initiatives.

The digital transformation is dramatically changing the business-to-business (B2B) sales environment, challenging long-standing views regarding the critical competencies required of salespeople. This paper aims to explore the personal traits associated with sales performance in a digital selling environment.

Using template analysis, the researchers captured and coded over 21 h of in-depth, semi-structured interviews with senior sales leaders from various industry sectors, exploring their perceptions of the personal traits now required of B2B salespeople in the digital landscape.

The research identifies three high-level trait types critical to sales success within a digital selling environment: “analytical curiosity” – the natural motivation and ability to gather and synthesize sales-related knowledge, “empathetic citizenship” – the ability to establish initial rapport while building long-term trust and “disciplined drive” – the exertion of selling effort in a highly focused and methodical manner across all stages of the sales process.

The present data came from interviews with sales leaders in Canada. A more global sample may lead to additional insights. Moreover, the sample was drawn from long-cycle B2B sales environments; conclusions may differ for short-cycle or business-to-consumer markets.

This paper presents a framework for hiring and developing salespeople in the digital sales environment, identifying personal trait types that sales leaders should look for when hiring: analytical curiosity, empathetic citizenship and disciplined drive. The paper identifies how these trait types influence sales success, suggesting that sales leaders could coach and educate their teams to make the best use of them.

This paper presents a conceptual framework for hiring in the digital sales environment and introduces the trait of analytical curiosity not previously discussed in the literature.

Sustainability transformation in the construction industry is vital for the attainment of sustainable development goals. While conventional construction has been at the expense of social and economic sustainability, sustainable construction can enhance environmental, social and economic outcomes for the construction industry and society at large. However, the industry struggles with new initiates because its stakeholders are products of unique institutions which shape their decisions and intentions to adopt new practices. This study assessed the institutional pressures that influence the adoption of sustainable construction to enhance our understanding of other factors that can promote and accelerate the adoption of sustainable construction.

The study adopted a quantitative research design with the use of online questionnaires to elicit information from construction professionals in South Africa. Descriptive statistics of frequencies, mean and standard deviation were used to analyse the data obtained from the survey. Linear regression was also used to assess the influence of institutional pressures on the adoption of sustainable construction.

Mimetic pressures were found to have a significant influence on the adoption of sustainable construction. The decision to adopt sustainable construction was based on the sustainability actions of industry leaders (mimetic pressure). Normative and coercive pressures had no significant influence on the adoption of sustainable construction.

Mimetic pressure from competitors and normative pressures is already exerting some pressure on stakeholders to adopt sustainable construction. However, there cannot be a long-term commitment that will yield the needed sustainability transformations without additional normative pressure from learned societies and coercive pressure from the government. As one of the pioneering works from the global south, this study provides empirical validations of the influence of institutional pressures on the adoption of sustainable construction. It also enhances understanding of how institutional pressures from the social context can promote and accelerate the adoption of sustainable construction.

The findings present one of the pioneering efforts to empirically validate the influence of institutional pressures on the adoption of sustainable construction.

The efficiency of each of an organization’s individual workers determines its effectiveness. The study aims to explore the relationship between human resource management (HRM) practices and organizational effectiveness with employee performance as a mediating variable.

Data were collected from 800 police officers in the Greater Accra and Tema regions. The data were supported by the hypothesized relationship. Construct reliability and validity was established through confirmatory factor analysis. The proposed model and hypotheses were evaluated using structural equation modeling.

The results show that career planning and employee performance were significantly related. Self-managed teams and employee performance were shown to be nonsignificantly related. Similarly, performance management and employee performance were shown to be nonsignificantly related. Employee performance significantly influenced organizational effectiveness. The results further indicate that employee performance mediates the relationship between HRM practices and organizational effectiveness.

The generalizability of the findings will be constrained due to the research’s police service focus and cross-sectional data.

The study’s findings will serve as valuable pointers for the police administration in the adoption, design and implementation of well-articulated and proactive HRM practices to improve the abilities, skills, knowledge and motivation of officer’s to inordinately enhance the effectiveness of the service.

By evidencing empirically that employee performance mediates the relationship between HRM practice and organizational effectiveness, the study extends the literature.

The purpose of this study is to evaluate how Qatar Airways’ sponsorship of FC Barcelona affects Qatar’s sports diplomacy and brand awareness. It focuses on the sponsorship’s demand strategy and takes into account the opinions and attitudes of Spanish nationals toward Qatar and Qatar Airways.

To assess this, a survey of 434 Spanish nationals from 17 different regions from four zones (North, South, Center, and East) in Spain between November 3, 2022 and November 21, 2022 was conducted using a strata sampling method.

We argue that Qatar Airways’ sponsorship of FC Barcelona serves to improve Qatar’s recognition and national reputation in Spain. We also found that there is a need for consistent sponsorship and marketing efforts in sports diplomacy to better fulfill public diplomacy aims. Overall, this paper concludes that Qatar Airways’ sponsorship of FC Barcelona positively contributes to the country’s sports diplomacy despite significant challenges.

The major contribution of this study to the literature is the discussion of the role of sports sponsorships in the recognition of the sponsor, which was assessed through conducting a quantitative analysis of public opinion in the sponsored team’s host country.

This paper explores organization-level racialized work strategies for maintaining racialized organizations (Ray, 2019). It focuses on intentional actions to maintain dominant racial norms, demonstrating how work strategies are informed by dominant racial structures that maintain racial inequities.

We compiled a chronological case study (Yin, 2012) based on 168 news media articles and various organizational documents to examine responses to athlete protests at the University of Texas at Austin following the death of George Floyd. Gioia et al.’s (2013) method uncovered how dominant racial norms inform organizational behaviors.

The paper challenges institutional theory neutrality and identifies several racialized work strategies that organizations employ to maintain racialized norms and practices. The findings provide a framework for organizations to interrogate their strategies and their role in reproducing dominant racial norms and inequities.

In 2020, the Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement was reinvigorated within sporting and corporate domains. However, many organizations engaged in performativity, sparking criticism about meaningful change in organizational contexts. Our case study examines how one organization responded to athlete activists’ BLM-fueled demands, revealing specific racialized work strategies that maintain structures of racism. As organizations worldwide disrupt and discuss oppressive structures such as racism, we demonstrate how organizational leadership, while aware of policies and practices of racism, may choose not to act and actively maintain such structures.

Framed by nostalgia marketing, this research draws upon lessons from ParticipACTION, a Canadian non-profit health promotion organization, to examine one of their most well-known campaigns, Body Break with ParticipACTION, in order to assess the potential role for nostalgia-based marketing campaigns in sport participation across generational cohorts.

Exploratory sequential mixed methods involving two studies were completed on behalf of ParticipACTION, with the authors developing the research instruments and the collection of the data undertaken by research agencies. Study 1 was the secondary analysis of qualitative data from five focus groups with different demographic compositions that followed a common question guide. Study 2 was a secondary data analysis of a pan-Canadian online survey with a sample (n = 1,475) representative of the overall adult population that assessed awareness of, and attitudes toward, ParticipACTION, Body Break, physical activity and sport participation. Path analysis tested a proposed model that was based on previous research on attitudes, brand and loyalty. Further, multi-group path analyses were conducted to compare younger generations with older ones.

The results provide direction and understanding of the importance of nostalgia in marketing sport participation programs across generational cohorts. For instance, in the four parent-adult focus groups, unaided references as well as frequent and detailed comments regarding Body Break were observed. Similarly, Millennials reported that Body Break was memorable, Canadian and nostalgic, with a mix of positive and negative comments. The importance of nostalgia was supported sequentially via results from the national survey. For example, while 54.1% of the 40–54 age-group associated ParticipACTION positively with Body Break, so did 49.8% of the 25–39-year age group, most of whom were not born when the promotion ran. Further, brand resonance was found to explain 4% more variance in moderate-to-vigorous physical activity (MVPA), the proxy for sport participation, for younger people compared to older people.

Results provide direction to brands, properties and agencies around the use of nostalgia in sport marketing campaigns and sponsorship efforts. For brands seeking to sponsor sport properties to alter their image with potential consumers in a new market, associating with a sport property that many view as nostalgic could improve the impact of the campaign. On the sport property side, event managers and marketers should both identify existing assets that members or fans are nostalgic about, as well as consider building nostalgia into current and new properties they develop.

This research is valuable to the sport marketing and sponsorship literature through several contributions. First, the use of nostalgia marketing, and nostalgia in general, is novel in the sport marketing and sponsorship literature, with future research in nostalgia and sponsorship recommended. Second, the potential to adopt or adapt Body Break to other sport participation and physical activity properties is empirically supported. Finally, the finding that very effective promotions can have a long-lasting effect, both on those who experienced the campaigns as well as younger populations who only heard about it, is notable.

The aim of this study is to identify organisational capabilities (OC) for a successful digital transformation (DT) and associated structures of internal teams to orchestrate and support DT.

An explorative, qualitative study, comprising semi-structured interviews with 82 executives from 43 diverse National Football Associations (NFA) spread across five continents was conducted.

The results show that organisational culture, strategic sensitivity, up-to-date ICT-infrastructure, a digitally skilled workforce, leadership support, knowledge management and internal DT-teams are important capabilities to enable successful DT.

Due to the different levels of maturity of digitalisation and the financial constraints, not every NFA intends or is able to assign a full-time staff member exclusively to digital issues. Therefore, the most appropriate person was interviewed in each NFA.

Adapting an organisational culture to the requirements of the digital age is one of the most important steps in implementing DT. It is equally important for the leadership to form the strategic framework and enable the necessary training of employees to improve the results of the digitalisation processes.

This is the first study investigating NFA's DT from a worldwide perspective, identifying the most important factors for successful DT-processes.