Search results

This article seeks to enhance the understanding as to why head coaches and general managers (GMs) in the National Basketball Association (NBA) and the National Football League (NFL) exit from their positions.

Three hypotheses were investigated using a series of quantitative and qualitative data from the past 30 years. The samples analyzed are comprised of 891 GM and coach annual observations for the NBA clubs and 949 GM and coach observations for the NFL clubs. Analyses include a logit analysis for coach exit/retention, a logit analysis for GM exit/retention and textual analysis via topic modeling via latent Dirichlet allocation.

Results show a correlation between a coach exiting and a GM exiting simultaneously, thus amplifying the importance of these two roles in enhancing or destroying the success of a club and supporting the need for a deeper understanding of both roles, particularly the GM. The results further highlight cultural differences across clubs in terms of GM and coach turnover, a factor that often is heavily influenced by club ownership.

The results support the role of owners in exits, confirm the importance of winning in avoiding an exit, find a high level of interrelationship between GM and coach exits and show that past culture of firings influences future exit decisions.

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.

Incumbent retail organisations need to develop new capabilities to adapt with the increasingly competitive retail landscape. Despite the growing relevance of innovation in retail practice, the strategic management of innovation in retailing is still vastly under-researched. This explorative study thus aims to investigate how incumbent retail firms can organise for innovation from an organisational ambidexterity perspective.

A single-case study of an established Swedish retail firm was conducted from December 2016 to July 2018 and followed up in June 2021. The authors followed the process of implementation of organisational changes aimed to increase innovation in the company, particularly the introduction of a digital marketing initiative and a corporate innovation hub. Data collection was based on nine semi-structured interviews and participant observations and unstructured interviews from 13 meetings and workshops. An abductive approach to data analysis was followed, iteratively comparing theoretical concepts and empirical data using open, axial and selective coding to distil findings into aggregated themes.

Given the inherently limited formalisation of innovation processes in most retail organisations, structural ambidexterity appears to be necessary when the aim is radical, strategic retail innovation. Structural mechanisms are able to safeguard the space and resources to focus on long-term research and projects with higher risk and uncertainty; however, integration of innovation activities to the mainstream organisation is critical. Pursuing contextual ambidexterity, wherein instead of structural solutions, employees are empowered to divide employees' time between innovation-related and efficiency-related tasks, is more likely related to retail innovations that are incremental and operational.

The paper contributes to the emerging topic of strategic management of innovation in retailing, by explicating how incumbent retailers can organise for innovation depending on the type of innovation that is aimed for, using organisational ambidexterity as a novel perspective.

Sustainability challenges are omnipresent. This study aims to identify consumer segments based on food consumption practices from purchasing to disposal. A priori work identified quality attributes, food responsibility, dietary choices and food organisation and management within the home as key influences. Each represents an opportunity for consumers to employ more sustainable food behaviours. A priori work identified several indicators for each of these influences. This study explored the suitability of these indicators for measuring the identified key influences.

The authors used an online survey of 324 Irish food consumers in January 2021 to address online food interests, purchasing preferences and purchase behaviour linked to food sustainability.

The authors identify four consumer segments – food dabblers, food appreciators, pro-sus and pressured – which present a holistic view of the sustainable behaviours practiced by food consumers. The findings provide insight into the range of sustainability-related food behaviours actioned by consumers – from interest in meat-free products, organics and local produce to having an organised stock at home and minimising waste. The findings shed light on how consumers integrate elements of sustainability into their food lifestyles.

This study captures sustainability-related food behaviours from the point of purchase through to consumption and disposal and identifies four new consumer segments based on interests, preferences and behaviours.

This study relied on the job demands and resource model to understand employees’ turnover intentions. Recent studies have consistently lent support for the significant association between role ambiguity and turnover intentions; however, only a handful of studies focused on examining the potential mediators in this association. The authors argued that role ambiguity positively influences turnover intentions through affective mechanisms: job involvement and satisfaction.

To test the model, a large sample of working adults participated (N = 505).

Structural equation modeling results showed that role ambiguity, job involvement and job satisfaction were significantly associated with turnover intentions. Moreover, a serial mediation was found among the variables: employees with low levels of role ambiguity tended to report higher job involvement, which further increased their satisfaction with the job and subsequently decreased their turnover intentions.

The cross-sectional design is a limitation.

Practical suggestions regarding how organizations can reduce employee turnover are discussed.

The findings provide support for theory-driven interventions to address developing the intention to stay at work among working adults.

This article presents fieldwork perspectives and research reflexivity gained from the cross-national research team, with the aim of promoting better qualitative research practices in transnational research. It focuses on how the team incorporates diverse cultural perspectives and insider and outsider roles to enhance the research in the data collection process.

This article is drawn from the authors' qualitative research with 25 Japanese retirees in Thailand, addressing cultural challenges encountered by researchers in the cross-national team when conducting field research.

Our findings indicate that researchers with an emic view in the cross-national team who shared nationality and cultural background as the participants facilitated an effective recruitment process and productive collaboration in data gathering. They also served as cultural brokers, tailoring smooth communication during interviews on certain cultures, participant traits and sensitive issues. On the other hand, the outsiders helped the team uncover more transnational issues that the insiders had overlooked. Additionally, combining emic and etic perspectives helps to avoid ethnocentric narratives or purely etic and emic conclusions.

This article addresses a gap in the methodological reflections in transnational research that remains largely overlooked. Our reflection highlights the advantages of cross-national teams, which include researchers from emigration and immigration countries. Their status and roles as insiders and outsiders significantly facilitate a positive impact on the research process and increase the extent of investigating the complex cultural dynamics of transnational practices. The incorporation of emic and etic perspectives is suggested in the methodological approach for transnational migration research.

The objective of this chapter is to present the creation of the scientific research project management office at the Ribeirão Preto Medical School, University of São Paulo (FMRP-USP), Brazil. The case is about the adoption of Research Management and Administration (RMA) practices in the largest university in Brazil and presents data for the period of 10 years and relevant increase in the number of projects and budget volume managed (USD 2–21 mi) even with a small team (2–5 people). This is a successful case of a participant of The São Paulo Research Foundation (FAPESP) program and a relevant reference to encourage other Brazilian universities to implement the RMA structure. The implementation of RMA practices is not only possible but can be a game changer in a context with scarce resources and the proper policies can make a difference to the RMA professionalisation in the country.

This study examines the social organizational structure of one early childhood education (ECE) center in Finland and the relationship between this structure and the roles and the responsibilities of the members of the organization.

The research is a qualitative case study with ethnographic features. Its variables for content analysis are based on Henry Mintzberg's theory of organizational design.

The study's results show that the organizational structure of the ECE center follows the organizational configuration of a Professional bureaucracy and that the multiprofessional teams follow the configuration of a Simple structure. The structures for centralization and decentralization are suitable for a professional bureaucracy, but the roles of the members of the organization and the processes for shared decision-making lack clarification. The shortage of qualified ECE teachers disrupts the function of the organization and the work of ECE leaders.

The educational background of subjects may have affected the findings.

The study uses Henry Mintzberg's organizational structure theory to evaluate how and why power is distributed and activities are coordinated at the ECE center. The results also show what parts of the organization pose challenges that most commonly disrupt the organization's operations. With these findings, it is possible to expand the understanding of roles and responsibilities in the currently reforming ECE environment and what ECE centers need to function effectively. The study is part of a larger research project and will be continued to examine the leadership culture of the ECE center.

The purpose of this paper is to understand how hospitality companies can best explain controversial corporate social responsibility (CSR) activities to consumers who may not agree with the CSR activity. This research explores message framing through emotional and cognitive appeals to influence consumer perceptions of the Gideon Bible in USA hotel rooms. The study uses the theory of deontic justice to measure the impacts of messaging on consumer perceptions of the morality of the Gideon Bible as suicide prevention in hotels and its relation to controversial CSR initiatives.

The study uses an experimental study design via a self-administered survey to analyze participants’ perceptions of the placement of the Gideon Bible in hotel rooms and participants’ attitudes toward CSR initiatives based on deontic justice and religion using different message framing conditions.

Results show that religion was a major determinant of attitude towards the Gideon Bible, but the sentiment analysis also revealed that negative perceptions can be mitigated through message framing via emotional and cognitive appeals. Additionally, the cognitive appeal did impact CSR perceptions, as did identifying as Christian. Moral outrage emerged as a significant moderator for the relationships between message framing, attitudes toward the Gideon Bible and CSR.

This study provides an extension of deontic justice research to examine justice traits in accepting controversial CSR.