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The purpose of this paper is to examine LGBT exclusion from sporting institutions, examining this as a phenomenon which takes place in specific spaces within these institutions.
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to examine LGBT exclusion from sporting institutions, examining this as a phenomenon which takes place in specific spaces within these institutions.
Design/methodology/approach
A conceptual framework is developed which highlights the differences between initiatives to change heteronormative cultures at institutional levels and the levels of individual sporting spaces. This is applied to examples of heteronormative behaviour in sporting spaces and to diversity initiatives to promote LGBT participation in sport.
Findings
The paper argues that change initiatives are only effective if they engage with individual spaces within sports institutions rather than at a blanket institutional level.
Originality/value
The paper outlines links between similar findings in management and organisation literature and findings about sports organisations in the sports sociology literature. It outlines the role of institutions in both promoting LGBT inclusion in sport, but also in drawing LGBT participation towards mainstream heteronormative behaviours.
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Minhyeok Tak, Michael P. Sam and Steven J. Jackson
Sport match-fixing has emerged as a complex global problem. The purpose of this paper is twofold. First, it critically reviews how match-fixing is typified as a policy problem…
Abstract
Purpose
Sport match-fixing has emerged as a complex global problem. The purpose of this paper is twofold. First, it critically reviews how match-fixing is typified as a policy problem. Second, it advances an analysis of the legal framework and regulatory system for sports betting as a causal source for “routinized” match-fixing.
Design/methodology/approach
This study extracts and synthesises (cross-national) materials from policies, media releases and scholarly works on the subject of match-fixing and sports betting. The analysis is framed by the contrasts between rational choice and sociological institutionalist approaches.
Findings
Match-fixing is typically attributed to: criminal organisations and illegal sports betting; vulnerable individuals; and failure of governance on the part of sports organisations. Each cause holds assumptions of utility-maximising actors and it is argued that due consideration be given to the fundamental risks inherent in legal sports betting regimes.
Research limitations/implications
Match-fixing in sport is a recurrent social problem, transcending national boundaries and involving a wide range of actors and, sporting disciplines and levels of competition. Within such an environment, it may matter little how strong the incentive structures and education programmes are, when betting on human beings is both normatively and cognitively advanced as a value and institutionally permitted as a practice.
Originality/value
This paper argues that legal betting regimes paradoxically contribute to routinised match-fixing because: for betting customers there is no qualitative, ethical difference between legal and illegal operators; and legalisation serves to normalise and legitimate the view of athletes as objects for betting (like cards or dice).
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Abstract
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The purpose of this paper is to show how one of the biggest phenomena of the twenty‐first century is the internationalisation of professional sports and how premier league…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to show how one of the biggest phenomena of the twenty‐first century is the internationalisation of professional sports and how premier league football epitomises this. With the influx of foreign players, managers and now owners, European League Football has become big business. This paper aims to provide a theoretical analysis of the management implications of foreign players in the English Premiership League football – renamed the Barclays Premier League to suit the needs of its major sponsors.
Design/methodology/approach
The approach adopted is purely qualitative in nature, evaluating the top Barclays Premier League teams and the impact of globalisation on their reconfigurations since the early 1990s to date. The study draws mainly from a review of the extant literature on sports and management, as well as a critical analysis of media reports.
Findings
Globalisation has emerged as a new force that has changed the way corporations are managed. Financial services, retail and information technology firms have all responded to this new wave – and so also has sports. Unfortunately while sports have the potential to teach lessons on management strategy, management researchers seem to have relegated sports to the sociology and psychology disciplines.
Practical implications
The Barclays Premier league football provides a unique environment for management decisions and processes to occur in a range of markets and at varied levels. However, the globalisation of professional sports has received relatively very little attention in the academic literature – especially in the field of business and management.
Originality/value
This paper contributes to the scant literature on the management implications of football by highlighting how globalisation has affected and reconfigured professional sports using the influx of foreign players into the English football league as a point of departure.
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Erfan Moradi, Mohammad Ehsani, Marjan Saffari and Rasool Norouzi Seyed Hosseini
This paper aims to identify factors that affect the sports tourism destination's competitiveness on a small island. Hence, this study looks at and evaluates these factors. The…
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to identify factors that affect the sports tourism destination's competitiveness on a small island. Hence, this study looks at and evaluates these factors. The study then comes up with a model that clarifies the interrelationships between these factors.
Design/methodology/approach
The authors broke down the data analysis process into three steps. The first step was to conduct a literature review and use industry and academia experts' help to determine the essential aspects (fuzzy Delphi method). Then, a hierarchical model was developed, and the factors were categorised using the interpretive structural modelling (ISM) approach. Factors' driving and dependency power were also determined using MICMAC analysis.
Findings
This work has identified 13 key factors related to the sports tourism destination's competitiveness on a small island. For a small island like Kish Island, the two independent variables (government support and destination political stability) that define the institutional framework for the destination are most important. Building corresponding competitive and support strategies to address these two independent variables is thus beneficial.
Research limitations/implications
The research's results provide decision-makers, practitioners, and researchers with new insights into the hierarchical model of determinants. The study will fill the existing gap between theory and practice.
Practical implications
Sports tourism destination managers on small islands may benefit from the proposed model since the model will enable them to organise the managers' priorities better to enhance the managers' destinations' competitiveness and provide tourists with a more accurate depiction of the destination.
Originality/value
According to the authors' knowledge, the research design presented in this article has provided the first attempt to hierarchical analyse these factors and develop a model for sports tourism destination competitiveness on small islands and destinations with less-developed economies. This study fills the gap in the destination competitiveness and sports tourism literature by not only identifying the key influencing factors but also examining the interactions between these factors and providing empirical evidence supporting their relationships.
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Looks at the sports industry and addresses the current situation for authors seeking to publish in the area of sports marketing. Sports currently represents the eleventh largest…
Abstract
Looks at the sports industry and addresses the current situation for authors seeking to publish in the area of sports marketing. Sports currently represents the eleventh largest industry in the USA. Despite this, there are few mainstream marketing journals willing to publish manuscripts on sports marketing. In an effort to circumvent this problem, some sports marketing authors have “disguised” their research under the guise of “servicescapes” or leisure services. Looks at the topical content of the leading outlet for sports marketing manuscripts, Sport Marketing Quarterly. The author classifies the articles into 18 categories. Sponsorship is the most frequent topic for sport marketing papers, followed by general research and research on fans, spectators, and participants. Provides an extensive bibliography of sport‐marketing articles published in academic journals. While a few of these are in marketing journals, the vast majority are published “out of field”.
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Veerle De Bosscher, Paul De Knop and Maarten van Bottenburg
James M. Gladden and Richard Wolfe
Given the importance of image matching as a rationale for sponsorship investment, this paper examines the extent to which image matching occurs in U.S. intercollegiate athletics…
Abstract
Given the importance of image matching as a rationale for sponsorship investment, this paper examines the extent to which image matching occurs in U.S. intercollegiate athletics. Utilizing student-athlete education and athletic program ethics as image dimensions, while controlling for winning, the authors find that individual corporations tend to sponsor athletic programs that project very different images. The authors then prescribe an approach that prospective sponsors could use to determine appropriate image matches.
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The purpose of this paper is to evaluate the position of sport management education (SME) in relation to employment in the sport fitness industry and if a shift towards a greater…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to evaluate the position of sport management education (SME) in relation to employment in the sport fitness industry and if a shift towards a greater emphasis on business and management module teaching is justified or conversely a greater utilisation of the rich data being generated by sport management researchers can be applied to the vocational development of sport management students.
Design/methodology/approach
The study was conducted in two parts. Part 1 consisted of interviews with the author by an interviewer to explore their industry experiences, the author’s experience of entrepreneurial sport industry business and intrapreneurial sport teaching. The resultant data have been distilled into a series of paradigms, including employing sport industry staff and teaching sport management. Part 2 triangulates part 1 with the managerial experience of sports and leisure centre managers to develop a qualitative study. Sports and leisure centre managers were interviewed regarding candidate and employee competences judged as extreme examples of sport management knowledge and understanding.
Findings
Four themes emerged, such as alignment, underpinning subject-specific knowledge, a voice from the sport industry in developing SME and postgraduate opportunities for work-based learning.
Research limitations/implications
A small-scale study that requires further research in each of the three areas: sport spectator, sport participation and elite performer management.
Practical implications
The sport centre interview instrument, with some refinements, could form the basis of an improved system to gain rich data from industry members of higher education business advisory groups. The developed data collection tool could increase the effective collection of data from a wider cohort.
Originality/value
The approach has produced an adapted category of pedagogy. Employability inspired teaching (EiT) is an original terminology describing the subject-specific content that leads to improved opportunities for subject (sport) industry employment.
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Cheri L. Bradish, Julie A. Stevens and Anna H. Lathrop
Few would question that one of the most significant determinants of growth in the sport industry — from a sport management, marketing, and sponsorship perspective — has been the…
Abstract
Few would question that one of the most significant determinants of growth in the sport industry — from a sport management, marketing, and sponsorship perspective — has been the inf luence of globalization. Product expansion and communication messages have targeted the 'global consumer,' and the recognition of a 'global brand' has come to epitomize successful sport marketing. Or, has it? Although global management practices present the possibility of expanded consumer markets, a number of marketing strategists have recently begun to question the use of standardized global marketing campaigns that lack national or regional distinctiveness. At issue, is the positioning of 'regionalism' within global sport marketing strategies. This paper will investigate the role of 'regionalism' in sport marketing through; a) an examination of the regional sport marketing strategy of a leading Canadian all-sports television cable network (Rogers Sportsnet) that targets four distinct regions across Canada, and b) a survey of Canadian Generation Y youth sport participation and spectatorship trends across four regions. Implications for regional positioning within sport marketing strategies will also be discussed.
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