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Sports clubs are one of the most important elements in the sports systems of today’s societies. In the field of sport, a sports club aims, among other things, to make the sport more affordable and accessible to all, showing the organizational characteristics of companies, but with a much broader social mission. The aim of this chapter is to characterise sports clubs as potentially favorable environments for sports entrepreneurship, making questions about their nature and purposes. Aspects such as the hybridization of organizations, the progressive professionalisation of their members, the use of the entrepreneurial spirit as an instrument to facilitate the achievement of the organisation’s objectives or the need to seek alternative sources of funding to traditional public aid are discussed in the context of increasingly hostile and competitive environments, where social organizations must seek out resources in a similar way to companies.

The purpose of this paper is to examine a possible negative spillover effect in sports sponsorship to answer whether the sponsored team’s poor performance will have a negative effect on audiences’ trust in its sponsor’s brand. The authors further analysed whether the audience’s attitude towards the team plays a mediating role and whether the audience’s personality type (active vs passive) plays a moderating role in this negative spillover effect.

Three experimental studies were conducted with 380 Chinese undergraduates and MBA student participants over two years. The authors designed the experiment as a computer-mediated intervention in which good, poor and neutral performance groups were compared. After the respondents were exposed to the intervention, we asked them to answer questions using a computer terminal. We analysed the data from the three experiments through analysis of variance (ANOVA), regression analysis and a bootstrap.

The audiences who were exposed to a team’s poor performance condition reported less trust in the sponsor’s brand relative to those exposed to a good performance condition, and the brand trust was even lower than for those who were exposed to a control condition (no performance information). Further, the audience’s negative attitude towards the sports team mediated the negative effect of the team’s poor performance on its sponsor’s brand trust. The negative effect was more obvious for individuals with Type A personalities (active) than for those with Type B personalities (passive).

The prior literature has neglected a possible negative effect of a sports team’s performance on its sponsor’s brand trust. In particular, questions of whether, how and when this negative effect occurs are critical for sponsors, teams, and audiences. Since sports team sponsorship is burgeoning in China, the negative implications are unclear in this new context. Thus, the revelation that the negative spillover effects of a team’s poor performance on audiences’ trust in the sponsor’s brand provides two original contributions. First, the negative effect reveals value for multiple sponsorship stakeholders. Second, the Chinese context in this study adds value for future research and practice regarding both Chinese-foreign and domestic Chinese decisions.

Identifies performance sport as a phenomenon which has received relatively little conceptual or management analysis. The management of excellence in performance sport is conceptualized as an input‐treatment‐output‐system. Focuses on an evaluation of the key elements of an integrated system and compares these against current provision in the UK. Identifies a failure to distinguish between community recreation and performance sport and a dearth of knowledge about talent identification as significant weaknesses. Concludes that there is an absence of co‐ordinated management and structure, and that investment in education and training is necessary to sustain progress.

Coaches from both the professional and college ranks are often put forth as archetypal examples of effective leaders – individuals’ whose behaviors, styles, and wisdom provide the ever elusive playbook for how to successfully lead others. While numerous books and articles in the popular press put forth advice from leaders in the sports world, numerous empirical studies of the drivers of successful sports leadership and the factors that contribute to leader success in the context of sports have also been conducted. In this chapter, we first provide a broad review of empirical leadership research conducted within the sports world and examine how research within the sports context provides a suitable and advantageous setting for leadership research in general. Second, we offer a road map of opportunities for future leadership studies within the context of sports. The goal of this chapter is to stimulate and rally more thought-provoking research related to leadership in sports that generates insights for organizational leadership across contexts.

The purpose of this study is to develop insight into the socio‐economic determinants of African sports performance. Previous studies have argued that a country's success in sports is directly related to the economic resources that are available for those sports. However, factors that are used to determine the levels of success for developed countries are not necessarily the same, or bear the same weight, as for developing countries.

The premise of this study is to identify specific factors that increase success in sports in developing countries by means of several econometric specifications using cross sectional data for African countries.

This study finds evidence that suggests that Africa's performance in sports is dependent on a range of socio‐economic factors, which in some respects confirms worldwide studies. Money does indeed matter: GDP was the overwhelmingly consistent dependent variable in all four models tested. Interestingly, important shades of distinction between the various dependent variables are found.

There is a lack of research in the field of sports and organizational economics especially in emerging countries. Previous studies have treated countries as a homogeneous grouping and allowed the broad aggregates to reveal the determinants. This study focuses on a sub‐group of countries that are relatively poor, have had a complex past with colonial masters, and that generally have weak administrative structures.

Eating disorders are common in sporting populations. They have an adverse effect on athletic performance and can represent a serious health problem. Many practitioners who work with athletes require guidance on how best to respond to these problems. The purpose of this paper is to present an overview of what can be done to address the problem of eating disorders in a high performance sports environment.

Three clinicians (a psychiatrist, dietitian and psychologist) with many years experience of working in a sports environment were tasked with drafting guidelines relevant to elite sport in consultation with a senior sports physician. The group met on three occasions and corresponded by e‐mail over a 15‐month period. Existing guidelines and literature were reviewed and adapted to the UK high performance sports environment. The guideline was targeted at all practitioners, including coaches, who work in this setting and comments were invited from national sports institutes and governing bodies before the document was finalised.

The guideline summarises current best practice in the prevention of eating disorders in a sports environment. Screening processes are described alongside the necessary response to a positive screen. Advice on accessing therapy and returning to sport during recovery is also provided. Finally guidance is given on how and when to de‐select athletes who are ill.

This paper presents a comprehensive overview of what can be done to address the problem of eating disorders in a high performance sports environment. It provides practical suggestions and guidance on principles rather than a definitive response to every eventuality in an area that is often difficult and complex.

Rugby union’s late move to professionalism in 1995 has led to concerns about the financial development of the game. The purpose of this paper is to extend the knowledge base on professional team sports in the UK by analysing the financial and sporting performance of rugby union clubs.

Data were obtained by dissecting the annual accounts of nine English Premiership rugby clubs between 2006 and 2015. Analysis was performed using the performance assessment model, which analyses both financial and sporting areas of performance and is devised through statistical analysis procedures to provide a holistic measure of overall performance for each club.

There is financial disparity amongst clubs that has widened over the period of the study. In terms of sporting performance, the data suggest that competition is more equal, something that is less evident in other UK professional team sports such as football and rugby league. Correlation analysis reveals that overall performance varies over time in cycles.

The study has implications for the clubs competing in the English Premiership and for the league organisers themselves, particularly with reference to regulatory procedures such as raising the salary cap and increased broadcasting deals.

The paper has demonstrated the importance of balancing multiple performance objectives in professional team sports and has expanded the academic discussion on the financial health of professional team sports in the UK, particularly with reference to the financial health of rugby union where research has historically been scarce.

This paper aims to clarify the extent to which youth sports clubs guide their coaches to recognise health promotion as a part of the coaching practice. The guidance activity of clubs is seen parallel to internal organisational communication.

A survey of 93 (from 120, 78 per cent) youth sports clubs in Finland was carried out, and a total of 273 sports club officials acted as respondents. The clubs' guidance activity was examined under three domains: sports performance time, non‐performance sports club time, and health topics.

In general, youth sports clubs were passive on guiding their coaches on health promotion. Guidance activity was evident concerning actual sports performance time, whereas non‐performance sports club time received much less attention. Health topics were guided to a varying degree in that the clubs had been active in guiding the coaches on topics such as the risks of being physically active when ill, injury prevention, and sleep/rest, whereas topics such as nutrition and the use of various substances were much less acknowledged.

The study limitations relate to self‐reported data, and the complexity of assessing sports clubs. As one of the first studies in the area, all the measurement instruments and methods were created from the outset. Therefore, further studies are required for validation purposes. Despite the limitations, this study provides pioneering baseline information.

The results indicate that youth sports clubs are still discipline and competition oriented. Health promotion guidance especially regarding non‐performance sports club time and several health topics needs to be addressed by the clubs in order to meet the clubs' own health‐related intentions.

These findings are unique in this relatively new setting for health promotion, and they can act as a baseline for research methodology development and further studies.

Since the 1990s, the International Olympic Committee has offered nations more medal-winning opportunities at every Winter Games. Meanwhile, many countries are constrained by their limited financial resources to target sports strategically. The purpose of this paper is to examine the targeting approaches to Olympic Winter Sports of National Sports Agencies (NSAs), and to identify the factors they assess in the decision-making process.

The data were collected through semi-structured interviews with 11 decision makers of medal-winning NSAs at the 2014 Sochi Games. The data were then analysed with reference to strategic management in an approach which combines a resource-based view (RBV) with a market-based view (MBV) to build a competitive advantage.

The results show that NSAs, like firms, combine an internal analysis that reflects the RBV on resources and capabilities (e.g. athletes’ performance per sport and sport-specific elite sport system), with an external analysis of the competitive environment that reflects an MBV (e.g. sport’s medal market size and intensity of competition at Games) to target sports. Using this information, two phases were distinguished: first, the target sports are identified and finance is prioritised accordingly; second, the allocation of the nation’s resources is constantly reviewed in order to optimise it.

Even though social desirability bias in the responses could not be fully excluded, the findings can help policy-makers to distinguish between the internal and external factors identified in this study, and to make more strategic decisions by combining RBV and MBV approaches to build-up their nation’s competitive advantage.

This paper models the targeting strategies of NSAs during an Olympic cycle by introducing the competitive positioning of firms to sports management.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the influence of technological creativity for sports and knowledge sharing on individual performance, and to analyze the correlation among creativity for sports technologies, knowledge sharing, and individual performance, via the mediating effect of athletes' self‐efficacy.

This study selected 250 current athletes, including tennis players, track and field athletes, volleyball players, etc. as the subjects. Statistical methods, such as Cronbach's α, factor analysis, Pearson's correlation, regression analysis, and path analysis, were used to perform analyses.

It was found that among the technological creativity for sports, athletes' creativity and analytic capacity had significant positive influence on task performance and team performance in athletes' individual performance. In other words, the improvement in athletes' self‐efficacy may improve their creativity and level of technological capacity, which further improves team performance and task performance.

For coaches it is necessary to constantly strengthen athletes' self‐efficacy and provide them with the space for the development of creativity and technological capacity in order to specifically improve their athletic performance. This study integrated relevant theories of technological creativity with those of self‐efficacy to investigate issues regarding improvements in athletes' performance. At present, there is a lack of relevant studies on technological creativity for sports. The research results can serve as a reference to future studies for continuous clarification of investigations into technological creativity for sports.