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In the age of nine-figure transfer fees and football stars building their own brands and follower base, a shift in fan identification in football appears to be taking place as athletes can build strong connections with their followers. This paper examines the level of identification shown by football fans towards both their favourite team and their favourite player, in connection with the concept of fan loyalty.

A total of 4,707 international respondents participated in an online survey to examine the relationship between fan identification and fan loyalty, and to measure the impact of variables like country, player, club, on fan identification using multi-regression analyses.

The results underline the strong presence of team identification compared to identification of single players. Results have also revealed that the relationship between a fan's favourite team and player has a significant impact on identification levels towards both actors. Fans supporting a foreign club were found to show significantly stronger team identification than those who support a club from their own country or region.

This research contributes to the growing body of publications in the field of sports consumer research and underlines the importance of understanding the quality of relationships and thus the identification of fans with clubs and individual players for the stakeholders involved. International sports marketing is becoming increasingly important and an understanding of fan interests is essential for effective marketing, as information on trends in fan interests enables a more tailored strategy for clubs and sponsors.

Supporting distant teams is a frequent phenomenon. Through the lens of the social identity theory, this research aims to examine differences between local and distant fans regarding drivers of team identification.

A multigroup structural equation model was employed. The data were collected through an online survey with 1,285 sports fans.

Team distinctiveness constitutes an important aspect fueling identification for all fans, whereas congruence between own and team personality is important for local and displaced fans only. Team prestige does not impact identification for either group.

To build up a base of highly identified supporters, clubs should emphasize those aspects of team brands that fans consider distinctive. When targeting local fans, clubs should also focus on communicating the brand's unique personality aspects.

This is the first study that assesses the potential differences behind fans' social identification with local and distant teams.

The study aimed to establish football fans' levels of social identity, team loyalty, and behavioral intentions toward sports consumption and to determine the relationship between these variables using a structural equation model.

Research methods: The research model was tested by data analysis using AMOS 23.0. The study sample included 518 football fans with mean age 30.87 (±10.15) years. Data were collected using an online questionnaire delivered to football fans via social media.

The results supported the study hypotheses and showed that social identity and team loyalty had a significant effect on behavioral intention toward sport consumption for football teams. Social identity was found to have a direct effect on sport consumption behaviors. It was further established that team loyalty was a mediator in the relationship between the fans' social identity and behavioral intention toward sports consumption.

The study planned to collect the data at the stadium entrance before the game; however, it was not possible to reach the fans face-to-face due to the COVID-19 pandemic, and therefore, the data were collected online.

By understanding how the extent of social identity affects sports consumption intention, sports club managers can achieve a higher level of fan loyalty to their teams.

The present study provides additional insight into the available literature on team identification. It demonstrated that team identification was associated with social identity and that social identity had an impact on sports consumption behaviors.

This study is an original study in that it is a study in which the social identity scale is used together with the variables of team loyalty and sports consumption behavior intention. The findings of this study help understand the processes that shape the behavioral intentions of football fans toward sports consumption. Furthermore, the mediating role of the developed model was tested using team loyalty.

Drawing upon the theory of communication visibility, this research intends to investigate the direct effect of enterprise social media (ESM) usage on team members’ knowledge creation capability (KCC) and the mediating effects of psychological safety and team identification. In addition, it aims to untangle how the efficacy of ESM usage varies between pre- and post-COVID-19 periods.

Using two-wave survey data from 240 members nested within 60 teams, this study utilizes a multilevel approach to test the proposed hypotheses.

We discover that ESM usage enhances team members’ KCC. More importantly, the results show that psychological safety and team identification mediate the ESM–KCC linkage. Interestingly, we further find that the impacts of ESM usage on team members’ KCC, psychological safety, and team identification are stronger in the pre-COVID-19 period than those in the post-COVID-19 period.

This research sheds light on the ESM literature by unraveling the mechanisms of psychological safety and team identification underlying the linkage between ESM usage and team members’ KCC. Moreover, it advances our understanding of the differential efficacy of ESM usage in pre- and post-COVID-19 periods.

The purpose of this study was to compare four different consumer pathway models based on identity theory, attitude/loyalty theory, lifestyle theory and hierarchy of effects theory, each with associated instruments measuring connection to the team.

The authors did a two-study analysis, first collecting data from people aware of an NFL team (N = 218) and then an MLS team (N = 209) to determine which connection item performed better.

The authors found that the Consumer Pathway for Sport Fandom based on the hierarchy of effects theory and its associated interest measurement item performed better than the other three frameworks and items. The Interest item shared the most variance with games attended, games intending to attend, games watched via media and games intending to watch via media.

The Consumer Pathway for Sport Fandom represents the entire consumer spectrum from non-aware consumers all the way up to die-hard sports fans. This pathway will allow sport marketers to track their consumers from initial awareness of the product or service all the way through the brand relationship to ultimate loyalty.

The aim of this paper is to investigate the interaction effect that sponsor-team congruence and team fan (home/rival team) have on the influence of different types of sports sponsorship (joint, corporate social responsibility [CSR]-linked and conventional sponsorship) on fans' attitudes and purchase intentions toward the sponsor.

Two experimental studies were conducted on 391 and 297 participants. The data gathered underwent analysis through five multivariate general linear model analyses.

The study found that CSR-linked sponsorship had the strongest positive impact and the weakest negative impact on the attitude and purchase intention of home team supporters and the attitude of rival team supporters. Nonetheless, the sponsor-team congruence did not significantly moderate the relationship. Additionally, the research demonstrated that the fan identity of both home and rival teams moderates the impact of sports sponsorships on attitude and purchase intention.

Previous research has studied the effectiveness of sponsorship format types independently. This is the first research comparing sponsorship formats regarding fan type and congruence.

Agile project teams are self-managing and self-organizing teams, and these two characteristics are pivotal attributes of emergent leadership. Emergent leadership is thus common in agile teams – however, how these (informal) emergent leaders can be identified in teams remains far from understood. The purpose of this research is to uncover techniques that enable top management to identify emergent agile leaders.

We approached six agile teams from four organizations. We employ social network analysis (SNA) and aggregation approaches to identify emergent agile leaders.

We approached six agile teams from four organizations. We employ SNA and aggregation approaches to identify emergent agile leaders.

Seven emergent leaders are identified using the SNA and aggregation approaches. The same leaders are also identified using the KeyPlayer algorithms. One emergent leader is identified from each of the five teams, for a total of five emergent leaders from the five teams. However, two emergent leaders are identified for the remaining sixth team.

Emergent leadership is a relatively new phenomenon where leaders emerge from within teams without having a formal leadership assigned role. A challenge remains as to how such leaders can be identified without any formal leadership status. We contribute by showing how network analysis and aggregation approaches are suitable for the identification of emergent leadership talent within teams. In addition, we help advance leadership research by describing the network behaviors of emergent leaders and offering a way forward to identify more than one emergent leader in a team. We also show some limitations of the approaches used and offer some useful insights.

For decades, consumer identification and motivation, either alone or jointly, have been essential constructs for behavioral researchers. The resultant output is significant in terms of both quality and quantity. However, at a deeper level, a lack of conceptual clarity in the relationship between these constructs has led to theoretical and practical irregularities, which this study aims to address.

An online questionnaire was distributed to sport consumers aged over 18 participating in an online panel, prompted 293 completed responses. Structural equations modeling was used to examine the data.

Findings show that identification mediates the effects of intrinsic and extrinsic motivation on sport supporters’ loyalty and explain 90% of the variance in that construct. In addition, identification mediates the adverse effects of extrinsic motivation on loyalty and strengthens loyalty when levels of satisfaction decline.

This study extends previous work by providing a theoretical perspective that clarifies the relationship between motivation and consumer identification; deepens theory by empirically observing the relationship at different levels of consumer satisfaction; and presents a parsimonious, valid and reliable method that managers can leverage to strengthen sport supporters’ loyalty.

This study aims to identify the determining factors of perceived altruism and attitude toward an inclusive sponsorship activation, as well as the impact of these variables on the attitude toward the sponsor.

Online survey data were obtained from 1,228 respondents from France, the UK and South Africa. The data were analyzed using partial least squares structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM).

The results show that the cause-brand fit has a strong positive impact on the perceived altruism toward the motivations underlying inclusive activation, while skepticism toward advertising has a very weak negative impact. In return, perceived altruism positively influences the attitude toward inclusive activation and sponsor attitude. Furthermore, this attitude toward inclusive activation is positively influenced by involvement in women’s soccer and France men’s national football team identification. The attitude toward inclusive activation also positively influences the attitude toward sponsor attitude. However, contrary to what had been advanced, identification with the France women’s national football team and the nationality of the respondents (French, British or South African) had no impact on the attitude toward inclusive activation, while the perceived importance of the cause had very weak impact on attitudes toward inclusive activation.

This study highlights the potential benefits of investing in inclusive sponsorship activations, particularly with respect to their positive impact on consumer attitude toward sponsor attitude. It also highlights the importance of establishing, in advance, a strong association between the brand image and the cause supported, so that the motivations underlying the inclusive activations are perceived as more altruistic.

This article aims to analyze the way the leader acts in the development of collective competencies (CC) of fashion work teams, seeking to demonstrate ways in which the leader can collaborate for the development of the collective work.

With a qualitative approach, this paper carried out a case study strategy having the Creation Center of a fashion group from Santa Catarina, Brazil as a research object. Data collection took place through semi-structured interviews and participant observation with 36 employees from 6 work teams from 5 clothing brands.

Our findings make it clear that the leader influences the CC development of fashion work teams. The leader's role becomes essential for directing and developing his team, seeking to encourage participation and cooperation between team members to achieve the objectives and expected results. It was considered that the CC development could be associated with how much the leader represents his team and contributes with guidelines that emphasize the collective and the people and teams' development. The leader who makes the cooperative relationship feasible, encourages effort and promotes cohesion and teamwork tends to collaborate with actions that foster CC development.

From a theoretical perspective, it is the first study to analyze empirically the relationship between leadership and CC. A model with 18 guidelines was developed, divided into six determining factors (activity dynamics, team composition, individual characteristics and dispositions, team integration, communication and physical structure) that demonstrated the way the leader collaborates for the CC development. For the fashion industry, this study demonstrates elements capable of assisting collective creativity and the development of fashion collections.