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The purpose of this paper is to extend brand identification theory to the sports team context by testing the direct and indirect effects of a sports team’s personality, sports fans’ identification with the team, and the effect of the length of fans’ relationship with a team on their loyalty to it.

The authors conducted a quantitative study among ice hockey fans of one Finnish hockey team before play-off games. Data came from an online questionnaire generating 1,166 responses.

The authors find that: first, identification with a team mediates the effects of brand personality on attitudinal loyalty and behavioral loyalty; second, brand personality is a stronger driver of identification among newer fans; and third, brand personality has a stronger influence on both attitudinal and behavioral loyalty among newer fans. These findings stress the importance of sports brand’s personality in driving fans’ identification with the team and their loyalty to it.

The study develops and tests a new conceptual model on consumer loyalty in the sports team context. The authors shed light on how sports team personality affects its fans’ identification with the team and the formation of fan loyalty, from the perspective of fans’ relationship length.

The present study aims to examine how and when authoritarian leadership affects employee creativity. Based on social exchange theory and team identification literature, the present research attempts to simultaneously explore how leader–member exchange (LMX) and team identification serve as two important mediating processes in the relationship between authoritarian leadership and employee creativity. Furthermore, this research uncovers the mechanism under which conditions the effects of authoritarian leadership will be magnified or minimized.

A survey has been conducted in China by using a questionnaire to collect data. The study sample consisted of 325 employees. LISREL 8.7 and SPSS 18.0 were used to test the mediating and moderating effects, respectively.

Results from 325 employees revealed that both LMX and team identification mediated the negative relationships between authoritarian leadership and employee creativity. Specifically, the relationship between two mediators was that LMX was positively related to team identification. In addition, the relationship between authoritarian leaderships and LMX and team identification was moderated by power distance, such that the negative relationships will be weaker with high power distance and stronger with low power distance.

First, firms and managers should recognize and take actions to reduce the negative effects of authoritarian leadership, such as effective selection system and interventional mechanisms because authoritarian leadership is important in influencing employee creativity. Second, managers are suggested to take specific actions, such as increasing communications and team-building activities, to promote LMX and team identification, thereby enhancing employee creativity. Third, managers should engage in behaviors that motivate employee creativity, such as empowerment behaviors, other than authoritarian leadership, when the employee has low power distance.

The primary contribution of this research is that two psychological processes (i.e. LMX and team identification) have been identified through which authoritarian leadership is related to employee creativity. Meanwhile, this study explores the relationship between LMX and team identification. Moreover, the current research deepens our understanding of power distance by empirically examining the moderating effect of power distance. Overall, the findings extend our understanding about the relationship between authoritarian leadership and employee creativity and contribute to literature on authoritarian leadership and creativity.

The purpose of this paper is to understand how team identification and country influence professional baseball team spectators’ evaluations of service quality factors, perceived value and future behavioral intentions.

Data were collected online from sports consumers of the Chinese Professional Baseball League (CPBL) in Taiwan (n = 600) and Major League Baseball in the USA (n = 460). A regression-based estimation method (PROCESS) and structural equation modeling approach were used to assess the relationships.

Both direct and indirect (via perceived value) effects of most service quality factors (schedule convenience, economic consideration, game amenities, ticket service and venue quality) on behavioral intentions are stronger for lowly than for highly identified CPBL fans. The indirect effect of home team on behavioral intentions is stronger for the lowly identified CPBL fans. The direct effect of game amenities and the indirect effect of venue quality (via perceived value) on behavioral intentions are stronger for the highly identified MLB fans. The indirect effect of opposing team and economic consideration is stronger for the lowly identified MLB fans. The positive relationship between venue quality and perceived value is stronger for the USA than for Taiwan fans. The relationships between game amenities and perceived value and between perceived value and behavioral intention are perceived to be invariant between fans from the two countries. Taiwan fans’ behavioral intentions tend to be directly and indirectly affected by service quality factors, whereas US fans’ behavioral intentions tend to be indirectly affected by service quality factors.

The study provides empirical evidence of the moderating role of team identification associated with the relationships between separate service quality factors, perceived value and behavioral intentions among consumers of a professional spectator sports in two different countries.

How is strategic consensus formed in top management team (TMT)? Prior literature provides inadequate evidence. A few scholars explore its antecedents from some perspectives (e.g. organizational or team structure) to address this gap but yield confusing results. This study aims to clarify the mechanism to reach TMT strategic consensus and explore both the effect of collective team identification and information elaboration.

Stepwise regression analysis is applied to explore the formation process of strategic consensus by using data collected from 126 TMTs of Chinese firms.

Results show that collective team identification has a positive effect on TMT strategic consensus, whereas information elaboration has a U-shaped effect. Further, the U-shaped relationship between information elaboration and TMT strategic consensus is strengthened by collective team identification.

This study provides a nuanced explanation of the antecedents of strategic consensus in TMT by exploring the effects of collective team identification and information elaboration. Particularly, this study proposes a U-shaped relationship between information elaboration and strategic consensus, which enriches TMT decision-making literature and consensus research. Moreover, by examining the moderating effect of collective team identification, this study articulates why TMT members fail to achieve strategic consensus even when they have sufficiently discussed the task-relevant information.

Accumulating evidence suggests that Team-member exchange (TMX) influences employee work attitudes and behaviours separately from the effects of leader-member exchange (LMX). In particular, little is known of the effect of LMX differentiation (in-group versus out-group) as a process of social exchange that can, in turn, affect TMX quality. To explore this phenomenon, this chapter presents a multi-level model of TMX in organizations, which incorporates LMX differentiation, team identification, team member affect at the individual level, and fairness of LMX differentiation and affective climate at the group-level. We conclude with a discussion of the implications of our model for theory, research, and practice.

This study aims to explore the domain of leader’s creativity and suggests that leader’s creativity can be present as both worker-role creativity and manager-role creativity. Then, the study examines the influence of leader’s worker-role creativity and manager-role creativity on employees’ creativity and team creativity. As a contextual factor, the identification with leader is taken as a moderator at both the individual and team levels.

With data that was collected from 229 employees and 32 team leaders in entrepreneurial and R&D teams of China, hierarchical regression is conducted to test the hypotheses at individual and team levels separately.

The results show that leader identification plays a different role in moderating the effects of worker-role creativity and manager-role creativity on employees’ and team creativity. For the relationships between worker-role creativity and employees’ and team creativity, they are positive when leader identification is high and negative when it is low. For the relationships between manager-role creativity and team creativity, it is stronger when leader identification is higher rather than lower.

This study answers the call for studying the roles of creative role models and provides new evidence of the leader as a role model. The exploration of the domain of leader’s creativity and the different effects on creative outcome brings an interesting perspective on creativity and leadership research.

The present study draws on the advance to develop the content of leader’s creativity. Then, the moderating role of identification with leader between leader’s creativity and employees’ creativity and team creativity is comprehensively examined.

The purpose of the present research was to examine the impact of identity leadership on employees' well-being mediated by team identification and trust in the leader.

In study 1, N = 192 employees participated in a cross-sectional online survey measuring identity leadership, team identification, trust in the leader and well-being (i.e., job satisfaction, work engagement, burnout). In study 2, N = 72 university students participated in a vignette study that manipulated high/low identity leadership and tested its effect on team identification and trust in the leader.

In study 1, identity leadership predicted higher team identification, trust in the leader and well-being of employees. Team identification mediated the positive relationship of identity leadership with both job satisfaction and work engagement, while trust in the leader mediated the negative relationship of identity leadership with burnout. In study 2, team identification and trust in the leader were significantly higher in the high identity leadership condition.

The findings are consistent with the few existing studies on the positive effects of identity leadership. However, due to the correlational nature of the data in study 1, future longitudinal field research is needed to support the current findings and further establish causality for the model as a whole.

Identity leadership seems to be promising to increase well-being among employees. Thus, leadership development programs to foster identity leadership and collective identity should be implemented in organizations and further tested with respect to well-being.

This research contributes to an emerging body of research on the social identity approach to leadership and supports the recent claims that social identity might be one of the links between leader behavior and well-being of employees. Moreover, this study is among the first to investigate and experimentally test the underlying mechanisms of identity leadership.

The purpose of this paper is to explore potential negative outcomes of high fan identification as well as to identify the causal mechanism or mediator by which high identification may result in such negative responses.

A scale development process was used to develop a new mediating construct for the fan identification literature, the Importance of Winning Index (IWIN). Structural equations modeling was used to analyze the surveys.

The IWIN construct represents a new and distinct construct from fan identification. Additionally, IWIN mediates the relationship between fan identification and negative outcome behaviors, thus serving as an explanatory mechanism of when fan identification can produce negative behaviors (in this study Schadenfreude, or wishing ill/harm on rivals).

A student sample and limitation to one context of negative outcomes leaves opportunities for future research to assess the generalizability of these results across various populations and contexts.

Schadenfreude is manifested toward a variety of targets associated with a rival team, including the team's sponsors. Companies should be cautious when selecting what teams they sponsor so that they do not alienate potential consumers who are fans of rival teams. Moreover, the study raises important ethical and social responsibility issues with broader implications suggesting that sports organizations need to promote strong identification among their fans in a responsible manner.

This article is one of few studies that addresses the adverse effects of a highly identified fan/customer base and extends the identification literature by introducing a new variable (IWIN) that mediates the relationship between identification and negative outcomes.

The purpose of this study is to propose a conceptual model for identifying the factors of e-service quality (e-SQ) and for investigating the impact of team identification, e-SQ and satisfaction on behavioural intention to revisit sports websites. The proposed conceptual framework includes five service quality factors of sports websites (usability, privacy, reliability, information, appearance). Based on the previous literature in the areas of e-SQ and team identification, this study attempts to develop a model to better understand the relationships between each construct. The Structural Equation Modelling (SEM) results with a convenience sample of 409 college students reveal that team identification has a positive and significant effect on e-SQ, satisfaction and revisitation. In addition, satisfaction is found to be a mediator between e-SQ and revisitation.

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.