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The purpose of this paper is to foster a better understanding of how decision-making processes work in sport clubs and to develop appropriate advisory concepts or management tools in order to successfully realize structural changes in sport clubs. This paper examines the decision-making processes associated with an external advisory programme. Based on the assumption of bounded rationality, the garbage can model is used to grasp these decision-making processes theoretically and to access them empirically.

Based on a case study framework, an in-depth analysis of the decision-making and implementation processes involved in an advisory programme was performed in ten selected football clubs. Guided interviews were conducted on the basis of the four streams of the garbage can model. The interviews were analysed with qualitative content analysis.

Results show that three types of club can be distinguished in terms of their implementation processes: low implementation of the external input; partial implementation of the external input; and rigorous implementation of the external input. In addition, the analysis shows that the participants in the advisory programme are the key actors in both the decision-making process and the implementation.

The paper provides insights into the practicability of advisory programmes for sport clubs and the transfer to the clubs’ practical decision-making routines. Additionally, it shows how sport clubs deal with (external) advisory impulses, and which different decision-making practices underlie these processes.

The purpose of this paper is to identify types of professionalization in Swiss national sport federations (NSFs) and analyze organizational characteristics associated with specific types of professionalization. Such types reveal common patterns among the increasingly complex organizational designs of NSFs and thus contribute to the understanding of professionalization in NSFs.

An online survey of all Swiss NSFs was conducted to identify types of professionalization in these organizations using hierarchical cluster analysis, based on a multi-dimensional framework of professionalization.

The analysis revealed four types of professionalization: formalized NSFs managed by paid staff, NSFs managed by volunteers and a few paid staff off the field, NSFs with differing formalization and paid staff on the field, and moderately formalized NSFs managed by volunteers. The types differ in terms of the NSFs’ organizational characteristics, in particular, size, financial resources, Olympic status, and performance.

Applying factor and cluster analysis is a new approach to analyzing professionalization in NSFs that makes uncovering distinctive organizational patterns among a large number of NSFs possible. These results lay the foundation for understanding the professionalization of NSFs, counseling NSFs on their organizational development, and conducting future research on the design types of sport organizations.

The relevance of merchandise for professional football clubs is uncontroversial. Especially the constantly growing e-commerce sales elicits disruptive market changes such as global brand visibility or data-driven customer relationship management strategies. To exhaust these possibilities, it is a precondition that merchandising costumers choose the official online fan shop as the first choice channel instead of a third-party supplier. Thus, the purpose of this study is to figure out if the club as a retailer and the loyalty to a club influence the fans' channel choice when purchasing licensed sports merchandise online.

To do so, a choice-based conjoint analysis for a jersey purchase embedded in an online questionnaire was conducted (sample: n = 589) to investigate the importance of the online supplier, relative to the tangible factors price, shipping speed and free added values and the influence of fan loyalty within the e-commerce purchase channel choice.

The findings reveal that the price has the highest relative importance (47%), but, as a sport specific peculiarity, the relative importance of the online supplier (22%) is higher than added values (20%) and shipping speed (11%). But, these overall findings are significantly affected by the level of fan loyalty. Based on the findings, implications that influence the fans' decision-making practices are derived for clubs.

This study is the one of the first in sports management research, focusing straight on the purchase channel importance (affected by fan loyalty) when purchasing merchandising online.

The intention of this paper is to identify the scope and purpose of the use of digital tools in voluntary sports clubs (VSCs) and to identify club-specific factors that influence their usage behavior.

An online survey was conducted among VSCs in Austria and in Germany (n = 787). To answer the key questions, patterns of digital use in VSCs were analyzed in relation to the overall organizational goals and organizational capacity. In addition to the description of the clubs' usage behavior patterns, a multiple linear regression model (blockwise) and quantile regression models were estimated.

The descriptive results show that digital instruments are most used in the areas of “internal/external communication” (93.7%) and “to report membership data to federations” (82.1%). The OLS and quantile regression models indicate that user behavior is primarily influenced by the following factors: the goals of “commitment/success in competitive sports” and “cooperation with other institutions”; the organizational factors “digital processes do not fit with our club culture”, “proportion of volunteers with administrative tasks”, “we do not yet have a clear digitalization strategy for our club” and “lack of financial resources for necessary IT investments”.

Digital technologies appear to be promising for organizational development in VSCs. However, what the usage behavior of digital instruments in VSCs currently is, and by which factors this usage is influenced, has not been the focus of empirical analysis yet. The study provides initial insights into the understanding of digitalization in VSCs that can be used for consulting and ongoing research.

The comparatively high salaries of professional players during their active athletic career should allow them to accumulate an adequate level of precautionary savings for a financially autonomous post-sport career. However, not all players succeed in accumulating sustainable financial assets. Therefore, the question arises how professional players' financial precaution within the social setting football is shaped. As no empirical analyses have yet been carried out on this issue, the study study examines football players' precautionary practices and motives.

Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 25 German (former) professional football players. The authors used qualitative content analysis to analyse the data, expanding the analysis to include reconstructive elements to create different precautionary types.

The results reveal that players deal with both career-specific as well as precaution-related risks quite heterogeneously. Accordingly, three precautionary types characterised by distinct forms of precautionary saving practices are identified. The authors also find that although the players are aware of the uncertainties and risks related to their professional football careers, it does not say much about the concrete implementation of adequate precautionary practices.

The findings contribute to a better understanding of precautionary saving practices among football players.

Moreover, the findings contribute to a better understanding of precautionary saving practices not only specifically among (former) football players, but generally among individuals that face high occupational career risks and earn high salaries to develop preventative concepts and approaches to sustainable financial planning.

This paper is the first empirical study that analyses precautionary savings practices of the specific population of elite athletes in high income sports professional football.

Workplace health promotion (WHP) is becoming increasingly important due to the ageing workforce and a shortage of skilled workers. Nevertheless, too few companies have reacted to the demographic change and introduced health-promoting measures. This paper aims to identify which factors influence the implementation of WHP, especially in small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in rural areas.

253 companies in a rural area in the federal state of Saxony (Germany) were surveyed using a standardised questionnaire via a computer-assisted telephone interview. Bivariate analyses and logistic regression models were carried out. The focus was on the relationship between the status of WHP and the size of the company, pressure of demographic change, health-related attitude and organisational capacity factors.

It was shown that, in addition to the control variables company size and pressure of the shortage of skilled workers, a company's attitude regarding health promotion, financial capacity and planning and development capacity has a relevant influence on the status of WHP.

Based on the results, targeted measures can be developed and converted to implement WHP, particularly in SMEs in rural regions. The focus should be on sensitisation, knowledge transfer and capacity development.

The present paper reveals the relationship between company size, pressure of demographic change, health-related attitude and organisational capacities regarding the status of health-promoting measures in SMEs in a rural region.

Quality function deployment (QFD) has had considerable success in terms of its implementation in companies. It has also been the subject of many studies in recent years. It seems, however, that there are some shortcomings in the research on this subject and in particular the lack of an adequate conceptual framework suitable for empirical research. The purpose of this paper is to address this issue.

This study proposes and elaborates a model which examines QFD in relation to three dimensions of performance: improvement of product quality, reduction in costs for R&D, shorter R&D time. The model is empirically tested on data gathered on a stratified random sample of manufacturing plants through the application of valid and reliable measures. The model is tested using structural equation modeling.

The results show three distinct paths of direct influence which lead, respectively, to superior economic performance. The empirical study has shown that the success of a QFD project is mainly influenced by motivated employees in the QFD project team. A comprehensive technical support for the QFD project is also a crucial key success factor. The strict organization of the QFD project is of minor, however still remarkable importance for the success.

This article specifically addresses the following four questions. What are the variables which affect QFD? What are the outcomes from using QFD? What relationships exist between QFD variables and outcomes? What guidelines may be offered for managers of QFD? By answering these questions the manager will get a clear understanding of the impact of QFD on corporate success.