PURPOSE This study developed and tested a theoretical research model delineating the relationships between sports consumers’ team identity and their response to regional identity, sense of community, and community contributions. METHODS To achieve the purpose of this study, a total of 1,196 spectators who attended professional baseball games were surveyed. For the data analysis, confirmatory factor analysis, convergent validity, discriminate validity, and composite reliability were performed to confirm the validity and reliability of the scale through AMOS 24.0. Research model and hypothesis testing were conducted using structural equation modeling, which used data from ten different professional baseball team area contexts. RESULTS The results provide empirical evidence of the positive influence of sports consumers’ regional identity and sense of community on team identity toward community contributions in sporting event area contexts. CONCLUSIONS This study confirmed the role of regional identity and sense of community in building professional sports team identities and community contributions.
PURPOSE This study aimed to analyze factors associated with physical activity (PA) in older adults based on social ecological theory. METHODS Secondary analysis was conducted using raw data from the 2021 Community Health Survey. after excluding 129 non-responses in the PA domain, a total of 74,363 individuals were included in the final analysis. A total of eight factors, including personal (level of depression, history of falls), relational (relationships with neighbors, living alone), community (satisfaction with the local community system, safety), and environmental factors (living environment, natural environment), were selected in accordance with the key points of social ecological theory. To analyze social ecological factors related to the PA of older adults, we conducted a decision tree analysis using Chi-square automatic interaction detection (CHAID). RESULTS The average PA level among older adults was approximately 136 minutes, but the mode and median were both 0 minutes. A total of 20.2% of older adults met the physical activity recommendations, while 79.8% did not. According to the first split of the decision tree, living alone was the most relevant factor associated with the PA of older adults, followed by depression and falls. Older adults living alone, with a depression score of 10 or higher, and who had experienced a fall within the past year, were least likely to meet the PA recommendations. CONCLUSIONS This study urgently suggests that PA programs should target older adults living alone, experiencing depression, and falls.
Purpose The purpose of this study is to examine effects of professional baseball home fans' perception of the community on their recognition of stadium spaces. Methods The subjects of the survey were home fans of baseball. A total of 600 questionnaire(100 fans each team: DOOSAN, LG, SK, LOTTE, HANHWA and KIA) were collected and 510 copies were used as the final analysis data. Collected data was processed by using SPSS 21.0 program. T-test, one-way ANOVA, correction analysis and multiple regression analysis were conducted to test hypothesis. Results There were significant differences of perceptions on community such as perceptions on sense of belonging; favored teams, perceptions on active involvement; gender and favored teams, perceptions on pride of the home town; gender, favored teams and glasses for viewing, and perceptions on classification; educational level and favored teams. There were significant differences of perceptions on stadium spaces such as perceptions on historicity; favored teams and viewing experience, perceptions on authenticity; favored teams and viewing experience, and perceptions on symbolism; age, favored teams and glasses for viewing. Among home fans' perceptions of their community, sense of belonging and pride of the home town had positive effects on their perceptions on historicity among perceptions of stadium spaces, while perceptions of classification had negative effects on them; sense of belonging and pride of the home town had positive effects on both perceptions of authenticity and symbolism. Conclusions The findings indicate that there is a close relationship between the community and professional baseball stadiums, and it is necessary to commonly enhance sense of belonging and pride of the home town for the community in order to promote positive perceptions on stadiums.
Previous work has shown that coaches sought information from several sources; however, there was a strong reliance on learning from other coaches within their social networks. There has been limited research examining the nature of these social networks with other coaches (Trudel and Gilbert 2004). Thus the purpose of this study was to examine the structures of coaches’ social networks of Korean rhythmic gymnasts. Research questions were: (1) What are the network structures of Korean rhythmic gymnasts’ coaches? (2) What structural parameters contribute to coaches’ network structures, and (3) Is there an association between coaches’ network and flow of information in their networks? A total of 37 coaches of youth rhythmic gymnasts (6-18 years old) participated in this study. Each of those coaches was asked to complete a Name Generator Questionnaire (i.e., list four names that you have a close relationship with) and general socio-demographic survey. Data were analyzed using social network analysis tools such as UCINET, p-net, and Quadratic Assignment Procedure. Analysis of network centrality, density, and strong components showed that (1) homophily was identified in the structure of coaches’ social networks (2) homophily (e.g., by gymnasts’ ranking, mentor coaches) contributed to the total social network of coaches, and (3) interacting only with close coaches in the network, coaches received information about coaches/coaching from the strong ties rather than weak ties (Granovetter, 1973). This study also has strong links to Wenger’s (1998) community of practice which posited that groups of people share a common characteristic in practice.
The frailty, characterized by reduced physiological function is closely related to a fall, disability, institutionalization, hospitalization, and mortality in the elderly. A reduced physical fitness is a major phenotype of the frailty. The purpose of this study was to investigate the relationship among pre-frailty, physical activity (PA) and functional fitness in the community dwelling elderly women. The study participants were elderly women (n=338, 70.6±4.2years) aged over 65 who took part in the Korean Healthy Fitness Criteria study for the National Fitness Award Project in 2015. The pre-frailty was defined using the Cardiovascular Health Study frailty criteria. PA was assessed using the International PA Questionnaire (IPAQ). The participants were classified as regular PA participants if they meet the World Health Organization (WHO) PA recommendation for the elderly. Functional fitness was assessed using the composite of the National Fitness Award fitness testing for the elderly. Quality of life was evaluated using EuroQoL visual analogue scale and WHO quality of life assessment. As the results, the pre-frail elderly women were significantly older and obese (body mass index, percent body fat, waist circumference) than the healthy elderly. The pre-frail elderly presented significant decreases in walking, moderate intensity, and total PA compared to the healthy elderly even after adjusted for age and percent body fat. However, no significant difference was found in vigorous-intensity activity between the pre-frail and healthy elderly. Also, the pre-frail elderly women showed the decrease in functional fitness and quality of life compared to the healthy elderly. Regular PA was associated with high levels of muscular endurance and coordination in healthy and pre-frail elderly. In pre-frail elderly, high levels of cardiorespiratory endurance was associated with PA. In conclusion, regular PA is inversely associated with fitness decline in healthy and pre-frail community-dwelling elderly women. Regular PA might attenuate fitness decline in pre-frail elderly women.
PURPOSE The purpose of this study was to synthetically explore different communication strategy patterns that are dependent on the events and stakeholders, which include professional sports players, teams, and the associations. METHODS Using the Python program, we performed web crawling and machine learning algorithms to analyze news articles for our research analyses. In particular, 696 articles on driving under the influence (DUI) of alcohol were gathered and subject to descriptive scrutiny; a total of 782 sentences were selected for the analysis. Also, among the 509 articles on illegal gambling, 484 sentences were analyzed. Moreover, 50 frequently reported words were extracted from these sentences to assess their frequencies through the word cloud method for concrete visualization. Then, the data were mapped in order to systemically understand the communication strategy patterns for each case, which were dependent on the stakeholders and timing of the event. RESULTS The empirical results revealed that in case of unethical events of driving under the influence that were reported in the news, most of the subjects chose an apology strategy immediately, but for illegal gambling reports, the parties involved rarely respond and it was difficult to find specific strategy patterns among the subjects. CONCLUSIONS The present study reveals that when professional sports teams were exposed to transgression, depending on the characteristics of the event and stakeholders, they chose different communication strategies involving fan characteristics for the event and subjects. Ultimately, they chose different strategies dependent on their fans’ involvement.
Purpose The purpose of this research was to investigate the influence of professional baseball teams' message appeal type (emotional vs. rational) and message delivery method (article with photo vs. article without photo) on consumers' acceptance of the message. The hypotheses were two folds. First, compared with a rational apology article, a professional team's emotional apology article affected consumers' acceptance more positively. Second, a professional team's apology article with a photo attached influenced consumers' acceptance more positively than one without a photo. Methods To achieve the purpose of this study, the authors utilized a 2 (Message Appeal Type: emotional vs. rational) × 2 (Message Delivery Method: article with photo vs. article without photo) factorial experiment. An existing baseball team was selected and was assumed to have been involved in a game fixing situation. Out of 340 participants, 325 were used in the final analysis. Two-way ANCOVA of SPSS 23.0 was conducted to analyze the data. Results Findings revealed when a professional baseball team issued an emotional apology article, consumers were more positive about it than a rational one. Also when a professional team delivered an article with a photo, consumers accepted the article more positively than the one without a photo.
This study was designed to develop a communication training program for college ice hockey teams and examine the effects of this program. College ice hockey players and coaches participated in this study. The various types of data were collected and analyzed to assess the needs of the program and to develop the program with expert meetings. To analyze the effects of the developed program, questionnaires, experience reports, and in-depth interviews were conducted as measures. The results of this study are as follows. First, ice hockey team communication consisted of eight factors (i.e., sympathy, respect, trust, two-way verbal communication, firm expression of opinion, training program communication, developing rapport, and cohesion). Thus, the program developed based on eight factors and consisted of three stages of total 12 sessions which was 90 min to 100 min long. Second, this program increased communication satisfaction, coach-athlete interaction, group cohesion and exercise effectiveness, and these quantitative results were statistically significant. Moreover, qualitative analysis revealed that this program enhanced sympathy, social cohesion, and task cohesion among participants as well as positively changed their communication skills better than before. The communication training program which was developed through this study could provide basic information of a communication training program in the sports domain and positively influence overall sports team effectiveness and performance.
This study aimed to compare professional sport consumers on the basis of their ideology, spectator motivation, and message framing. In order to answer the research questions, the study first examined whether message framing effects existed across the designated variables. The study also assessed whether there were any differences in progressive-conservative ideology and motivation across respondent groups. The participants were spectators of two professional sports, soccer and baseball, sourced from 9 stadiums. Data were collected by the researcher and 33 survey assistants, from May to August 2013. The results of a chi-square test, MANOVA, and MANCOVA indicated that significant effects in message framing existed across the two variables. The findings also showed differences in ideology and motivation across major variables (e.g., age, gender, sports, and choice of newspaper). Some issues including media communication strategies were discussed based on the results of this study.
KThis study aims to positively analyze relationship between internal communication, involvement, organizational identification, customer orientation, and relation continuity intention of workers at commercial sports center. For this end, we have conducted survey for 195 workers working at 10 commercial sports centers in the metropolitan area. Sampling method was Convenience Sampling Mode, and questionnaire has been structured to be self-administerd type. SPSSWIN Ver. 21.0 and AMOS 18.0 have been used for data processing. As a result, internal communication has positive influence on the organizational identification at first. Second, involvement has positive influence on the organizational identification as well. Third, organizational identification has positive influence on the customer orientation. Fourth, customer orientation has positive influence on the relation continuity intention. Fifth, internal communication has no positive influence on the relation continuity intention. Sixth, involvement has no positive influence on the relation continuity intention.
