Driving and sustaining culture change in professional sport performance teams: A grounded theory

ObjectivesAs part of the recent upsurge of work on management and organizational factors in elite sports teams, researchers have focused on the team management-led creation and regulation of high performing cultures. The purpose of this study was to therefore add to a recently developed model of culture change best practice in Olympic sports teams, as led and perceived by incoming performance directors, and conceptualize culture change best practice in professional sports teams, as led and perceived by incoming team managers.Design and methodA pragmatic research philosophy and corresponding grounded theory methodology were used to generate a practically-meaningful model of this culture change process from the perspective of UK-based professional team managers.ResultsPerceived best practice in team manager-led culture change was found to involve a finite phase of initial evaluation, planning, and impact adjoined to the enduring management of a holistic, integrated, and dynamic social system. With the former process acting as the catalyst for successful change, this model revealed that optimal change was felt to primarily rely on the constant acquisition, negotiation, and alignment of internal and external stakeholder perceptions.ConclusionsBased on the model's principles, the optimization of professional team culture is defined by a manager's initial actions and never definitively achieved but rather constantly constructed and re-constructed in complex social and power dynamics. Beyond providing a conceptual backdrop for continued research in this area, the model is also a tool on which the practice of professional team managers and their supporting sport psychologists can be based.     

‘The tables have turned’: Sport,emotion & the passive counter-politics of youth citizenship

This article considers the intersections between sport, emotion, and youth citizenship. I explore the emotional dynamics of citizenship of young people, in relation to sport, and within the context of liberal immigration polity in Singapore. In this qualitative study, I conducted video-elicitation written interviews (VEWI) with twenty-two Singaporean youths to understand the multiple ways in which young people negotiate and conceive of their citizenship through emotion, specifically in relation to an emotionally charged sport space. With the 2010 Moscow World Table Tennis Team Championships as the focus of this study, this article explores young people's ‘emotional subjectivities’ of citizenship to make sense of their strategies in articulating resistance through a form of passive counter-politics to top-down power relations of citizenship governance in Singapore. An emergent spatiality of emotional citizenship in relation to spaces of modern sport is identified, contributing to debates in geography and beyond.     

Transformational leadership and team performance in sports teams: A conditional indirect model

This study tests how transformational leadership fosters team performance through team cohesion and how that relationship is moderated by previous team performance and leadership consensus. We computed a moderated-mediation model based on a sample of 690 professional players in 59 top professional teams in interactive team sports leagues (basketball, handball, roller hockey, and indoor football/soccer) in Spain. Our findings suggest that transformational leadership indirectly influences objective team performance through the mediation role of team cohesion and that this indirect effect is more prominent when the level of previous performance is higher. We also found that the indirect effect of transformational leadership on team performance via cohesion is stronger in teams with higher consensus regarding their coaches' leadership. Overall, our results demonstrate the importance of integrating dispersion and contextual variables into research models, in particular, previous performance and leadership consensus.     

Stimulating performance: A scoping review on transcranial electrical stimulation effects on olympic sports

Transcranial electrical stimulation (tES) is widely used to explore the role of various cortical regions involved in a multitude of motor and cognitive processes. Recently, tES has been discussed as being able to potentially enhance performance in sports and even been suggested as a potential way of boosting performance in competitions. In this scoping review, we systematically investigate the literature on tES-induced performance modulations on Olympic sports. The aim is to create a critical overview of the emerging field of tES-enhanced sports performance. Further, methodological approaches, research desiderata, and potential directions for future research will be identified. The final dataset shows a large variation in methodology and a lack of research into the area. Further, partially sub-optimal choices in study design, methodology, and lacking consistency in reporting procedures may impede valid conclusions and obscured the effects of tES on Olympic sports. Consequently, we outline future directions and areas to improve research.     

运动预防骨质疏松症的哲学思考

从运动角度对骨质疏松的防治进行哲学思考,指出在临床实践指导中,医务工作者要做到运动与骨质疏松者的有机结合,应从以下几个方面进行着手;（1）运动预防骨质疏松具有普遍性;（2）运动是预防骨质疏松的关键;（3）为骨质疏松患者,制定个体化运动方案。     

Contextual and individual influences on antisocial behaviour and psychobiosocial states of youth soccer players

Purpose

The aim of the study was to assess the effects of contextual and individual variables (perceived motivational climate and moral atmosphere, task/ego orientation and perceived competence) on antisocial behaviour and emotion-related psychobiosocial (PBS) states as conceptualised within the individual zones of optimal functioning model.

Participants

The study was conducted on a sample of 382 young male soccer players, aged from 14 to 16 years, drawn from 27 Italian teams.

Method

A cross-sectional design was used. Assessment included measures of reported antisocial behaviour, perceived moral atmosphere, perceived motivational climate, goal orientation, perceived competence, and PBS states. Data analysis involved confirmatory factor analysis of measures and path analysis of the hypothesized relationships.

Results

Results suggest that performance climate and a moral atmosphere, in which aggressive behaviours are encouraged, are likely to determine antisocial behaviour and a range of unpleasant PBS states in young sports participants.

Conclusions

Findings substantiate the importance of the situational factors on ethical aspects and emotional states in youngsters.     

Match-fixing: Moral challenges for those involved

ABSTRACT

Match-fixing is a major ethical issue in sports. Although research interest in match-fixing has increased in recent years, we remain largely in the dark regarding how both betting- and non-betting-related match-fixing relate to the moral decision-making of those involved. Drawing on Rest’s theory of morality and on the perceptions of a large sample (n = 567) of participants in Flemish sports, this study indicates that most match-fixing incidents are non-betting-related, while moral motivation and associated challenges clearly differ according to the type of match-fixing. Therefore, each type of match-fixing requires different preventive measures.     

The Normative Legitimacy Gap: International Sports Associations,Human Rights and Stakeholder Democracy

ABSTRACT

This conceptual paper explores whether the normative legitimacy of International Sports Associations (ISAs) such as Fédération Internationale de Football Association (FIFA) and Fédération Internationale de l’Automobile (FIA) requires an active promotion of human rights conventions. The contention is that ISAs, which are founded on principles of neutrality and autonomy, can no longer rely merely on their internal stakeholders to make legitimate decisions when it comes to episodes where sport and human rights clash. Two situations where this claim applies are the FIA’s funding of Syrian motorsport activities and the FIFA’s involvement in the Israel/Palestine conflict, which have created considerable debate outside the ISAs. These examples are therefore used as basis for a discussion of the ISAs’ philosophical stance on human rights as much as their legal duties as non-governmental organizations.     

Key characteristics of decision making in soccer and their implications

This paper puts forward the position that the cognitivist approach adopted in research on decision making in team sports leads to a disconnection from the actual environment of play. The argument is structured as a narrative review of 60 articles that were analyzed to identify the most recent concepts related to the following topics or combinations thereof: tactics and action in the play; decision making and associated cognitive mechanisms and skills; and the teaching–learning–training process. The results of the review led us to characterize decision making in the team sports context as being (a) “prereflected,” (b) based on evaluation, (c) frugal, and (d) “generated,” as opposed to being a process of choosing from alternatives. In addition to showing clear adjustments to the environment of play, the four characteristics imply that teaching, learning, and training to play should also be designed according to the restrictions imposed by the context and the actual lived experience of the play. We conclude that cognition should not be considered solely responsible for decisions, and thus both theoretical and pedagogical models of player development should take the ecological perspective of decision making into account. As a result, the methodologies employed to develop players from an early age could be elaborated on by taking into account the interaction between cognitive skills and the possibilities emerging in the play.