Call for papers: Special Issue on Strategy in Sport Management
Brazilian Business Review
Guest Editors: João J. Ferreira, University of Beira Interior, Portugal
Dina Miragaia, University of Beira Interior, Portugal
Vanessa Ratten, La Trobe University, Australia
Purpose of Special Issue
This special issue aims to promote new theoretical and empirical research on Strategy in Sport
Management. A more explicit recognition of the Strategy foundations of the Sport sector offers exciting
new directions for research. The identification and extension of our knowledge of the impacts and
strategic outcomes of sport management will have practical value for the sport industry and strategy, and
will advance our understanding of the social, economic, and environmental consequences.
Background
Research in strategy is at a critical crossroads due to the global marketplace and there is an increased
emphasis on new theoretical concepts and on testing empirical relationships based in such concepts. But
what we know about strategy in sport management? A business looking for stable revenues, new product
development, or international expansion engages in business strategy by determining how to position
itself in appropriate markets and in relation to competitors. Strategy relates to sports because a non-sport
firm may use sport strategically by advertising, sponsoring, or partnering with a sport-related business
or/and a sport-related business may be associated with a variety of industries, each of which have
different economic features and market forces (Ratten and Ratten, 2011).
Sport has inherently competitive values in nature and is entrepreneurial as it continues to adapt based
on global marketplace changes (Ratten, 2011). In addition, stakeholders matter in the strategic decision
making of a sport organization (Miragaia, Ferreira & Carreira, 2014). To be successful over a period of
time organizations need to determine the nature of the environments within which the competition is
taking place, ensuring that they have resources and capabilities to move successfully through those
environments in order to create a sustainable strategy (Beech & Chadwick, 2004).
In a fast moving environment, governance remains central to the effective and efficient management
of sport organisations (Hoye & Auld, 2001). The strategic role and performance of the board, while central
to the practice of governance, has been showed a weakness in many sport organisations (Ferkins et al.,
2005). Changes in sport management have presented major strategic issues to those responsible for
governing sport organisations (Miller, 2002).
The contribution of the strategic activities in sport management is a topic superficially explored by
sport management scholars (Ratten and Babiak, 2010). Understanding the factors that both constrain and
enable sport organisations to think and act strategically may provide an empirical basis for sports to build
their strategic capabilities (Ferkins & Shilbury, 2010).
With the worldwide downturn of the economy, there is a need to effectively measure strategy and
competitiveness in sport management context. The outcome will critically depend on the
conceptualization and measurement of these concepts and their derivative constructs. Thus, in spite of
numerous discussions on alternate approaches to measure strategy, the relationship between theoretical
definitions and their consequent dimensions has been generally weak in sport management context and
there is an opportunity for interdisciplinary research about sport business. Further, businesses are facing
many challenges, many of which are propelled by increasing competitiveness and for lack of identification
of what accurately creates a sport organization’s competitive advantage.
This Special issue seeks to merge traditional and modern perspectives in strategy by exploring the
strategy foundations in Sport Management context. To generate new theoretical and empirical advances
in strategy, it is essential to develop an integrated, empirically-tractable account of how such phenomena
influence strategy formation, resource allocation, strategy implementation, market efficiency, and
sustained competitive advantage. The Special Issue is concerned specifically with the contributions of
strategy to theory and research as well as the strategic choices in sport management.
With this in mind, we welcome a broad range of contributions to our understanding of the foundations
of strategy in sport management. In this special issue we invite papers addressing strategy in sport
management today and in the future. The effort can be empirical, conceptual, literature review or case
studies.
Areas of interest include, but are not limited to:
 The aim of strategy in sport management
 The future of strategy in sport management
 Strategy and global expansion of sport business
 The dynamics between strategy and sport management
 International strategy, innovation and sport entrepreneurship
 Drivers on the shaping of sport strategy
 Measures of success in strategy in sport management
 The outcomes of strategy in sport management
 Strategic management in sport business
 Strategy in different countries or sport contexts
 Strategy approaches in different sport areas
 Nature, management and implications of sport events in social, economic, and environmental context.
 Strategy and competitiveness in sport
 Efficiency and performance in Sport management
 Strategic stakeholders in sport management
 Strategy in sport governance
 Strategy in sport policy
Research Questions:
Without unduly constraining the range of research topics, we offer the following as examples of questions
suitable for the Special Issue:
1. What are the strategic foundations of sport management?
2. How efficient are the sport organizations? Why are there business opportunities, why are they
unexploited? What are the critical “strategic emotions”?
3. What are the strategic implications of causal ambiguity in sport? How do sport organizations choose
and allocate resources in uncertain, ambiguous contexts?
4. What are the strategic determinants of general managers’ attributions of competitive success and
failure? How do executives’ performance attributions influence critical strategic decisions?
5. How do emotions, beliefs, values, and culture influence the executive’s strategic decisions?
6. What are the perceptions of sport organizations about the competitive environment?
7. What are the psychological and behavioral foundations of strategic resource formation in sport
organizations?
Deadlines and Submissions Instructions
The deadline for submission of papers is April 26, 2016.
Please submit your papers online on the Brazilian Business Review website and make sure to follow the
Submission Guidelines available at: http://www.bbronline.com/normas.asp
Papers will be only in English and reviewed following the regular Brazilian Business Review doubleblind
review process. Please make sure you submit the paper under Special Issue on “Strategy in Sport
Management”, when submitting your manuscript.
Please direct any questions to the editor of the Special Issue:
João J. Ferreira ([email protected]). Please clearly identify in the email subject line “BBR Special Issue”.
References
Beech, J., & Chadwick, S. (2004). The business of sport management: Pearson Education.
Ferkins, L., & Shilbury, D. (2010). Developing board strategic capability in sport organisations: The
national–regional governing relationship. Sport Management Review, 13(3), 235-254. doi:
10.1016/j.smr.2010.01.009
Ferkins, L., Shilbury, D., & McDonald, G. (2005). The Role of the Board in Building Strategic Capability:
Towards an Integrated Model of Sport Governance Research. Sport Management Review, 8(3),
195-225. doi: 10.1016/S1441-3523(05)70039-5
Hoye, R. S., & Auld, C. J. (2007). Measuring board performance in nonprofit sport organisations. Australian
Journal of Volunteering, 6(2), 109–116.
Miller, J. L. (2002). The Board as a Monitor of Organizational Activity. Nonprofit Management &
Leadership, 12(4), 429.
Miragaia, D. A. M., Ferreira, J., & Carreira, A. (2014). Do stakeholders matter in strategic decision making
of a sports organization? Revista de Administração de Empresas, 54(6), 647-658. doi:
dx.doi.org/10.1590/S0034-759020140605
Ratten, V. (2011). Sport-based entrepreneurship: towards a new theory of entrepreneurship and sport
management. International Entrepreneurship and Management Journal, 7(1), 57-69. doi:
10.1007/s11365-010-0138-z
Ratten, V., & Babiak, K. (2010). The role of social responsibility, philanthropy and entrepreneurships in the
sport industry. Journal of Management and Organization, 16(4), 482-487.
Ratten, V., Ratten, H., Ratten, V., & Ratten, H. (2011). International sport marketing: practical and future
research implications. Journal of Business & Industrial Marketing, 26(8), 614-620.