Student-athletes enact dual roles, as students and athletes, and hold corresponding identities. The salience of these identities and conflict between them have implications for student-athlete wellness. The purpose of this study was to (a) gain insight into organizational and individual characteristics associated with identity salience, by examining student-athletes across universities; and (b) shed light on situations of identity salience and conflict for student-athletes. We conducted a survey study of student-athletes across 17 universities that captured both quantitative and qualitative data. Our results reveal a relationship between identity salience and individual performance (academic and athletic) and university ranking. Further, we found an interaction between athlete and student identity salience, such that identifying strongly as a student, athlete, both, or neither has implications for conflict. Finally, by unpacking situations of identity salience and conflict, we show similarities and differences across student-athletes' experiences. This study has implications for universities and athletic departments.

To enact corporate social responsibility (CSR) initiatives, sport organizations often partner with organizations in different sectors, including public, private, and nonprofit. These partnerships provide teams and leagues with needed resources to effectively execute social initiatives. Little is known, however, about sport organizations’ partnership portfolios and the effectiveness of combining partnerships to improve cause outcomes. Using two experimental studies, we examine perceptions of partnership organizations in terms of warmth and competence, how these combined perceptions in a portfolio affect individuals’ willingness to donate to CSR initiatives, and whether portfolio perceptions can be improved by articulation. We find that perceptions of portfolio warmth and competence increased willingness to donate to sport organizations’ CSR initiatives through the serial mediation effects of cause fit and response efficacy in the structural equation model. Furthermore, we find that corporate competence articulation reduced the mediation effect of response efficacy in the structural relationship.

The strategic formation of partnerships for leveraging sport events to achieve social impact is becoming a critical component of large-scale sport events. The authors know less about the process dimensions related to the formation and collaborative dynamics of a sport event–leveraging partnership. To address this gap, the authors focus on examining the formation and collaborative dynamics alongside the challenges of the cross-sector partnership, the Ontario Parasport Legacy Group (OPLG), which emerged as an important leveraging strategy for the Toronto 2015 Pan/Parapan American Games. The authors found that the formation of the OPLG was shaped through broader environmental elements—including resource conditions, window of collaborative opportunity, and cultural influence—and essential drivers of strategic leadership and consequential incentives. Furthermore, the authors’ analysis shows that the development of the OPLG and its effectiveness in partnership delivery were determined through key domains of collaborative dynamics (i.e., engagement, motivation, and joint capacity).

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