Purpose The purpose of this paper is to examine foreign participants’ service quality, satisfaction and behavioral intention during the 2016 Shanghai International Marathon, and to gain a better understanding of the impact of service quality on their satisfaction and behavioral intention. Design/methodology/approach An English questionnaire was originally designed on the basis of the literature review of service quality, overall satisfaction and re-participation intention to assess the purpose of the study. Data were collected from 308 foreign runners including 61.7 percent (n=190) of male and 38.3 percent (n=118) of the female. Structural equation modeling was employed to check the proposed model and to test the impact of service quality on foreign participants’ overall satisfaction and behavioral intention. Findings A positive correlation was captured between the following: service quality and overall satisfaction (r=0.752, p<0.01), overall satisfaction and behavioral intention (r=0.876, p<0.01), and between service quality and participants’ behavioral intention (r=0.760, p<0.01). Furthermore, the service quality of Shanghai International Marathon had an indirect effect on foreign participants’ behavioral intention. The structural model fits the data well (R2=0.823). Research limitations/implications First, the sample size was small and was just drawn from one event, which can be taken with caution in the context of the generalization of findings. Second, the results are specific to 2016 Shanghai International Marathon participants and cannot be generalized with other events in China or around the world. Practical implications The results are practical for the marathon event organizers to better understand foreign participants’ needs and improve their services. This study has a significant importance to the sports events organizers, especially the organizers of the Shanghai International Marathon in terms of a better understanding the level of their service. This study will also help the event organizers to adapt their strategies and their efforts to increase Shanghai International Marathon foreign participants’ satisfaction and intention to repurchase or to share with others. Social implications This study contributes to the foreign participant’s satisfaction literature. In fact, many studies were carried on event spectators’ satisfaction while rare studies were carried on event participants’ satisfaction, especially marathon foreign participants’ satisfaction, and this study will supplement studies related to sport events participation. This will be convenient for sports managers and scholars to better understand the impact of service quality on participants’ satisfaction and behavioral intention in the field of sports events management. Meanwhile, the results were extremely useful to Shanghai during the process of constructing a “world-famous sports city” and “modern international metropolis”. Originality/value Little literature focus on foreign participants of Shanghai International Marathon, which is important in the process of shaping city image and building world-famous city. Are foreign participants satisfied with the Shanghai International Marathon? Which aspect of the service quality is of greater value for them? What are the influencing factors of their behavioral intention and word-of-mouth communication? What are the specific impact paths among the service quality, overall satisfaction and behavioral intention variables? To examine the objectives, the study was designed to target foreign participants’ service quality, satisfaction and behavioral intention. Besides, structural equation model was applied in this study to explore the path relationship between service quality, satisfaction and behavioral intention specifically.

Background Participating in regular physical activity contributes to significant improvements of quality of life (QOL) in adults. Understanding psychosocial factors that influence physical activity and QOL in working adults may have important implications for future interventions aimed at improving their health. The major purpose of this study was to investigate the psychosocial predictors of physical activity and QOL among Shanghai working adults. Methods Participants were 238 working adults ( M age = 51.6 ± 5.6) living in Shanghai communities, China. They completed previously validated questionnaires assessing their perceptions of stress, social support from friends, self-efficacy, physical activity, and QOL. Pearson correlations were computed to assess the associations among physical activity, QOL, and psychosocial variables. Path analysis was used to test the predictive strengths of psychosocial factors on physical activity and QOL among Shanghai working adults. Results The results indicated that stress had directly negative relationships on self-efficacy and QOL. Social support had directly positive relationships on self-efficacy, physical activity, and QOL. Physical activity had directly positive relationship on QOL. Self-efficacy and physical activity mediated the influences of stress and social support on QOL. Conclusions: Stress and social support from friends were two important sources of self-efficacy, all of which facilitated more physical activity participation. Lower stress, higher social support, and more physical activity may directly increase QOL among Shanghai working adults. The mediating roles of self-efficacy and physical activity should be taken into account in managing stress and social support in order to promote QOL among Shanghai working adults.

Working women in Shanghai are a high-risk group of suffering work stress and burnout. Women have been found to be affected by work-family conflicts, which results in lower health-related quality of life (HRQoL), higher job stress, and burnout. This study evaluated the potential physical activity and counselling intervention effects on health outcomes of working women in Shanghai. Participants were randomly recruited from eight communities of Shanghai using the stratified cluster sampling method. A total of 121 female workers took part in this study, who were randomly divided into three groups: a control group and two intervention groups (individual-based and group-based intervention). The first intervention involved a moderate physical activity program and an individual based counselling intervention, while the second included the same physical activity program, but with a group counselling approach. Both interventions lasted 12 weeks. Subjective perceptions of work stress, burnout, and HRQoL were measured before and after the intervention. In the control group, the HRQoL value decreased after the intervention, with the mean value falling from 91.59 to 87.10, while there was no significant difference found between participants for stress (p = 0.752) and burnout (p = 0.622) before and after the intervention. After the intervention, the value of stress and burnout decreased, and the value of HRQoL increased in the two intervention groups. At the intervention’s completion, there were significant differences compared between the two intervention groups and the control group separately regarding changes in burnout and HRQoL (all p = 0.000). For stress, the group-based intervention group exhibited a significant difference compared to the control group (p = 0.000), while the individual-based intervention group did not (p = 0.128). A Physical activity and counselling intervention delivered either in a group or individual format could reduce stress, burnout, and improve HRQoL of working women in Shanghai, and the group interventions were potentially more effective than those targeted at individuals.

BackgroundThe background advertisement exposure parameters (BAEP) forms a premise for sponsorship negotiation and the basis for estimating the sponsorship value of background advertising. Prediction of the BAEP has a great contribution to the sporting events organizers and sponsors in terms of negotiating, decision-making for bidding, and income-generating.MethodsVirtual Reality (VR), technology was utilized to construct a virtual three-dimensional model of the sports venue and simulate the telecast of the event. Based on VR technology and computer graphics theory, a pre-event prediction method for estimating the background advertisement exposure parameters of sporting events was put forward. The pre and post measures of the thirty BAEP of televised football games were compared to verify the effectiveness of the prediction method.ResultsThere was no significant difference between the pre- and post-measurement results for the same football game. The pre- and post-measurement results of the thirty BAEP of televised football games were tightly matched.ConclusionsUsing the prediction method can predict the BAEP of televised football games effectively and overcomes the shortcomings of current prediction methods that inhibits the effectiveness of the prediction of exposure parameters due to changes such as the type of the sporting events, the size of the sports venue, the layout of the background advertisements, and the placement of the television cameras, etc.

Background：Working women in Shanghai are a special group with a high risk of suffering work stress and burnout. They were disturbed by the work-family conflicts, which resulted in lower health-related quality of life (HRQoL), higher job stress and burnout. This study evaluated the potential physical activity and counselling intervention effects on health outcomes of working women in Shanghai participating in a group- or an individual-based physical activity and counselling intervention compared to a control group.Methods：Participants were randomly recruited from eight communities of Shanghai using the stratified cluster sampling method. A sample of 121 female workers was used in this study. They were randomly divided into three groups: a control group and two intervention groups (individual-based and group-based intervention). The two intervention groups accepted 12-week moderate physical activity and counselling intervention. Subjective perceptions of work stress, burnout, and HRQoL were measured before and after the intervention. Results：In the control group, no significant difference was found between participants for stress (p = 0.752) and burnout (p = 0.622) before and after the experiment. However, the HRQoL value decreased after the experiment, with the mean value falling from 91.59 to 87.10. After the experiment, the values of stress and burnout decreased, and the value of HRQoL increased in the two intervention groups. At the intervention’s completion, there were significant differences compared the two intervention groups to the control group separately regarding changes in burnout and HRQoL (all p < 0.01). For stress, the group-based intervention group exhibited a significant difference compared to the control group (p < 0.01), while the individual-based intervention group did not exhibit a significant difference compared to the control group (p = 0.128).Conclusion: Physical activity and counselling intervention delivered either in a group or individual format could reduce burnout and improve HRQoL of working women in Shanghai, and the group interventions were more effective than those targeted at individuals.