Rural community well-being through minor league sport

Abstract

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to investigate how small-town residents’ perceptions of a minor league sport team’s socially responsible initiatives (SRI) influence several psychological responses to SRI, including feelings of gratitude, subjective well-being, place attachment and community pride. Design/methodology/approach A cross-sectional, survey-based research design was employed to empirically assess the effects of SRI on positive psychological responses in the context of a minor league sport team located in a rural community. The data set used in this study included a convenience sample of 307 small-town residents. Findings Residents of the rural community did perceive and feel grateful for their minor league sport team’s SRI. Grateful residents experienced higher levels of subjective well-being (happiness, pleasure and satisfaction) as well as enhanced community pride and attachment due to the local sport team’s altruistic and prosocial behaviors. Research limitations/implications This study’s findings shed light on a critical function and benefit of a minor league sport team in rural communities. Emotionally valued prosocial efforts enhance the well-being of residents in rural communities. Thus, a reasonable course of action for local community leaders and public-sector organizations is to invest in and create partnership opportunities with their local minor league sport teams. Such efforts can turn sport teams into leverageable assets that can help promote healthy and sustainable communities for current residents as well as future generations. Originality/value A contribution of this study is the integration of the broaden-and-build theory of positive emotions to better understand how gratitude mediates the relationship between SRI and beneficial community-focused outcomes such as pride, attachment and well-being.

Modelos de responsabilidad social corporativa en el sector deporte. Una revisión sistemática (Models of corporate social responsibility in the sports sector. A systematic Review)

“…Es así como, las organizaciones deportivas debido a su carácter social, sirven como plataforma de transformación en pro del desarrollo humano, generan aportes a la economía y al bienestar de las personas y llevan a cabo acciones filantrópicas y benéficas para fomentar la conciencia social (Babiak, 2010;Giulianotti, 2011;Heinze et al, 2014;Kim et al, 2019). Por otra parte, los equipos deportivos son un referente en procesos de planificación y enseñanza para las nuevas generaciones e involucran jugadores apasionados por lo que hacen (Babiak & Wolfe, 2009).…”

The effect of Rugby World Cup 2019 on residents’ psychological well-being: a mediating role of psychological capital

“…The relationship between residents' perceptions of event impacts and their well-being has been of concern to tourism scholars (Al-Emadi et al, 2017;Kaplanidou et al, 2013;Y. D. Kim, Magnesen, et al, 2019;Lin et al, 2017).…”

“…Scholars have also accumulated evidence that socio-cultural impacts can contribute to residents' well-being. Y. D. Kim, Magnesen, et al (2019), for example, found that residents who perceive the impact of local sport team's contributions to community welfare (i.e. social impact) were more likely to feel grateful and experience greater well-being.…”

Disaster relief efforts of Houston sport organizations

“…Beyond economic analyses, some scholars have focused on the potential social impacts that a sport event may have on a local community (Oja et al , 2018). Some benefits that have been explored include civic pride (Baade and Matheson, 2016), psychic income (Crompton, 2004) and well-being and attachment (Kim et al , 2019). Other researchers have investigated the potential of sport organizations to act as a social anchor within a community (Alonso and O'Shea, 2012).…”