The Status and Future of Sport Management: A Delphi Study

Abstract

Ongoing debates about appropriate foci and growth of sport management research, application, theory, and training are evidence of the field’s growing pains. These growing pains also occur in other fields in which they function as a means to expand and elaborate the paradigms through which fields of inquiry grow and mature. In this study, a panel of 17 leading sport management scholars from around the globe responded to three iterations of a Delphi questionnaire probing their views about the status and future of the field. Panelists agreed that stronger research, additional cross-disciplinary research, a stronger link between theory and practice, enhanced infrastructure, and improved doctoral training are desirable objectives. They disagreed, however, about the appropriate academic home for sport management, what constitutes quality research, the roles of qualitative vs. quantitative research, and the relative value of basic vs. applied research. The results show that by actively engaging in debates over the issues identified in this study, sport management scholars can explore new ways of perceiving, thinking, and valuing that could enable proficient and constructive development of the field.

U.S. Sport Management Programs in Business Schools: Trends and Key Issues

“…Sport researchers argued for interdisciplinarity as a natural tendency to work across academic units, and disapproved the silo mentality that can be present in the sport management academic field (Amis & Silk, 2005;Chalip, 2006;Costa, 2005;Doherty, 2012;Mahony, 2008). This study's results recognized that the majority of U.S. sport business programs were part of an interdisciplinary department and were well integrated in business schools.…”

“…This study's results recognized that the majority of U.S. sport business programs were part of an interdisciplinary department and were well integrated in business schools. As more than 13% of the surveyed U.S. sport business programs reported having an interdisciplinary journals' list, this interdisciplinarity may help enlarge the breadth of sport management research, which ultimately may become more recognized and valued by other academic disciplines (Costa, 2005;Mahony, 2008 …”

“…The interdisciplinary nature of sport management has spearheaded discussion about its appropriate home (Chalip, 2006;Costa, 2005). Even within the HPER umbrella, sport management can be housed in a diverse array of academic units, from recreation (Sawyer, 1993) and sports studies to public health (Sawyer, 1993;Boucher, 1998;Inoue & Berg, 2014).…”

The reciprocal and influential connection between sport marketing and management and the sport sciences

“…These concerns are born out of opposing views regarding the most appropriate housing for sport management programmes within the university structure: college of education, school of business, or kinesiology department. Results from a focus showed that some (panelists) felt sport management should be housed with other management disciplines; while others felt sport management must remain close to the other realms of sport studies, such as sport sociology and sport psychology, in order to maintain its distinctive focus on sport (Costa, 2005). The difference of opinion is, in fact, an outcome of the hybrid nature of sport management.…”

“…It is simultaneously about management and about sport. The appropriate concern, then, is not which academic unit should house the discipline, but the degree to which any home (whether business or sport studies) will facilitate the requisite interdisciplinary dialog between sport studies (e.g., kinesiology) and the study of management (including its related disciplines, such as marketing, finance, and operations) (Costa, 2005).…”