Exploring human capital: discrimination factors and group-specific performance in the football industry

The aim of the study is to investigate whether discrimination factors exist within professional football clubs, concerning the management of their human capital, by analysing the correlation between the footballers’ wages and their performance. An analysis was conducted to show that discrimination, based both on nationality and race, can affect the strategies adopted by football club managers and in the professional footballer labour market, where players are considered to be the human capital of football enterprises. The research framework consists of an analysis of the existing literature on discrimination in sports and of a quantitative analysis based on an exploratory approach, where the wage differences among Italian Serie A league footballers are compared to the performance of each group of players (organised by race or nationality). The results of the analysis of data for all Italian Serie A clubs show that discrimination (in pay) exists against Italian and white players. In contrast, when small and big clubs are considered separately, the findings relating to small clubs highlight that foreign and black players face such discrimination. The results suggest that managers of professional football clubs apply a discrimination strategy. In addition, the results provide practical implications on the types of discrimination errors that are committed by the management of big and small football clubs. Big clubs tend to overrate the contributions of foreign and/or black players compared to those of Italian and white players, while small clubs tend to overrate the contributions of Italian and white players compared to those of foreign and black players. To reduce discrimination, clubs have to correlate how much players are paid with their performance. Further research is recommended to identify the impact of wage inequality on the football labour market and on professional team management

大学トレーニングセンターにおけるトレーニング器具の衛生状況について

University training center users include those attempting to improve their health. There are reports of a tendency of annual increase in the number of elderly people visiting fitness clubs. Thus, fitness clubs are now facilities receiving increasing demands and users. Under such circumstances, measures for preventing infections seem to be necessary in fitness clubs. However, till date, few reports have been published concerning hygienic management at fitness clubs. The present study was undertaken to investigate the hygienic status of machines used at fitness clubs. The number of bacteria present on 7 areas on dumbbells was measured thrice during the study and the bacterial count varied each day. In addition, the numbers of general bacteria and drug-resistant bacteria present on the machines that came in contact with users’ hands were investigated, revealing a large number of general bacteria and drug-resistant bacteria present on these machines. The finding of large counts of bacteria on the training machines despite some daily variations indicates the necessity for hygienic control on fitness club training machines

Technology clubs, technology gaps and growth trajectories

This paper looks at the convergence clubs literature from a Schumpeterian perspective, and it follows the idea that cross-country differences in the ability to innovate and to imitate foreign technologies determine the existence of clustering, polarization and convergence clubs. The study investigates the characteristics of different technology clubs and the growth trajectories that they have followed over time. The cross-country empirical analysis first explores the existence of multiple regimes in the data by means of cluster analysis techniques. It then estimates a technology-gap growth equation in a dynamic panel model specification. The empirical results identify three distinct technology clubs, and show that these are characterized by remarkably different technological characteristics and growth behavior.Growth and development; technological change; convergence clubs; polarization

Applying conditional DEA to measure football clubs’ performance: Evidence from the top 25 European clubs

This paper applies a probabilistic approach to investigate how the top European football clubs’ current value and debt levels influence their performance. Specifically, a bootstrapped conditional data envelopment analysis (DEA) is used in order to measure the effect of football clubs’ current value and debt levels on their obtained efficiency performances. The results indicate that football clubs’ current value levels have a positive influence up to a certain point. But as the current value increases the effect is neutral to football clubs’ performance. At the same time, the empirical evidence suggests that there is no influence on football clubs’ efficiencies associated with lower and medium football clubs’ debt levels while higher debt levels appear to have a direct negative effect.European football clubs; Data Envelopment Analysis; Nonparametric regression; Bootstrapping; Probabilistic approach

Borgs in the Org? Organizational Decision Making and Technology

Data warehousing and the development of the World Wide Web both augment information gathering (search) processes in individual decision making by increasing the availability of required information. Imagine, for example, that one wanted to buy new golf clubs. Thirty years ago, the cost of information gathering would likely have limited an individual\u27s search process to geographically proximal vendors and the golf clubs they stocked. Today, a prospective purchaser can log onto the World Wide Web to find out what types of golf clubs are available anywhere; consult databases, chat rooms, and bulletin boards (e.g., epinions.com) to gather product information and user opinions; and compare prices across vendors around the world

MEASURING THE SUCCESS OF COUNTRY FOOTBALL CLUBS

Until the last quarter of the twentieth century, non-metropolitan Australian Rules football clubs prospered as volunteer organisations, operating in regions that were protected by distance from clubs in larger, competing leagues. They acted as places that people valued and were important components of social capital in their communities, and in turn, received subsidies from other community groups that reduced operating costs. Clubs appear to have measured success in terms of their ability to attract the talent needed to build a winning team that would boost the prestige of both the club and its local community. The Victorian Football League’s regulations about player payment and mobility gave country football clubs the opportunity to offer attractive terms to League players, and this prevented the game’s most powerful league, from crowding out its rivals. The circumstances that were favourable to country football clubs have changed with the formation of a major league, the Australian Football League. The televising of matches nationwide allowed people in even remote regions to watch AFL games. Economic and demographic decline in country areas, greater mobility and the lure of metropolitan jobs has made it difficult for clubs to retain players. In this challenging economic environment, many country football clubs have been unable to survive in their own right. This paper reports on a survey of administrators of Victorian country football clubs as to their perceptions of what constitutes ‘success’ in this new environment. It provides information about how individual clubs are responding to broad changes that are beyond their control, and offers evidence about the ability of local football clubs to continue to play their traditional role as places of importance and generators of social capital in regional communities.

Efficiency of French football clubs and its dynamics

In the paper we evaluate the efficiency of French football clubs (Ligue 1) from 2004 to 2007 using Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) with « Assurance Region ». Then, we study the dynamics of clubs’ performances. Contrary to previous works on other championships, best teams in competition or most profitable clubs are not the most efficient units in our sample. High average scores show that French First League is efficient. The first source of inefficiency in the Ligue 1 is linked to size problems and over-investments. Despite an average club performance stable over the period, we exhibit a deterioration of conditions in which clubs operate.Ligue 1, efficiency scores, Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA), Malmquist index, over-investment