Entry-Level Employment in Intercollegiate Athletic Departments: Non-Readily Observables and Readily Oberservable Attributes of Job Candidates

Human resource management scholars and practitioners have recognized the importance of understanding the complexities of staffing personnel. This study focused on the perceived importance of attributes for entry-level applicants to collegiate athletic departments. A total of 315 NCAA athletic administrators who were randomly selected responded to a web-based survey. Respondents were asked to rate the importance of 10 easily observable attributes during the screening process, and 10 non-readily observable skills during the hiring process. Results indicated that career-related work experience was considered to be most important during the screening, followed by the applicant’s recommendation, and leadership experience. While in the hiring stage, work ethic, communications skills and motivation were considered the most important attributes. This study adds to the literature in human resource management and athletic administration and has practical implications for prospective employees, athletic administrators and sport management faculty members

Locally Activating TrkB Receptor Generates Actin Waves and Specifies Axonal Fate

Actin waves are filamentous actin (F-actin)-rich structures that initiate in the somato-neuritic area and move toward neurite ends. The upstream cues that initiate actin waves are poorly understood. Here, using an optogenetic approach (Opto-cytTrkB), we found that local activation of the TrkB receptor around the neurite end initiates actin waves and triggers neurite elongation. During actin wave generation, locally activated TrkB signaling in the distal neurite was functionally connected with preferentially localized Rac1 and its signaling pathways in the proximal region. Moreover, TrkB activity changed the location of ankyrinG––the master organizer of the axonal initial segment-and initiated the stimulated neurite to acquire axonal characteristics. Taken together, these findings suggest that local Opto-cytTrkB activation switches the fate from minor to major axonal neurite during neuronal polarization by generating actin waves.C. 2019 Elsevier Ltd.11Nsciescopu

Bifactor analysis of motivation for charity sport event participation

The purpose of this study was to examine the utility of the existing subscales of charity sport events (CSEs) participation motivation by adopting both a second-order modeling and a bifactor modeling approaches. The results with 488 college students revealed that the bifactor model provided a better interpretation of the data compared to second-order model. The five-factor CSE motivation significantly predict the intention to participate in CSEs along with two domain-specific motivations, namely ‘sport and event’ and ‘cause’ while other three domain-specific motivations including ‘philanthropic’, ‘social interaction’, and ‘reference group’ are not statistically significant predictors. The results suggest that the bifactor model is more useful in predicting this group’s participation in charity sport events. © 2015, Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg

Understanding international volunteering: Who is most likely to participate?

International volunteers are playing an increasingly important role in meeting diverse challenges and improving lives of many across the world, and more opportunities for international volunteering are available across the nonprofit, government, and corporate sectors than ever. Nevertheless, little is known about international volunteering and the individuals who participate in this activity. This study examines the utility of the existing volunteering literature by testing how the traditional determinants of volunteering predict participation in international volunteering. The findings show that individuals who have attained post-secondary education, are from a high-income household, or are self-employed are most likely to volunteer internationally. The results also indicate that some of the known predictors of volunteering, such as age, race and gender, do not satisfactorily explain participation in international volunteering. This study concludes by providing suggestions for recruitment strategies, calling for further research on international volunteering

Effects of physical education, extracurricular sports activities, and leisure satisfaction on adolescent aggressive behavior: A latent growth modeling approach

The present study aimed to investigate the longitudinal influence of physical education classes, extracurricular sports activities, and leisure satisfaction on aggressive behavior among South Korean adolescents. Data were drawn from the Korea Youth Panel Survey. We used latent growth curve modeling to explain the growth trajectory of adolescent aggressive behaviors and a multi-group analysis to investigate gender differences in aggressive behavior. The results indicated that adolescents' aggressive behavior significantly changed with age. There were significant gender-based differences in the level of and changes in aggressive behavior over time. Both extracurricular sports activities and leisure satisfaction had significant influences on the changes in adolescents' aggressive behavior with age, whereas physical education classes did not

Buyer or browser? An analysis of sports fan behaviour online

This investigation evaluated four sports fan characteristics (fan identification, trust in internet shopping, attitude towards online purchasing, and perceptions of convenience) and two sports website characteristics (perception of product comparison service, and website price advantage) to assess their ability to differentiate licensed sports merchandise purchasers (buyers), and those who just browsed sports websites (browsers). The results made it possible to differentiate buyers and browsers based on ‘trust in internet shopping’, ‘attitude towards online purchasing’, ‘perceptions of convenience’, and ‘website price advantage’. Additionally, all six characteristics collectively explained sports merchandise consumers buying versus browsing