The impact of congruence between perceived and preferred leadership on satisfaction among college student-athletes in Singapore

Chelladurai developed the Multidimensional Model of Leadership, which was designed to be situation-specific to examine leadership behaviour and effectiveness in sporting contexts. Applying Chelladurai’s concept to the Singapore sporting context, this study aimed to assess the impact of congruence between perceived and preferred leadership behaviours on satisfaction with leadership among college student-athletes in Singapore. Data were collected from 185 college student-athletes enrolled in the five local tertiary institutes. The questionnaire utilized in this study consisted of the perception and preference versions of the Revised Leadership Scale for Sports and seven items measuring satisfaction with coaching leadership. Confirmatory factor analysis and a series of hierarchical multiple regression procedures were carried out to test the psychometric properties of the leadership scale and the hypothesized relationship between congruence levels and satisfaction. Results revealed congruence of perceived and preferred behaviour in social support was a significant indicator of athletes’ satisfaction. Possible implications from the findings were discussed in an effort to better understand coaching effectiveness in Singapore

Does cause-related marketing work for negative image sponsor?

Cause related marketing has been widely used by many companies with an expectation that it would improve its sales and public image. However, previous literature has not investigated the effect of cause related marketing when a sponsoring company has built negative image in the society. Thus, this study was designed to see if a company with a negative image can be benefitted from such a marketing effort. The magnitude and direction of changes in consumers’ attitudes toward two sponsoring companies with conflicting (positive vs. negative) brand images and toward a sport team were tested using paired t-tests. The results indicated that the subjects’ initial attitude toward the sport team was significantly changed in a positive direction when it was sponsored by a company with positive brand image (i.e., Nike). However, a change of attitude toward the company was not statistically significant. On the other hand, an initial attitude toward a company with negative image (i.e., Kangwon Land Hotel & Casino) improved significantly when it implemented cause-related marketing with a college sport team. However, their initial attitudes toward the sport team aggravated significantly when it was connected to a company with negative image in cause-related marketing

Testing the relationships between motivation and future intention in physical activity: Does governmental financial support matter?

As a new sport policy, named ‘School Sport Promotion Group (SSPG)’, the Korea government selected 50 schools in 2011 and 2012. Each school was granted with US$40,000 a year for a three-year term. The purpose of this study was to examine the effectiveness of the SSPG programme when it pertained to students’ motivation and participation in school sport clubs. More specifically, the moderation effect of governmental financial support in the relationships between motivation (intrinsic and extrinsic) and sport participation was tested using structural equation modeling. The results indicated that both intrinsic motivation (β = .22) and extrinsic motivation (β = .20) were significant indicators of future participation intention in non-SSPG model while only intrinsic motivation (β = .58) was a significant indicator in SSPG model. A chi-square differential test showed that the coefficient of the path from intrinsic motivation to future intention in the SSPG was significantly larger than that in non-SSPG model, supporting the moderation role of governmental financial support. The results of this study can provide administrators with meaningful information regarding how financial support can promote students’ physical activity and health

Differences between gamblers and non-gamblers on sports betting websites

Online sports gambling is a popular recreational activity. Using the Theory of Planned Behaviour as the theoretical foundation, the aim of this study was to examine for differences between gamblers and non-gamblers in terms of their attitudes, subjective norms and perceived behavioral control towards online sports gambling. 173 male students from a tertiary educational institution were recruited for this study of which 56 respondents (32%) were gamblers. A series of regression analysis revealed differences between gamblers and non-gamblers. While subjective norms and perceived behavioural control were significant predictors of gambling intentions for the gamblers group, only attitude was a significant predictor for the non-gamblers group. Further analysis showed that subjective norms had a larger effect on the gamblers group in comparison to the non-gamblers group. Physiological data from an eye tracker provided further empirical evidence that there were differences between gamblers and non-gamblers. Gamblers, perhaps because they are more familiar with gambling websites, take less time to process information. The findings from this study suggests that there are differences between gamblers and non-gamblers. To prevent problem gambling, there is a need to develop different communication messages for gamblers and non-gamblers