Professional football clubs and empirical evidence from the COVID-19 crisis: Time for sport entrepreneurship?

Strategies to enhance the corporate innovation resilience in digital era: A cross-organizational collaboration perspective

The current economic environment is characterized by increasing uncertainty, while digitalization has led to profound transformations in both the economy and society. There is a pressing need to conduct an in-depth investigation into the specific effects of cross-organizational cooperation on firms' innovation resilience (FIR) in the digital era, as well as the underlying mechanisms driving these effects. This study utilizes panel data encompassing 30 Chinese provinces and municipalities, intending to analyze the impact of market-based and science-based cross-organizational cooperation on FIR and explore the heterogeneity of this impact. Moreover, the study examines the mediating and moderating mechanisms that influence the relationship between cross-organizational cooperation and FIR. The findings indicate that both market-based cooperation, including cooperation with suppliers (CS) and cooperation with customers (CC), and science-based industry-university-research cooperation (IURC) significantly enhance FIR, with science-based IURC demonstrating the most pronounced effect. Additionally, it is revealed that the impact of market-based and science-based cross-organizational cooperation exhibits spatial heterogeneity in promoting FIR. Market-based and science-based cross-organizational cooperation effectively improves enterprise liquidity, enhances operational efficiency, and consequently enhances innovation resilience (IR). Moreover, the positive impact of cross-organizational cooperation on FIR is amplified by increasing the degree of digital transformation and digital technological innovation.

Impact of COVID-19 outbreak on the mental health in sports: a review

Global pandemic, lockdown restrictions, and COVID-19 compulsory social isolation guidelines have raised unprecedented mental health in the sports community. The COVID-19 pandemic is found to affect the mental health of the population. In critical situations, health authorities and sports communities must identify their priorities and make plans to maintain athletes' health and athletic activities. Several aspects play an important role in prioritization and strategic planning, e.g., physical and mental health, distribution of resources, and short to long-term environmental considerations. To identify the psychological health of sportspeople and athletes due to the outbreak of COVID-19 has been reviewed in this research. This review article also analyzes the impact of COVID-19 on health mental in databases. The COVID-19 outbreak and quarantine would have a serious negative impact on the mental health of athletes. From the accessible sources, 80 research articles were selected and examined for this purpose such as Research Gate, PubMed, Google Scholar, Springer, Scopus, and Web of Science and based on the involvement for this study 14 research articles were accessed. This research has an intention on mental health issues in athletes due to the Pandemic. This report outlines the mental, emotional and behavioural consequences of COVID-19 home confinement. Further, research literature reported that due to the lack of required training, physical activity, practice sessions, and collaboration with teammates and coaching staff are the prime causes of mental health issues in athletes. The discussions also reviewed several pieces of literature which examined the impacts on sports and athletes, impacts on various countries, fundamental issues of mental health and the diagnosis for the sports person and athletes, and the afterlife of the COVID-19 pandemic for them. Because of the compulsory restrictions and guidelines of this COVID-19 eruption, the athletes of different sports and geographical regions are suffering from fewer psychological issues which were identified in this paper. Accordingly, the COVID-19 pandemic appears to negatively affect the mental health of the athletes with the prevalence and levels of anxiety and stress increasing, and depression symptoms remaining unaltered. Addressing and mitigating the negative effect of COVID-19 on the mental health of this population identified from this review.

Predicting Athlete Intentions for Using Sports Complexes in the Post-Pandemic Era

In recent years, the concept of health has gradually fit into people's lives through the government's promotion. The indoor sports complex is becoming more and more popular, offering people the opportunity to engage in physical and recreational activities regardless of weather conditions. Psychological and social abundance is the key to improving happiness, and the most important thing is to treat and care for yourself. Many fitness venues have emerged to provide athletes with a wide range of choices. However, the advent of the COVID-19 pandemic, which is caused by a virus mainly transmitted through direct contact or air droplets, has had a severe impact on indoor gym users. Therefore, based on the Theory of Planned Behavior (TPB) and Health-Promoting Lifestyle (HPL), this research investigated athletes' behavioral intentions regarding sports halls and perceived risks as interfering variables. For data collection, we collected data samples from sports complexes athletes in Taiwan. A total of 263 responses were analyzed via SPSS 20.0 (IBM Corporation, New York, NY, USA) and AMOS 20.0 (IBM Corporation, New York, NY, USA) seis tests. The study's results indicate that health-promoting lifestyle cognition has a positive and significant effect on behavioral intention; athletes' attitudes, subjective norms, and perceived behavioral control significantly affects the behavioral intention of using the facilities in a sports complex. Athletes' risk perceptions have an interference effect between HPL, attitude, subjective norm, perceived behavioral control, and behavioral intentions of using the facilities in a sports complex. Sports venue managers can refer to the results of this project to develop marketing strategies and promoting.

Sports entrepreneurship during COVID-19: Technology as an ally to maintain the competitiveness of small businesses

The sports sector, specifically the field of personal trainer entrepreneurship, has been severely affected by the COVID-19 crisis. However, there are still few empirical studies that analyze how the actions taken before and during this crisis can affect sports entrepreneurs' performance. This research aims to analyze which combinations of sports entrepreneurs' personal characteristics and actions performed have been most and least effective in minimizing the negative impact of COVID-19 on their businesses. A validated online questionnaire was administered to personal trainer entrepreneurs from May to June 2020 before they reopened their facilities. Fuzzy-set qualitative comparative analysis (fsQCA) was performed to assess the impacts. The results show that both post-COVID measures (adaptation of the business model) and previous strategic orientation seemed essential. Specifically, high levels of sports entrepreneurs' resilience and innovation/R&D when competing against their closest competitors before the COVID-19 pandemic and the increased use of technologies (sports services digitization) during the pandemic have been essential to maintaining the performance of the sports business. Thus, improvements in the digital competencies of personal trainers' sports entrepreneurs, the development of strategic plans and activities related to innovation/R&D and process improvements are important measures to maintain the competitiveness of small sports businesses during crises.

Digitalization and entrepreneurial firms' resilience to pandemic crises: Evidence from COVID-19 and the German Mittelstand

While stressing the relevance of context, the organizational resilience literature has so far not extensively examined resilience in times of healthcare crises such as the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. The Parasite Stress Theory of Values suggests that such pandemic crises have detrimental impacts on entrepreneurial activity due to social distancing and its effects on interaction, collaboration, and innovation. However, alternatives to personal contact now available thanks to digitalization, have not yet been examined. We expect entrepreneurial firms with more digitalized business models to show higher resilience to pandemic crises, especially those highly affected by globalization and more for non-family businesses than for family businesses. Based on a survey of German Mittelstand firms in the midst of the crisis induced by COVID-19, our findings broadly support our expectations and thus help qualify the Parasite Stress Theory of Values and contribute to a better understanding of organizational resilience in times of pandemic crises.

What Do We Know and What Do We Need to Know about COVID-19’s Implications on Business Economics? From Bibliometric Analysis to a Conceptual Framework

This paper presents a bibliometric analysis of COVID-19-related research in business economics. The current status of research on economic management in COVID-19 is shown through descriptive statistics. The corresponding knowledge maps are obtained based on keyword clustering analysis, and research topics of interest to Chinese and foreign readers are identified. This paper finds that the impact of COVID-19 on business economics is mainly manifested in six major themes, namely COVID-19 and crisis management, COVID-19 and supply chain, COVID-19 and digitalization, COVID-19 and economic development, COVID-19 and organizational management, and COVID-19 and sustainable development. Based on these research foundations, this paper proposes a research framework for economic management under the influence of COVID-19. It describes the current research status, research directions, and future topics of six key research themes from macro, meso, and micro perspectives, to provide a knowledge base for research and practice in the field of economic management in the post-pandemic era.

Strategies of German Bundesliga and English Premier League clubs for the COVID-19 crisis: the case of international broadcasting fans

During the COVID-19 pandemic that paused sports worldwide, the German Bundesliga League (GBL) and English Premier League (EPL) took two different strategic approaches to agree with their players on returning to play. To become better informed and prepared for future crisis management, this study examines consumer responses to these opposing strategies. We also identify how perceived organizational legitimacy, trustworthiness, reliance, and justifiability have an impact on consumer multimedia consumption of the games. A sample of 503 participants responded to an online questionnaire regarding the contrasting decisions taken by the GBL and the EPL during the global health crisis. SEM with multi-group analysis was conducted to test the research hypotheses. When comparing the two selected sport leagues, the league that reached an agreement with their players experienced higher levels of perceived legitimacy while needing fewer perceptions of trustworthiness, reliance, and justifiability to obtain higher multimedia consumption intention from consumers.

Confirmed COVID-19 Cases per Economic Activity during Autumn Wave in Belgium

Some occupational sectors, such as human health and care, food service, cultural and sport activities, have been associated with a higher risk of SARS-CoV-2 infection than other sectors. To curb the spread of SARS-CoV-2, it is preferable to apply targeted non-pharmaceutical interventions on selected economic sectors, rather than a full lockdown. However, the effect of these general and sector-specific interventions on the virus circulation has only been sparsely studied. We assess the COVID-19 incidence under different levels of non-pharmaceutical interventions per economic activity during the autumn 2020 wave in Belgium. The 14-day incidence of confirmed COVID-19 cases per the Statistical Classification of Economic Activities in the European Community (NACE-BEL) sector is modelled by a longitudinal Gaussian-Gaussian two-stage approach. This is based on exhaustive data on all employees in all sectors. In the presence of sanitary protocols and minimal non-pharmaceutical interventions, many sectors with close contact with others show considerably higher COVID-19 14-day incidences than other sectors. The effect of stricter non-pharmaceutical interventions in the general population and non-essential sectors is seen in the timing of the peak incidence and the width and height of the post-peak incidence. In most sectors incidences returned to higher levels after the peak than before and this decrease took longer for the health and care sector. Sanitary protocols for close proximity occupations may be sufficient during periods of low-level virus circulation, but progressively less with increasing circulation. Stricter general and sector-specific non-pharmaceutical interventions adequately decrease COVID-19 incidences, even in close proximity in essential sectors under solely sanitary protocols.

Entrepreneurship and Resilience in Spanish Sports Clubs: A Cluster Analysis

Entrepreneurial orientation can be an effective response by sports clubs to manage a recession, such as the COVID-19 crisis. Therefore, its study can be fundamental to understand different ways of managing a recession. This study analyzes the entrepreneurial orientation of Spanish non-profit sports clubs to identify different groups and their profiles. The sample is composed of 145 Spanish non-profit sports clubs. Different validated scales have been used to analyze entrepreneurial orientation, business model adaptation, service quality, and economic and social performance (performance in social impact and performance in social causes). Entrepreneurial orientation is the variable used to differentiate the groups. This is made up of three dimensions: innovation, risk-taking, and proactivity. According to the results obtained, there are three groups of sports clubs according to their entrepreneurial orientation: non-entrepreneurs (n = 11), moderate entrepreneurs (n = 85), and strong entrepreneurs (n = 45). There are substantial differences between the three groups according to the adaptation of the business model, the perceived impact of COVID-19, and the returns analyzed. Strong entrepreneurs have considerably higher levels of business model adaptation, economic performance, social performance, and perceived service quality than non-entrepreneurs. Theoretical and practical implications have been drawn that can bring new information to the sports and organizational sector. For example, the diagnosis of the different profiles according to the level of entrepreneurship can be useful to propose strategies to improve performance. In this way, it can help to evaluate the return on the investment made by sponsors or governments in the organization.