Does sport affect the competitiveness of European Union countries? An analysis of the degree of innovation and GDP per capita using linear and QCA models

The sport industry has experienced great growth in recent years worldwide, and especially in the European Union (EU) countries. However, despite the role that this industry can play in improving the competitiveness of these countries (Gross Domestic Product (GDP) per capita and innovation performance), no studies have been found that analyse its influence. So, the main aim of this study is, firstly, to analyse the relationship between the innovation performance and the GDP per capita of EU countries, and, secondly, to find out how sport-related indicators and different innovation-related indicators influence the innovation performance and GDP per capita of the EU countries. To this end, two different methodologies have been used: hierarchical regression models and qualitative comparative analysis (QCA). A total sample of 23 EU countries have been analysed. The results show that GDP per capita and innovation performance are highly correlated in a positive and significant way (0.76; p?<?.0001), and that the variables related to sport help explain the variance of these two variables, highlighting as necessary variable in both cases the growth in the sports sector (consistency >0.90). Finally, a number of practical implications are presented that can help policy makers to improve the competitiveness of EU countries.

     

Brand personality in a membership‐based organisation

• This study employed Aaker's (6) brand personality framework to assess the brand characteristics of a membership based sport organisation in Australia (N=413). Factor analysis suggested that Aaker's framework did not fully capture variations in responses within the Australia sample, and that a modified version incorporating an additional dimension of Innovation was required. This modified factor structure may reflect characteristics of netball as a sport, specific sample attributes or cross‐cultural variations in the brand personality concept. Results indicate that the Netball Victoria brand is strongly associated with Competence, Sincerity and Innovation, is moderately linked with Excitement and Sophistication, and has a low connection with Ruggedness. These qualities are perceived with a high level of consistency by different respondents. The organisation's brand personality as perceived by its members provides a diagnostic which may be used to guide re‐branding, positioning and other marketing strategies. Additional research is required to assess the role and function of cultural variations in measuring brand personality.

Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Sport-based entrepreneurship: towards a new theory of entrepreneurship and sport management

The entrepreneurship and sport management disciplines have grown significantly in the past decade. Sport is an entrepreneurial process as innovation and change are key elements of sport. The aim of this paper is to develop a theory of entrepreneurship in sports management by investigating the relationship between entrepreneurship and sport. The rapidly growing and developing sport marketing discipline provides a basis in which to understand how entrepreneurship occurs through innovation, proactiveness and risk taking activities. This paper discusses the connection between the entrepreneurship and sports management fields and argues that there needs to be more integration with the two fields of study and traditional entrepreneurship theory. A theory of sport-based entrepreneurship is developed and different types of entrepreneurship that occur in sports management are examined. Suggestions for future research and implications for practitioners are discussed.     

Leading Indicators for Euro‐area Inflation and GDP Growth*

In this paper, we evaluate the role of a set of variables as leading indicators for Euro‐area inflation and GDP growth. Our leading indicators are taken from the variables in the European Central Bank's (ECB) Euro‐area‐wide model database, plus a set of similar variables for the US. We compare the forecasting performance of each indicator ex post with that of purely autoregressive models. We also analyse three different approaches to combining the information from several indicators. First, ex post, we discuss the use as indicators of the estimated factors from a dynamic factor model for all the indicators. Secondly, within an ex ante framework, an automated model selection procedure is applied to models with a large set of indicators. No future information is used, future values of the regressors are forecast, and the choice of the indicators is based on their past forecasting records. Finally, we consider the forecasting performance of groups of indicators and factors and methods of pooling the ex ante single‐indicator or factor‐based forecasts. Some sensitivity analyses are also undertaken for different forecasting horizons and weighting schemes of forecasts to assess the robustness of the results.     

我国体育立法观念更新及其价值取向研究

新中国的体育立法经历了初创与发展、恢复与提高、跃进与创新三个历史演变阶段,期间立法观念不断更新,指导思想时有发展。这种意识形态的变更深刻地影响了我国体育立法的发展进程。准确把握我国体育立法观念更新的发展特点,深入挖掘背后的立法价值取向规律,总结体育立法价值取向冲突的整合原则,将有助于我国体育立法工作的科学与完善。     

The skill profile of the employees and the provision of flexible working hours in the workplace: a multilevel analysis across European countries

This article investigates the relationship between the skill profile of the employees (i.e. the percentage of employees in highly skilled jobs) and the provision of flexible working hours in the workplace (i.e. the proportion of employees entitled to adapt, within certain limits, the time when they begin or finish their daily work according to their personal needs or wishes). Analyses draw on the 2009 European Company Survey, conducted on a representative sample (N = 26,640) of European establishments in 29 countries. Multilevel mixed‐effects linear regressions are used to study to what extent both workplace‐level and national‐level variables affect this relationship. Findings suggest a strong, positive and non‐linear relationship between the variables under scrutiny, which is moderated, at national level, by both unemployment and trade union density rates.     

Assessing job crafting competencies to predict tradeoffs between competing outcomes

We introduce the job crafting competency construct and apply it to predict tradeoffs between competing outcomes that are inherent in job crafting, like performance and well-being or engagement and withdrawal. Job crafting competencies are the clusters of individual knowledge, skills, and abilities that are necessary to achieve personal objectives through effective job crafting problem-solving. We create a framework of job crafting competencies consisting of comprehensive/simplistic heuristic information use and approach/avoidance problem-solving skills. In Study 1, we operationalize competencies as profiles demonstrated through an aptitude-oriented assessment that predicts differences in outcomes. Five distinct profiles emerged in a sample of 174 workers. The high-volume analytic problem-solving profile was associated with higher performance and strain, while the ambivalent acquiescence profile was associated with lower performance and strain. The practical problem-solving profile minimized tradeoffs between performance and strain. Rapid problem-solving and low-volume analytic problem-solving profiles were variants in between these other patterns. Study 2 used a survey of 323 workers to support the uniqueness of the five competencies, and their relationships with approach/avoidance job crafting, engagement, and withdrawal. The research identifies a new job crafting individual difference (job crafting competencies) to delineate outcomes and tradeoffs according to unique competency profiles.     

Do social enterprises attract workers who are more pro-socially motivated than their counterparts in for-profit organizations to perform low-skilled jobs?

Abstract

The literature highlights that social enterprises (SEs) attract workers who are motivated to help others and to meet the social aims in which they believe. However, this assumption is challenged in the case of low-skilled jobs. Therefore, we have performed an empirical study in the quasi-market of service vouchers in Belgium to know if SEs attract workers who have a different motivational profile than their counterparts in for-profit organizations (FPOs) to perform low skilled jobs (N = 217). No significant differences were found. Next, we have compared FPOs with two types of social enterprises, Home Care Services Organizations (HCSOs) and Work Integration Social enterprises (WISEs), and again no significant differences were found for the whole sample. However, it seems that a selection effect exists in WISEs when the sample is reduced to people who were not previously unemployed. In others words, when WISEs deviate from their initial mission of ‘hiring the most vulnerable people on the labor market’, it is only to hire workers whose are highly motivated to achieve the organization’s mission and who fit with the values defended by the organization.     

NONPARAMETRIC AND SEMIPARAMETRIC PANEL DATA MODELS: RECENT DEVELOPMENTS

In this paper, we provide an intensive review of the recent developments for semiparametric and fully nonparametric panel data models that are linearly separable in the innovation and the individual-specific term. We analyze these developments under two alternative model specifications: fixed and random effects panel data models. More precisely, in the random effects setting, we focus our attention in the analysis of some efficiency issues that have to do with the so-called working independence condition. This assumption is introduced when estimating the asymptotic variance–covariance matrix of nonparametric estimators. In the fixed effects setting, to cope with the so-called incidental parameters problem, we consider two different estimation approaches: profiling techniques and differencing methods. Furthermore, we are also interested in the endogeneity problem and how instrumental variables are used in this context. In addition, for practitioners, we also show different ways of avoiding the so-called curse of dimensionality problem in pure nonparametric models. In this way, semiparametric and additive models appear as a solution when the number of explanatory variables is large.     

Marketing and development out of poverty: introduction to the special issue

• Reducing poverty by meeting the United Nations' Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) is an interdisciplinary undertaking, in which Marketing Science logically plays a role. The papers in this special issue cover a range of methods, from traditional consumer research experiments (on images of poverty, donation behaviour) and sample surveys on the credibility of celebrity marketing, to observational studies of community values and customs (on micro-finance or agricultural enterprise). Consumers of aid appeals, celebrity lobbying and financial services—these methods reveal—are behaviourally complex. They are infused with contradictory, competing and complementary tendencies. Underlying those different tendencies however is a common but often overlooked thread. For poverty to be significantly reduced by 2015, attention needs to be paid not only to goals, that is to task but also towards understanding the human relationships in the poverty reduction market. Marketing practise and research can contribute to poverty reduction by helping build (1) perspective-sharing, (2) accommodation to local needs and (3) appreciation of socio-economic and socio-cultural behavioural systems.

Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Run length distributions for estimated attributes charts

Attributes control charts, such as c and p charts, are popular methods for detecting out of control signals when it is practical only to obtain qualitative information about a process; in such cases, variables control charts, such as the , s and R charts, cannot be used. The run length distributions have previously been studied for variables charts when the control limits have been estimated. Little has been done in the case of attributes charts. In this paper, the run length distributions for the c chart and p chart are derived for the case when the control limits are estimated. It is shown that, as for variables charts, the effect of estimation on quantities such as the average run length (ARL) can be quite dramatic, but when the underlying process is in control, the ARL is potentially misleading as a basis for comparison. Received: September 1998     

Econometric Methods for Modelling Systems With a Mixture of i(1) and i(0) Variables

This paper considers structural models with both I(1) and I(0) variables. The structural shocks associated with either set of variables could be permanent or transitory. We classify the shocks as (P1,P0) and (T1,T0), where P/T distinguishes permanent/transitory, while 1/0 means they are attached to structural equations with either I(1) or I(0) variables as their ‘dependent’ variable. We show that P0 shocks can affect cointegration analysis and provide a formula to compute the permanent component if they are present. Finally, we reformulate a well‐known empirical structural vector autoregression showing the impact of P0 shocks when there are just long‐run parametric and sign restrictions. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Blood Sports and Cherry Pie

Abstract . The results are reported of empirically testing two hypotheses relating to violence in a professional team sport: one, that hockey fans have a taste for violence (bockey is a “blood sport”) so that, in general, game attendance and violence in the National Hockey League are positively related; and two, more specifically, that the more extreme degrees of violence are positively associated with American, not Canadian, attendance. The data are game by game data for the 1983/84 season, violence is measured by various categories of penalty minutes (minors, majors, misconducts), and the model is a system of two reduced form equations. The results confirm that there is a significant and positive relationship between aggregate measures of violence (total penalty minutes) and attendance for games played in both American and Canadian cities; and there is a significant positive relationship between the more extreme forms of violence (proxied by majors and misconducts) and attendance only in American cities     

Why so fed up and footloose in IT? Spelling out the associations between occupation and overall job satisfaction shown by WERS 2004

Analysis of the Workplace Employment Relations Survey 2004 employee data shows striking differences in levels of overall job satisfaction among occupational groups. The examination is based on the 81 Minor Occupation groupings in UK Standard Occupational Classification 2000 classification. Taking a possible specific occupational effect possibly conditioned by resonance effects, as a theoretical point of departure, multivariate analysis is used to restate apparent occupational effect as occupationally bundled individual‐level variables and workplace influences—a process seen as exchanging nominal‐level measurement (names of occupations) with theoretical variables. Although 13 minor occupational groups retain statistically significant independent influence after the statistical treatment, these effects are small. Detailed illustration and specification of bundling effects and further examination of their sources take information and communications technology and communication professionals as their point of reference.     

Policies to support ethnic minority enterprise: the English experience

Using Global Entrepreneurship Monitor data for 29 countries this study investigates the (differential) impact of several factors on female and male entrepreneurship at the country level. These factors are derived from three streams of literature, including that on entrepreneurship in general, on female labour force participation and on female entrepreneurship. The paper deals with the methodological aspects of investigating (female) entrepreneurship by distinguishing between two measures of female entrepreneurship: the number of female entrepreneurs and the share of women in the total number of entrepreneurs. The first measure is used to investigate whether variables have an impact on entrepreneurship in general (influencing both the number of female and male entrepreneurs). The second measure is used to investigate whether factors have a differential relative impact on female and male entrepreneurship, i.e. whether they influence the diversity or gender composition of entrepreneurship. Findings indicate that – by and large – female and male entrepreneurial activity rates are influenced by the same factors and in the same direction. However, for some factors (e.g. unemployment, life satisfaction) we find a differential impact on female and male entrepreneurship. The present study also shows that the factors influencing the number of female entrepreneurs may be different from those influencing the share of female entrepreneurs. In this light it is important that governments are aware of what they want to accomplish (i.e. do they want to stimulate the number of female entrepreneurs or the gender composition of entrepreneurship) to be able to select appropriate policy measures.     

Using Complex Surveys to Estimate the L1‐Median of a Functional Variable: Application to Electricity Load Curves

Mean profiles are widely used as indicators of the electricity consumption habits of customers. Currently, in Électricité De France (EDF), class load profiles are estimated using point‐wise mean profiles. Unfortunately, it is well known that the mean is highly sensitive to the presence of outliers, such as one or more consumers with unusually high‐levels of consumption. In this paper, we propose an alternative to the mean profile: the L ₁ ‐ median profile which is more robust. When dealing with large data sets of functional data (load curves for example), survey sampling approaches are useful for estimating the median profile avoiding storing the whole data. We propose here several sampling strategies and estimators to estimate the median trajectory. A comparison between them is illustrated by means of a test population. We develop a stratification based on the linearized variable which substantially improves the accuracy of the estimator compared to simple random sampling without replacement. We suggest also an improved estimator that takes into account auxiliary information. Some potential areas for future research are also highlighted.     

A Bayesian network to discover relationships between negative features in sport: a case study of teen players

The purpose of this paper is the study of relationships between negative psychological features in young competitive team players via a Bayesian network (BN). The BN let us describe in graphical terms the dependencies and conditional independencies between variables in a multivariate context, and therefore it let us analyze the relationships between the type of motivational climate and orientation of team players (from two different frameworks: goal orientation theory, and self-determination motivation theory), and we took into account their willingness to accept the use of gamesmanship and cheating at the games, related with somatic and cognitive pre-competitive anxiety. The BN analysis includes three reasoning patterns: evidential reasoning, causal reasoning and intercausal reasoning. We built a BN from a data set composed of twelve psychological variables, which were identified as relevant to this study. The structure and parameters were learnt with TETRAD IV and the BN was implemented in Netica software.     

The antecedents and consequences of charitable donation heterogeneity on social media

This study claims that donating is a rational behavior that balances altruism and self‐interest; therefore, the frequency and magnitude of donating are picked as crucial criteria to classify different crowdfunders because both of them reflect the rationality of donating. This study identifies 6 clusters of crowdfunders and explores the antecedent variables of the typology based on self‐system theory, as well as reveals the social influence of different types of crowdfunders. Data of the crowdfunders (n = 13,868) were collected from “Micro Philanthropy,” a popular SNS crowdfunding platform for charity in China. Social Network Service (SNS) profile information such as network features, social interaction features, and the identity of users was found to be significantly related to the typology. Active donors and bounteous donors are more influential than other donors in absorbing the attention of SNS users and attracting new donors.     

体育科学与体育科学体系新论

依据《辞海》中科学的概念,结合体育科学的性质和特点,重新定义了体育科学的概念。指出了体育学院通用教材体育概论中体育科学体系分类的不合理之处,提出了新的体育科学体系分类。