The Blinding Effects of Team Identification on Sports Corruption: Cross-Cultural Evidence from Sub-Saharan African Countries

Anastasia Stathopoulou (), Tommy Kweku Quansah () and George Balabanis ()
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Anastasia Stathopoulou: INSEEC U. Research Centre
Tommy Kweku Quansah: University of Lausanne
George Balabanis: City University of London

Journal of Business Ethics, 2022, vol. 179, issue 2, No 11, 529 pages

Abstract: Abstract Although the world of sports has witnessed numerous corruption scandals, the effects of perceived corruption in sports have not been sufficiently investigated in the literature. The aim of this paper is to examine how sports team identification weakens people’s perceptions of corruption in sports, and how it dampens corruption’s negative effects on spectator behavior. The study also examines how prevalent social norms regarding corruption in a country strengthen or weaken these effects. A survey of 1,005 sports spectators from four Sub-Saharan African countries reveals how the interplay between team identification and perceived corruption can encourage or discourage sports attendance under different conditions. Corruption is investigated through the theoretical lenses of the pluralistic nature of morality. Findings indicate that particularistic values linked to moral obligations toward the team collide with the universalistic values that demand fairness in sports. In addition, social norms of corruption moderate the clash between universalistic and particularistic values.

Keywords: Perceived sports corruption; Social norms of corruption; Structural approach of corruption; Group-based morality; Team identification (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022
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DOI: 10.1007/s10551-021-04822-3

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