The meaning of team in team identification

Elizabeth B. Delia and Jeffrey D. James

Sport Management Review, 2018, vol. 21, issue 4, 416-429

Abstract: •The meaning of team evolves due to environmental changes and personal experiences.•The meaning of team consists of micro-level and macro-level elements.•The macro-level elements place, past, and present transcend research settings.•Place and past provide stability to a team identity, while present is fluid.A voluminous literature exists on the relationship between team identification and various consumer thoughts, attitudes, and behaviours. However, the psychological meaning of team to consumers remains unknown, as scholars have studied individuals’ identification with a team without empirically investigating its meaning. Following an interpretive mode of inquiry in this study, the authors used interviews and concept mapping to understand the meaning of team among fans of two separate teams. An important discovery is that the meaning of team evolves due to environmental changes and personal experiences. At the same time, the authors determined that the meaning of team in team identification has three broad components: place, past, and present, each of which uniquely contributes to the identity. The authors conclude by discussing the implications of this research on the team identification literature and offering suggestions to practitioners and researchers.

Date: 2018
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
http://hdl.handle.net/10.1016/j.smr.2017.09.002 (text/html)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:taf:rsmrxx:v:21:y:2018:i:4:p:416-429

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.tandfonline.com/pricing/journal/rsmr20

DOI: 10.1016/j.smr.2017.09.002

Access Statistics for this article

Sport Management Review is currently edited by Sheranne Fairley

More articles in Sport Management Review from Taylor & Francis Journals
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Chris Longhurst ().