Conscious capitalism and sport: Exploring higher purpose in a professional sport organization

Publication date: Available online 27 September 2019Source: Sport Management ReviewAuthor(s): Evan Gwartz, Kirsty SpenceAbstractThe higher purpose of a professional sport organization has been an elusive concept, with both sport organizational scholars and leaders seemingly ambiguous in their definitions of why such organizations exist (Newman, 2014; Zeigler, 2007). In contrast, management researchers (Sisodia et al., 2014) provided evidence that organizational leaders’ communication of an organization’s higher purpose profoundly benefits organizational performance. Thus, the purpose of this paper is to present the findings of a qualitative, descriptive case study of a single professional sport organization, whereby 13 participant leaders and employees espouse their organization’s higher purpose. Data including interviews, observation of organizational artifacts, and an analysis of organizational documents were analyzed by creating typologies based upon Mackey and Sisodia’s (2013) Conscious Capitalism framework that defines four types of higher purpose (i.e., The Good, The Beautiful, The True, The Heroic). Participants espoused several sources of higher purpose that related to The Good, The Beautiful, and The Heroic, and did not espouse any source of higher purpose related to The True. Moreover, participants espoused no definitive statement of the organization’s higher purpose and each participant’s espoused higher purpose varied. These findings suggest that leade...
Source: Sport Management Review - Category: Sports Medicine Source Type: research
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