Expanding sport management toward management through sport: the promise of company sport in organizations

In an attempt to broaden the scope of sport management, this research provides a conceptual model of management through company sport. This comprehensive model is designed to illustrate why employees engage in company sport and how such participation can enhance employees’ well-being, reinforce positive work-related behaviors, and improve group dynamics and organizational performance. The model also incorporates moderating factors that offer deeper descriptions of the antecedents and outcomes of company sport participation. As an initial step, four types of company sport (i.e. intramural leagues, company sport clubs, company team sport leagues, and casual sport activities) were identified. We call for sport management researchers to pay greater attention to possible applications of company sport, empirically examine the proposed relationships in the management through company sport model and test the suggested moderators for company sport participation and its outcomes at the individual, group, and organizational levels.