Employee pride and identification with sport: Key drivers of positive organizational behavior [Abstract]

Despite calls for investigation of organisational life and human resource management in the sport environment (e.g., Doherty, 1998), the sport management discipline has generally given more attention to other areas of the field such as marketing, consumer behaviour, and more recently sport for development. The current study utilised a positive organisational behaviour approach to provide additional Insight in this area, which some scholars have proposed should be a primary focus of organisational research (e.g., Luthans, 2002). From a similar perspective, Todd and Kent (2009) developed a model of positive social identity and proposed that sport employees might experience psychological fulfillment in excess of what is seen in other industries. A main aim of the current study was to empirically assess Todd and Kent’s conceptual model by examining the impact of sport employee pride on job satisfaction and organisational citizenship behaviour. In addition, this study tested the hypothesis that identifying with a specific sport can be a contributing factor to increased levels of employee pride in the current context.