The meaning of team in team identification

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.

• Publication year

  2017

• Venue

  Sport Management Review

• Publication date

  2017-10-02

• Fields of study

  Business, Psychology

• Identifiers
  DOI 10.1016/J.SMR.2017.09.002
• External record

  Open on Semantic Scholar

• Source metadata

  Semantic Scholar

• No claims are published for this paper.

• No concepts are published for this paper.

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