Sports management, marketing
majid soleymani; ali torkaman
Abstract
The present study was conducted with the aim of investigating the adoption and strategic value of social media marketing communications in Iranian volleyball clubs through a multiple case study design. This study was qualitative in approach, exploratory in purpose, and grounded in the interpretivist ...
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The present study was conducted with the aim of investigating the adoption and strategic value of social media marketing communications in Iranian volleyball clubs through a multiple case study design. This study was qualitative in approach, exploratory in purpose, and grounded in the interpretivist paradigm. The research strategy was a multiple case study, and data were collected through semi-structured interviews with 14 key informants from 14 Iranian volleyball clubs. These participants included executive managers, marketing managers and experts, media and public relations officers, official virtual page administrators, and digital communication consultants. Sampling was purposeful using a maximum variation strategy, and data analysis was performed using an inductive qualitative content analysis approach. The trustworthiness of the findings was ensured through the criteria of credibility, transferability, dependability, and confirmability. The findings revealed that Instagram forms the core of digital communications for Iranian volleyball clubs, while messaging applications such as WhatsApp and Telegram play a complementary role. Furthermore, the adoption of social media marketing communications can be explained through 11 main themes, including: enhancing brand awareness and credibility, social capital management, agility in information dissemination, developing sponsorship attraction capacity, talent acquisition, cost advantage, digital engagement, event marketing, market learning, narrative branding, and commercialization. This result indicates that the strategic value of social media in Iranian volleyball clubs possesses a multi-layered and capacity-driven nature, transcending the level of operational functions to become a tool for branding, fan engagement, and the development of commercial opportunities.
Sports management, marketing
majid soleymani; vahid khodakarimian
Abstract
this research was conducted with the aim of developing a model of antecedents and consequences of fan-club relationship quality management in the context of the Iranian Football Premier League. The research method was qualitative-exploratory, employing thematic analysis as the primary strategy. The research ...
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this research was conducted with the aim of developing a model of antecedents and consequences of fan-club relationship quality management in the context of the Iranian Football Premier League. The research method was qualitative-exploratory, employing thematic analysis as the primary strategy. The research population consisted of experts and key informants in professional football (club managers and deputies, fan relationship officers, sports marketing specialists, and faculty members), who were selected via purposive sampling followed by snowball sampling; the sample size was determined at 17 individuals based on theoretical saturation. Data were collected using semi-structured interviews. To ensure validity and reliability/trustworthiness, the criteria of credibility, transferability, dependability, and confirmability were utilized. Thematic analysis was conducted based on Braun and Clarke’s (2006) six-phase framework.
The findings led to the extraction of 76 basic themes, 16 organizing themes, and 3 global themes: Relationship Quality Antecedents (Structural–Managerial Tactics, Communicational & Media Governance, Participation Mechanisms & Fan Voice, Socio–Emotional Tactics, Fan Experience & Contact Quality, Economic–Incentive Tactics, Justice & Authenticity in Benefits); Relationship Quality Process (Institutional Trust, Credibility & Club Reliability, Affective Commitment, Continuance & Normative Commitment, Intimacy & Unity, Identification & Meaning Co-creation); and Relationship Quality Consequences (Behavioral Loyalty, Fan Citizenship Behavior, Resilience & Sustainable Value Creation). These results indicate that relationship quality in Iranian football is a multilayered and governance-oriented process that achieves sustainable socio-economic outcomes through the path of trust, reliability, and identification. Therefore, it is suggested that clubs transition from campaign-based management to systematic relationship management by institutionalizing transparency, accountability, genuine fan participation, standardization of match-day experiences, and monitoring of relationship-oriented indicators.
