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The founders of JSAS believe that, as an institution, sport must begin to fully acknowledge and completely embrace its role as a social product, formulate ethical imperatives to improve society, and generate long-term ideals that are good for society.
For too long, sport as an institution has clung to various defenses of aged clinical, value-neutral capitalism and modern advertisement-based refusals to accept role model functions. In postmodern times, however, sport professionals and organizations must imperatively employ knowledge as their power capital in the competition to shape and define the character and meaning of sport.
Instead of a philanthropically-rooted approach, the founders of JSAS believe that sport must take a socially responsible mindset that can best be described as business activism—an approach that seeks to show the world that business can be a powerful, positive, and progressive voice in society, and accordingly manages organizations to do well (functionally) so they can do good (become forces for positive change in the world).
History Repeating & The Self-Fulfilling Prophecy
The most worrisome trends in the institution of sport appear to be interrelated and self-compounding. The future of sport will rest heavily on sport organizations’ and stakeholders’ abilities to create and globally distribute institution-saving initiatives and innovations. Many of these initiatives and innovations will upend current notions of the management, production, and consumption of sport.
Solutions for Commerce
Markets value what they measure, and future practices of innovative, socially responsible sport capitalism will require effective research metrics that are practically applicable.
Village-to-Village Networks
One of the greatest challenges in providing sport consumer services to stakeholders has not been a lack of intent or even a lack of resources, but rather a lack of efficient markets with effective ways to connect, aggregate, and deliver services. However, meaningful sport research will spur the painfully slow but inexorable progress toward closing global divides and pay dividends that, along with new thinking about systems and social networks, will transform sport’s provision of its services to all categories of stakeholders.
The Conscious Consumer
With two huge generations dominating American society—Baby Boomers, who created the first draft of contemporary social change, and Millennials, the most globally connected group in history—principles of conscious consumption will come to dominate the global marketplace. That ethos will carry with it a direct penalty for organizations reluctant to comply, including those within the sport industry. Research indicates that these consumers are nearly twice as likely to associate their own personal values with companies and their brands, and that perceptions of environmental, ethical, and social stewardship are the fastest-growing contributors to consumer brand value and are reshaping society and the marketplace.
Phenomenology | Scholarly Sport Practitioner | Social Responsibility | Open Access
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