‘Team Zebra’: An Exploration of Social Identity, Motivation, and Sport Officiating Persistence

Abstract

The purpose of this study is three-pronged: (1) to expand the understanding of social identities and motivations of sport officials, (2) to explore the utilization of Sport Employee Identification (SEI) for sport officials, and (3) to elucidate the impact of identification with an officiating group as it relates to strategies for officiating persistence. The authors conducted in-depth semi-structured interviews with 30 high school varsity basketball officials at two officiating training camps across two different states in the Midwest and Northern regions of the United States. Officials had an average of 12.97 years of officiating experience. Findings demonstrate the importance of having a connection with sport, mentors serving as gatekeepers to the officiating group, and group membership as it relates to sport official motivation, social identification, and likelihood of officiating persistence. Expanding the understanding of sport officials through the lens of social identification and motivation theory has theoretical implications for understanding this unique stakeholder group as part of the sport ecosystem and has practical implications related to the relationship between social identification, motivation, and officiating persistence.

Keywords:

• Sport employee identification
• motivation
• group membership

Disclosure Statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by funds received from the NASSM Research Grant Program.

Notes on contributors

Claire C. Zvosec

Claire C. Zvosec (Ph.D., University of Kansas) is an Assistant Professor, Sport Management at Louisiana State University. As a research interest, Dr. Zvosec examines sport employees, often utilizing conceptual frameworks from organizational behavior and sociological aspects of sport.

Brent D. Oja

Brent D. Oja (Ph.D., University of Kansas) is an Assistant Professor, Sport Administration at University of Northern Colorado. Dr. Oja’s primary line of research focuses on positive organizational behavior as it relates to sport employees with the use of constructs such as social identity and sport employee identification.

Nathan Baer

Nathan Baer (MS, Northern Illinois University) is a Doctoral Student at Louisiana State University Sport Management. Mr. Baer’s research typically focuses on the experiences of employees, participants and fans in the area of amateur sport, primarily through the lens of organizational behavior conceptual frameworks.