A Study on Factors Affecting Fans' Identification and Involvement of

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Apr 1, 2012 - Since the advent of the Chinese Professional Baseball League (CPBL) in ... tickets to watch baseball games on the spot as a result from Chen,.
A Study on Factors Affecting Fans’ Identification and Involvement of Professional Baseball Team in Taiwan Hsiao-Ming Chang, Professor, Department of Kinesiology Health and Leisure Studies, Chienkuo Technology University, Taiwan Li-Wei Liu, Corresponding Author, Associate Professor, Department of Sports, Health, Leisure, Aletheia University, Taiwan

ABSTRACT This study explores fans’ identification and enduring involvement of professional baseball in Taiwan; it discusses the research objectives through investigating the relationships with different demographic variables of the subject, such as age, gender, marital status, educational attainment, parenthood status, and monthly income, by the application of questionnaire survey approach. The investigation has been conducted since 2011; during the progress, a total of 617 valid questionnaires are obtained. After processing data analysis involving descriptive statistics, t-test, one-way ANOVA, and correlation analysis, the study retrieves the following results: 1. There are significant differences of fans’ marital status in Image Identification factor and Altitude Identification; 2. There are significant differences of fans’ parenthood status in Image Identification and Altitude Identification; 3. There are significant differences of fans age in Identification which includes Image Identification factor, Altitude Identification factor, Team Identification factor, Team Involvement factor, and By-product Involvement factor; 4. There are significant differences in fans’ educational attainment in identification, includes Image Identification factor, Altitude Identification, Team Identification factor, and Product Involvement factor; 5. There are significant differences of fans’ monthly incomes in identification, includes Image Identification factor, Altitude Identification factor, Team Identification factor, and By-product Involvement factor. In addition, the Image Identification factor, Altitude Identification factor, Team Identification factor, Team Involvement factor, and By-product Involvement factor are influential to one another, respectively. Keywords: Professional Baseball, Fan, Identification, enduring involvement INTRODUCTION Since the advent of the Chinese Professional Baseball League (CPBL) in Taiwan, the national professional baseball has been developed for 23 years in Taiwan (1989, the 1st Professional Baseball Era, to the present). During this progress, the league has been confronting several scandals with players of different professional baseball teams engaging in match fixing, and the dismissals of professional baseball teams due to match fixing scandals or operation failures which resulted in keeping the business becoming painstakingly, compared to the beginning years of the CPBL. For instance, in the 21st years of the Professional Baseball Era, the average number of spectators at each game was only 1786. In spite of decreasing number of spectators, the person-time in a single game that the Brother Elephants against the Sino Bulls in the final was over 10,000, which revealed baseball fans’ enduring support in professional baseball game. In the research on sports fans, Wann and Branscombe (1993) indicates that identification is the level of concern and favour of sports fans on certain athlete team; or in a certain circumstance, an individual is aware of a level of significance or interest by stimulations that the higher levels of significance and interest an individual has, the higher involvement he/she will have, and he/she will have lower level of involvement if otherwise (Engel, Blackwell & Miniard, 1933). Chen (2010) explores that team identification of the on-site spectators in a CBPL game, the perceived value on by-products and purchase intention are related. In Chou’s (2008) study, he also finds the rationality of a number of fans of the La New Bears Team purchased tickets to watch baseball games on the spot as a result from Chen, Chin-feng joined the team. In Chang and Yao’s (2010) research on the CPBL fans, it is showed that fans tend to take the victory or defeat of a game as their own success or failure when they perceive a high level of identification toward the

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team. Chang and Kao (2001) find the level of professional baseball fans’ involvement is influential to their frequency of attending a game positively. Hsu and Kao (2006) study the relationship of supporting factor and team identification of the Brother Elephants’ and the Sino Bulls’ fans, and conclude that the level of involvement is influential to the level of fans’ identification toward professional baseball teams. According to the CPBL at present, the Brother Elephants Team is the most popular professional baseball team that has the most fans (Chen, 2005); thus, the objective of the study is aimed primarily on investigating fans’ identification and enduring involvement to the Brother Elephants Team in order to be implemented as useful reference by the operators in the professional baseball teams in the future. METHODOLOGIES Subject In order to understand the present phenomenon and diversity of styles in coping with conflicts, the research subject is designed to be consisted of fans who have participated in the Brother Elephants games in the CPBL in 2011. A total of 1000 questionnaires are distributed to the spectators at the games; after excluding the questionnaires that have missed too many questions or shown explicit bias, the number of valid questionnaires that are collected is 617 with an effective response rate of 61.7%. INSTRUMENT Questionnaire Design The design of the scale, identification and involvement of professional baseball, in this study is revised based on the instrument uses in Chan, Lin, and Yu (2004), and Liu (2005). There are two sections of the scale in the study as the following: Section 1. Demographic Characteristics, which are age, marital status, educational attainment, monthly income, and etc. Section 2. Identification and Involvement in Professional Baseball Scale, which include 25 questions, is constructed on five aspects as Image Identification factor, Altitude Identification factor, Team Identification factor, Team Involvement factor, and By-product Involvement factor. Reliability Test The reliability of a scale is generally utilized to test the degree of reliability of a scale, which performs as an indicator for administering the consistency of a measure or a scale. To examine the reliability of the scale in this study, the reliability test is applied to test the internal consistency of the scale based on Cronbach’s α coefficient. The first factor, image identification, in the professional baseball identification scale has an α value 0.8292, the second factor, altitude identification, has an α value 0.8074, the third factor, team identification, has an α value 0.8574, the fourth factor, team involvement, has an α value 0.8256, the fifth factor, product involvement, has an α value 0.8074, and the sixth factor, enduring involvement, has an α 0.8292. The α value of the whole scale is 0.9656; consequently, each factor in the scale of the study has high reliability. The results are showed in the discussions section. Survey Questionnaire The subject of the study is consisted by fans of the Brother Elephants Team in the CPBL; there are two steps of sampling process, which are the pre-test and the final test. The pre-test is held at a game of the Brother Elephants games that are held in Taichung in April, 2011; 150 questionnaires are distributed. The formal test is held at the Brother Elephants games held in Taipei, Taichung, and Tainan in June, 2011; 1000 questionnaires are distributed. In order to be accurate and effective in distributing questionnaires to the sample of examinees, the researcher demarcates the seating area for the spectators at each game selected to collect data for the study and hands out the questionnaires at half-time after the 5th inning. The researcher also keeps record of spectators when they make purchases for by-products of the Brother Elephants, and inquires that which of them consider themselves as fans of the team in person to assure the accuracy of the obtained information.

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RESULT Sample characteristics analysis Among the 617 valid samples of demographic information of the respondents in gender, 408 are males, which account for 66.1% of total and 209 are females, 33.9% of total. Among the 617 valid samples of respondents in marital status, 102 are married, which accounts for 16.5% of the total, and 515 are unmarried, 83.5% of total. Among the 617 valid samples of respondents in Parenthood status, 77 have one or more child, which accounts for 12.5% of total, and 540 are childless, 87.5% of the total. Among the 617 valid samples of respondents in the age variable, 333 are at age 21-30, which accounts for 54.0% of total and is the biggest group, and 6 are at age 51-60 or older, which accounts for 1.0% of total and is the smallest group. Among the 617 valid samples of respondents in educational attainment, 380 have attained college or university degree, which accounts for 61.6% of total and is the biggest group, and 4 have attained doctoral degree, which accounts for 0.6% of total and is the smallest group. Among the 617 valid samples of respondents in monthly income, 229 are paid less than 20,000 NTD or under, which accounts for 37.1% of total and represents the biggest group, and 7 are paid 80,000 to 100,000 NTD or over, which accounts for 1.1% of total and is the smallest group.

Gender Marital status Parenthood status

Age

Educational attainment

Monthly income (NTD)

Table 1: Distributions of demographic characteristics Component Number Male 408 Female 209 Married 102 Unmarried 515 One or more children 77 childlessness 540 Under 20-year-old 152 21〜30-year-old 333 31〜40-year-old 101 41〜50-year-old 25 51〜60-year-old or older 6 Junior high school or under 22 Senior high school 89 Junior college 39 College or university 380 Master’s 83 doctorate 4 20,000 or under 229 20,001〜40,000 185 40,001〜60,000 73 60,001〜80,000 21 80001〜100,000 7 100,001 or over 9 None 93

Percentage 66.1 33.9 16.5 83.5 12.5 87.5 24.6 54.0 16.4 4.1 1.0 3.6 14.4 6.3 61.6 13.8 0.6 37.1 30.0 11.8 3.4 1.1 1.5 15.1

Differentiation analysis on fans with different demographics characteristics in Identification 1. Differentiation analysis of fans’ genders in Identification The results of t-test analysis in Table 2 show that there are no significant differences in fans’ gender in Identification which includes Image Identification factor (t= -.947, p>.05), Altitude Identification factor (t= -.557, p>.05), Team Identification factors (t= -.1.386, p>.05), Team Involvement factor (t= .643, p>.05), and By-product Involvement factor (t= -.290, p>.05).

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Dimensions Image Identification Altitude Identification Team Identification Team Involvement By-product Involvement

M SD M SD M SD M SD M SD

Table 2: T-test analysis of gender in Identification Male Female T-value 24.0 24.4 -0.974 4.45 4.60 1.92 1.95 -0.557 4.42 4.70 12.5 13.0 -1.386 3.62 3.70 17.0 17.0 0.643 1.20 4.40 11.0 11.0 -0.290 2.40 2.50

P-value 0.331 0.578 0.166 0.521 0.772

Note. N=617

Differentiation analysis of fans’ marital status in Identification The results of t-test analysis in Table 3 show that there are no significant differences in fans’ marital status in Identification which includes Team Identification factor (t= .591, p>.05), Team Involvement factor (t= .268, p>.05), and By-product Involvement factor (t= 1.244, p>.05). Nevertheless, there are significant differences in Image Identification factor (t= 2.534, p.05). Nevertheless, there are significant differences in Image Identification factor (t= 2.467, p