نوآور بودن رویداد ورزشی : مفهوم، اندازه گیری، و تاثیر آن بر رفتار مصرف کننده

Although scholars have had a long-standing interest in product innovation based on technological development, limited attention has been devoted to the study of the innovation of sport event experiences. Two quantitative studies, from the consumer's perspective, were completed to validate the proposed conceptualization of sport event innovativeness composed of six dimensions (player performance, respectful access, self-service technology, aesthetic environment, fan community, and loyalty program), and to examine the hypothesized relationships impacting consumer behavior. Including the dimensions of player performance, fan community, and loyalty program, extends previous research that has focused primarily on technology and process-based innovations. The results indicate the effects of the six dimensions on overall innovativeness are contingent on a consumer's age. The ideas merit further research with respect to formulating an explanation of what factors contribute most to connecting consumers to sport organizations through innovative sport event experiences.

When sport organizations attempt to achieve growth, increase profitability, create superior value, and retain loyal consumers, the development of new products is a vital practice. Higgins and Martin (1996) note that innovations in the sport industry create opportunities for growth. In professional sport, innovations include new stadium construction (e.g., the New York Giants and the New York Jets’ New Meadowlands Stadium3), facility renovation (e.g., the Boston Red Sox's Green Monster Seats), adding expansion teams in the major sport leagues (e.g., the Arizona Diamondbacks), new premium seating options (e.g., courtside seats at professional basketball games), and a variety of unique ancillary services (e.g., all-you-can-eat ticket plans at professional baseball games). Lachowetz, McDonald, Sutton, and Clark (2001) suggest that a large portion of the revenue of the major sport teams comes from innovations based on new premium seating and luxury suites. There is a growing discussion of managing innovative sport products; emerging from such discussion are important research questions to explore. Previous research on product innovation has focused on the radical or incremental innovation of physical goods (Atuahene-Gima, 2005 and Zhou et al., 2005). Service innovation research has been concerned with the innovation of service delivery, store environments, and information technologies (Berry et al., 2006 and Meuter et al., 2005). Previous research has ignored other important innovation points in a sport context, including player performance and sport fans’ relational activities (e.g., fan community and loyalty program). Additional research is merited that focuses on innovativeness in a sport context. To better understand what aspects of sporting events must be innovative in order to provide superior value and increase consumer satisfaction, two key research questions must be addressed: (1) What is innovative at sporting events? (2) What impact do innovative sporting events have on consumer behavior? The two-fold purpose of this study was to contribute to a managerial understanding of innovative sporting events. Building from the literature on innovation types, product innovativeness, and services marketing, the first purpose of this study was to generate a conceptual model of sport event innovativeness and to empirically test the conceptualization. Second, we sought to (1) provide additional evidence for the construct validity of the proposed scale, (2) test a theoretical model relating sport event innovativeness to consumer outcomes (i.e., satisfaction, brand equity, and behavioral intentions), and (3) conduct a moderator analysis that identifies who is more effective or less effective in the management of innovative sporting events. In a new product setting, the relationships between product innovativeness and consumer adoption is not equally positive and significant for all consumers. More specifically, past research indicates that age can influence consumer adoption of new products (Burke, 2002, Porter and Donthu, 2006 and Weijters et al., 2007). The results from empirical research have shown that innovative products are more highly evaluated by younger consumers than by older consumers in terms of both hedonic (Burke, 2002) and utilitarian values (Porter & Donthu, 2006; Weijters et al., 2008). In the context of sporting events, we expect such a moderating effect will be evident in the relationships between specific innovation points and consumer adoption. This study contributes to the sport management literature by (1) introducing the conceptual base of sport event innovativeness with specific innovation points and (2) providing more holistic information pertaining to the factors connecting consumers to sport organizations through innovative sporting event experiences. Specifically, we conceptualize and empirically test new dimensions of player performance and fans’ relational activities (i.e., fan community and loyalty program) which have not been captured in previous product and service innovation research.

The results provide evidence supporting the multi-dimensional conceptualization of sport event innovativeness in the context of a collegiate sporting event. The results also indicated the dimensions had significant effects on overall innovativeness, which, in turn, influenced attitude-type constructs and behavioral outcomes. Moderator analyses further revealed that the effects of four innovation points (player performance, respectful access, aesthetic environment, and loyalty program) on overall innovativeness were stronger for younger consumers than for older consumers. Conceptualizing the innovativeness of intangible event experiences from the consumer's perspective in a multi-dimensional fashion, this study makes a significant contribution to the literature and practice in four different ways. The first contribution of this study is in relation to the dimensionality of sport event innovativeness. Traditionally, the construct of product innovativeness has been viewed as uni-dimensional and measured by the new and unique characteristics of technologically advanced products. Conceptually, socially, and aesthetically innovative sporting event experiences cannot be properly captured by the traditional measure of product innovativeness. On the other hand, the current study provided evidence supporting the multi-dimensional conceptualization of sport event innovativeness. Two empirical studies verified that sport event innovativeness consisted of six dimensions, including new dimensions of player performance, fan community, and loyalty program that have not been measured by previous research. As a second contribution, the current study represents one of the first attempts to formulate the innovativeness dimensions aimed at the overall innovativeness of event experiences. The proposed model examines the relative impacts of the innovativeness dimensions on overall innovativeness, and in turn, on consumer outcomes (see Table 3). The six dimensions accounted for 42% of the variance in overall innovativeness. When including all respondents, the results indicate that sporting events can be perceived as innovative in the eyes of consumers due to the unique and novel characteristics of player performance and visually pleasing stadium environments. In practice, it is difficult to create breakthrough performance in the core sport product domain because sport leagues maintain competitive balance and create high levels of competitive intensity. On the other hand, the current study highlights the importance of managing the controllable dimension of aesthetic environment. This finding is consistent with Aaker's (2004) suggestion that product innovation, including service and experience innovations, must be visible in order to increase the external reputation of the brand. Thus, it is suggested that the innovation of intangible sporting event experiences should be visualized (or “tangibilized”) in order to break out of today's highly competitive environment. The third contribution the study makes is to advance our understanding of the roles of overall innovativeness, consumer satisfaction, and brand equity in the formation of behavioral consequences. The results revealed that overall innovativeness had equally positive effects on consumer satisfaction and brand equity that, in turn, influenced behavioral intentions, although the direct impact of innovativeness on behavioral intentions was not statistically significant. The findings also indicate that consumers’ behavioral intentions are more strongly influenced by consumer satisfaction (β42 = .62, p < .01) than by brand equity (β43 = .25, p < .01). In a sport context, emotional satisfaction seems to play a more important role in the development of consumers’ behavioral intentions than cognitive brand equity because hedonic benefits (e.g., enjoyment, pleasure, excitement, and satisfaction) of sporting events are prerequisites of sport consumers’ behavioral outcomes (Wakefield & Blodgett, 1996). Furthermore, the effect of consumer satisfaction on brand equity was significant in the expected direction (β32 = .38, p < .01), indicating that brand equity can be deemed as a consequence of consumer satisfaction. This is consistent with Srivastava and colleagues’ (1998) suggestion that an increase in consumer satisfaction should enhance market performance, such as brand equity, price premium, and consumer loyalty. This study extends the sport management literature by examining the simultaneous effects of overall innovativeness, consumer satisfaction, brand equity on behavioral intentions, while previous research investigates these effects separately ( Bauer et al., 2008 and Yoshida and James, 2010). Our results provide evidence that consumer satisfaction and brand equity were significant mediators in the link between sport event innovativeness and behavioral intentions. From a marketing standpoint, the results indicate that sport managers can increase consumer satisfaction by being innovative based on the proposed innovation points and eventually expect long-term market performance (i.e., brand equity, repeat purchase, positive word-of-mouth, and share of wallet), as measured in this study. The fourth contribution is to explain who is more or less impacted from the management of innovative sporting events. Using the multi-group SEM method, moderator analyses verified that the influences of innovative player performance, respectful access, aesthetic environment, and loyalty program on consumers’ overall perceptions of sport event innovativeness were stronger for younger consumers than for older consumers. These results are consistent with the results of previous studies (Evanschitzky and Wunderlich, 2006 and Homburg and Giering, 2001) that found that younger consumers’ buying decisions rely on new information and experiences provided to them through quality products and services. In a spectator sport context, younger consumers seem to seek new information and experiences through the consumption of innovative player performance, facility accessibility, stadium design, and fan loyalty program. Although we did not expect the negative impact of self-service technology on overall innovativeness for older consumers, this finding is also consistent with previous research. Porter and Donthu (2006) indicate that older consumers perceive the Internet as difficult to use while they understand the importance to their lives. It is possible that older consumers’ negative perceptions of self-service technology have an adverse effect on overall innovativeness. A more surprising result to the authors was found in the significant negative effect of fan community on overall innovativeness for both younger and older consumers. This may be a reflection of the respondents’ perceptions of their fan community. Since the participants’ supporting team has a unique fan community with a well-established tradition, customs, and fan activities, they might view their fan community as less innovative, even though their overall perceptions of the sporting event were innovative. The proposed framework is a useful model for understanding consumers’ assessments of innovative sporting events based on specific innovation points: WHAT (player performance), HOW (service delivery processes), WHERE (stadium environments), and WHO (consumer relationships). The typology of the innovation points (Fig. 1) combined with the theoretical framework (Fig. 2) suggests that the six dimensions may have a variety of strategic roles in innovation management. The framework assumes a performance innovator by differentiating the skills and thrilling performance of players from competitors. As a service innovator, the framework can encourage new service delivery and environment benefits by serving extraordinary accessibility, extremely helpful self-services, radically new stadium designs, and unique social interaction opportunities. The relationship-related dimensions can serve as a relational innovator in providing unconventional incentives and building a strong sense of friendship and camaraderie among fans. Through the careful and creative management of the innovation points, sport marketers may be able to contribute to the achievement of satisfying consumers and establishing the radical brand image of sport organizations