Fitness, Health & Physical Exercise
Work it Out – A Typology of Managerial Athleticism in Professional Service Firms (BSc)
Ellen Dahlfors & Lea Koerner (2023)
Abstract: In the past years, the interest in sports and fitness among executives has increased, coining the term managerial athleticism. This qualitative study explores the phenomenon of managerial athleticism and how it expresses itself in professional service firms. By conducting semi-structured interviews with 32 partners, managers, and executives within these firms and by applying social identity theory and goal-setting theory, this thesis examines how identity, gender, and goals shape the expression of managerial athleticism. The ideal-type analysis was used to create a typology, in turn identifying 4 types of managerial athletes: Feel-goods, Fulfillment-functionalists, Health-functionalists, and Fanatics. The results show that firstly, there are different types of managerial athletes. Secondly, the managerial athletes' goals vary in terms of tangibility and the connection their pursuits have to their identity. Thirdly, the differences and similarities identified create the basis for explaining how the types' training regimes differ from one another. This thesis aids in explaining the phenomenon of managerial athleticism and thereby contributes to broadening the understanding of a contemporary leadership characteristic and expression.
Sara Gisslar & Linnéa Sundman (2021)
Abstract: During the past years, fitness has seen a shift in trends, moving from collectivistic to individualistic reasons to exercise. Some researchers even go as far as to describe the concept of "healthism" as an ideology of modern society, emphasizing the subordinate value of a fit and slender body as a metaphor for a successful life. This has led to the establishment of athleisure, the combination of fashion and sports in clothing that is designed to be worn both in and outside of the gym. Simultaneously, there is a tremendous growth of technology, with Millennials being the first generation to be fully globalized online. In the era of digitalization, where social media is used as a means to construct a social and personal sense of health, the pressure on the individual increases. This thesis aims to investigate gender differences for late Millennials within the Swedish fitness culture in order to further develop upon the idea of why these differences occur. The digital landscape will be looked into, as well as the personal health issues of late Millennials, to understand how they come into play within the fitness culture and how the culture is consumed. Valuable insights will be gathered through qualitative in-depth interviews with late Millennials, which, together with the theoretical framework, will lay the foundation for the abductive approach used in this study. In terms of findings, hegemonic masculinity seems to capture the differences found between females and males, evolving around the idea that females are perceived as passive objects, whereas males are judged based on their performing bodies. Further, expectations from parents seem to be of importance. One may even argue that the competitive and result-oriented characteristics of Generation X may cause a perception among late Millennials that they need to prove themselves worthy of love and respect from their parents. Managerial implications include the importance for brands to focus their marketing on contributing to a long-term health perspective, and how athleisure can be adapted for males.
Joel Mankowitz & Chengtian Wu (2019)
Abstract: Marketing in the digital world has become extremely competitive in order to attract consumers' precious attention and time. Although research in this field has explored engaging consumers' cognitive effort for better marketing outcomes, consumers' physical effort has been overlooked by researchers and practitioners. The goal of this study is to examine the effect of engaging consumers' physical effort on marketing outcomes such as brand attitude and engagement, as well as behavioral intentions. Two quantitative studies were conducted, and 322 total responses were received. For each study, participants were randomly assigned to different physical effort groups, and a Nike marketing campaign was used to resemble a real-life setting. The findings illustrate that engaging little to some physical effort could positively influence consumers' brand engagement and behavioral intentions, while engaging too much physical effort could lead to negative outcomes. Additionally, the study also finds that consumers’ attitude towards the physical effort could affect their attitudes towards the specific brand. The study contributes to the research areas of consumer effort marketing, and it implies that marketers, especially those in the sports industry, can engage consumers' physical effort to improve the effectiveness of marketing campaigns.
Adrian Strömberg & Victor Wänerfjord (2015)
Abstract: This thesis examines whether personal characteristics of chief executive officers (CEOs) - sports merits from endurance challenges - influence accounting firm performance. The linkage between executive traits and firm outcomes is well established and recognized in academia. Furthermore, adult sports engagement in long-distance races has increased, and individuals who successfully cope with endurance performance are considered to possess a cocktail of traits cherished by executive recruiters. For the years 2003-2012, we have defined Swedish CEOs for small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) as sports merited if they have completed demanding endurance challenges. Using data on accounting firm performance for SMEs matched with data on sports merited CEOs, we quantitatively analyze whether firms run by sports merited CEOs tend to perform better than firms whose CEOs are not defined as sports merited. Notably, the insignificant results found speak in favor of problematizing the current literature. Further, as executive recruiters consider experience-based CEO personal characteristics to be of importance, this study adds complexity and facilitates progress toward a comprehensive understanding of the characteristics of CEOs and firm performance.