An Athlete's Sense of Community as Responsibility for the Hometown: Perspective on Community-Based Professional Sport Organizations

Abstract

In Japan, community-based professional sports organizations, which are based in a specific area referred to as a hometown, are increasing. This study focused on players from a team of professional independent Japanese baseball leagues and investigated how these players develop an “appropriate attitude for the hometown” and fostered a “sense of community as responsibility” (SOC-R), a widely discussed construct in community psychology. The purpose of this study was to clarify the antecedents and consequences of players' SOC-R for the hometown. Current study constructed the SOC-R model that has “passion for the team activity” and “pride in the team” as antecedents of SOC-R for the hometown, and “being a role model” and “maintaining a good relationship” as consequences. The results of structural equation modeling showed that “harmonious passion”, “obsessive passion”, and “pride” had a significant positive relationship with SOC-R, while SOC-R had a significantly positive influence on “being a role model” and “maintaining a good relationship”. As a result of multi-group analysis, it was suggested that the longer the player belongs to the team, the lower the influence on the SOC-R from the obsessive passion, while the higher the influence on the harmonious passion. These results contribute to the existing body of SOC-R and professional sports organization research, and may help sports managers better understand the psychological states of players from community-based professional sports teams.