Governing sports corruption in Taiwan’s professional baseball system: a “trust” perspective

Abstract

This study examines why and how scandals and corruption exist in professional sports in a collectivist culture, both of which ideally impose strict regulations and tight controls. Taiwan’s professional baseball league, with its stumbling history full of match-fixing and gambling, provides rich material with which to investigate the underlying mechanism through which corruption is governed. This mechanism is also characterized by the absence of the quid pro quo relationship and efforts to lose games through match-fixing. This research utilizes a paradigm shift from Western theoretical traditions to Chinese cultural perspectives to explain sports corruption in a society. The concept of trust, which involves elements of relational social capital, is introduced and elaborated to explain the governance mechanism.