“It Takes a Village:” Interdisciplinary Research for Sport Management

Abstract

This paper, from the Dr. Earle F. Zeigler Award Lecture presented at the NASSM 2012 Conference in Seattle, outlines the merits and challenges of interdisciplinary research for the field of sport management. This alternative approach involves relating, integrating, and relocating disciplinary thinking to arrive at a mutually-determined research problem that represents new ways of conceptualizing phenomena. It enables moving away from the monodisciplinary research that characterizes much of our field to examine phenomena from different angles, and perhaps more effectively close the research-practice gap with knowledge derived from multiple perspectives. The author argues that it is time to engage in interdisciplinary research in sport management as no one discipline has all the answers; rather, “it takes a village” to solve the complex problems in our world.