Identity leadership and social identification within sport teams over a season: A social network analysis

Abstract

Objectives: This study explored the relationships between identity leadership and social identification in sport teams over the course of a season using social network analysis.Methods: Participants from 23 competitive sport teams (N = 388, Mage = 20.7 years) indicated the extent to which each of their teammates displayed various forms of identity leadership (i.e., identity prototypicality, identity advancement, identity entrepreneurship, identity impresarioship) and the extent to which these same teammates were seen to identify with the team (assessed by ingroup ties, cognitive centrality, ingroup affect) early and later in a season. Quadratic assignment procedure correlations and multiple quadratic assignment procedure regressions examined the relationships between the different types of networks for each team across time.Results: Athletes who perceived team members to show greater identity leadership perceived those same teammates to identify more strongly with the team both early (rsaverage > .46) and later (rsaverage > .48) in the season. Averaged across teams, identity entrepreneurship early in the season was most strongly associated with both perceived ingroup ties (average = .24) and ingroup affect (average = .13) later in the season, while identity impresarioship was most strongly associated with cognitive centrality (average = .16). In the reversed direction, perceptions of ingroup ties early in the season were most strongly associated with all identity leadership dimensions later in the season (.28 < average < .38). Conclusions:Collectively, these findings provide evidence of a mutually reinforcing bidirectional link such that teammates who are seen as actively contributing to promote a sense of 'us' among team members are also more likely to be seen as identifying strongly with the team.

Role of digital leadership towards sustainable business performance: A parallel mediation model

“…Further, our findings suggest that digital leadership is evident at different organizational levels, such as the board of directors, senior and upper-level leaders, and IT leadership. These conclusions are supported by studies conducted by Karippur and Balaramachandran (2022), Klus and Müller (2021), Petry (2018), El Sawy et al (2013), Temelkova (2018), Bruner et al, (2022), Frankowska and Rzeczycki (2020), and Shah and Patki (2020). In addition, the firm's size also played a crucial role in managing sustainable organizational performance.…”

Assessing athlete leadership and cohesion using a social network analysis approach

“…As a result, these specific six items have not been previously validated. Bruner et al (2022) recommended this approach when conducting SNA. The present study used both visual and quantitative SNA techniques to assess the team's athlete leadership and cohesion relationships as well as the relationships between attribute data and the networks.…”

“…In addition, relationships between attribute data of self-rated athlete leadership behaviour and network athlete leadership, as nominated by one's teammates has not been previously examined. While researchers have explored the associations between different athlete leadership networks such as different athlete leadership roles (task, motivation, social, and external;Fransen et al, 2015), and dimensions of identity leadership (prototypicality, advancement, entrepreneurship, and impresarioship;Bruner et al, 2022), no current research has simultaneously examined self-reported athlete leadership and peer reported network athlete leadership. Assessing the difference between self-reported (attribute) and other-reported (network) leadership is of interest because previous literature has found discrepancies between these two types of information (e.g., Branson and Cornell, 2009;Yeatman and Trinitapoli, 2011), which may be due to factors such as social desirability bias (Gould, 1969) over-estimating one's own characteristics (An, 2022).…”

Unlocking the power of ‘us’: Longitudinal evidence that identity leadership predicts team functioning and athlete well-being

“…The average time between questionnaire completion ranged from 4 to 22 weeks 1 , with an average of 19 weeks. Of particular importance within the larger research project is the fact that the hypotheses tested in this paper were unique in both operationalisation of constructs and study methodology (see also Bruner et al, 2022).…”