Motives and constraints of participants in running events

Abstract

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to acquire improved comprehension of the motivational factors and the various constraints associated with individuals’ participation in mass running events. Design/methodology/approach A quantitative method was used for the purpose of this research, and 1.357 questionnaires were completed. This study proposed two broad hypotheses: intrapersonal constraints influence motivation factors (amotivation, intrinsic and extrinsic motivation); and motivation factors influence the intention to continuous participation. Findings Both broad hypotheses were supported by the evidence while the lack of knowledge, interest, confidence and feelings of tiresomeness were found to contribute more to explaining motivation. All three motivational factors had a significant influence on intention. Research limitations/implications The empirical evidence for this study came from runners only. The special attributes of running may have influenced the explored relationships in a way that may not be directly applicable to other activities. Further research in various activities is necessary before such findings are generalized. Originality/value The aim of this paper is to provide empirical evidence of the relationships between the motivational factors and the various constraints associated with individuals’ participation in mass sporting and physical activity events. This research focused on developing a model to explain relationships among constraints, motivators and participation, and empirically test the proposed model within the marathon running participants context.

Why Do We Run in a Sporting Event? A Gender Perspective through the Half-Marathon of Cordoba, Spain

“…Additionally, it is an odd scale, making the central measure easily identifiable compared to 10-point Likert scale. The 7-point Likert scale has been previously used successfully in studies on motivations to participate in running events (Koronios et al 2018;Malchrowicz-Mośko et al 2020a), as well as to specifically study motivations to participate in sports events held in the province of Córdoba (Ortega- Ramos-Ruiz et al 2023). Table 1 shows the 22 items of the first section of the questionnaire.…”

Incentivizing and re-engaging lapsed health club members

“…In another study of intentions, Koronios et al (2018) reported on motives and constraints of participants in running events using intention as the dependent variable. However, the study did not examine actual behavior.…”

“…Although Thomas et al (2004) examined the role of price in the customer revival process and Koronios et al (2017) studied motives underlying repeated participation at high performance sports events, Homburg et al (2007, p. 462) state that "academic research has largely ignored customer relation revival activities" and since these activities play an important role in business practice, this represents a significant "research gap". Ballings and Van den Poel (2012) further encourage companies to change the focus from customer acquisition to customer retention, with Olanrewaju et al (2016) and Ascarza et al (2018) examining how to reduce customer churn and improve customer retention management, maximizing profits (Lemmens and Gupta, 2020).…”

Event sport tourism business models: the case of trail running

“…Some papers focus on service (event) aspects (Alexandris et al , 2017; Schoemaker and Tinaz, 2015). Others highlight the variety of impacts on runners’ involvement in activity and event participation (Koronios et al , 2016, 2018) by focusing on key drivers of intention to revisit (Hallmann and Wicker, 2012) and/or psychological determinants like life satisfaction derived from event participation (Sato et al , 2015; Zhou et al , 2018) and by comparing the motivation of residents and tourists (Aicher et al , 2015).…”