Nicholas D. Theodorakis

• Doctor of Philosophy
• Professor at Aristotle University of Thessaloniki

The SSIS is a widely used instrumentdesigned to measure spectators’ levels of identification with a sport team. Despite the fact that several studies were conducted to examine its validity and reliability, these past efforts relied solely on Classical Test Theory (Lock et al. 2009; Theodorakis et al., 2006; Wann & Branscombe, 1993). The purpose of...

The consumption of sport events through direct participation can influence participants’ perception of happiness with that experiential purchase given the time and resources invested in that experience. The purpose of the study was to examine how sport event service quality aspects operationalized through the physical environment, interaction, and...

Researchers suggest that as consumption progresses, consumers’ needs change. However, previous studies have shown few insights into the effect of service quality and satisfaction on customer loyalty across different consumption stages. This study examines the impact of service quality and satisfaction on customer loyalty among novice and experience...

The present study examines three competing models to clarify the relative role of antecedents to behavioural intentions in sport and fitness centres. In other sport and fitness research, there is some variability in respect to the relative influence on loyalty measures of such antecedents as service quality, value and satisfaction. Results of the p...

The present study aimed to examine the relationships among service quality, satisfaction and spectators’ behavioural intentions, in the context of professional football. Using Gronroos’ (1984) theoretical framework, service quality was conceptualized in terms of technical (outcome) and functional (process-related) quality. Outcome quality was measu...

Purpose The aim of this research was to investigate fans’ responses toward a sponsor that has had a long-standing sponsorship deal with a club and decided also to sponsor the club’s rival. Design/methodology/approach A long-term sponsorship deal between a retsina wine company and a popular football club and a newly established deal between the com...

Purpose The purpose of the present study was to investigate the interrelationships among the dimensions of sport event experience, event satisfaction and event behavioral intentions. Design/methodology/approach The sample was comprised of 186 individuals who actively participated in a mass participation sport event. Partial least squares-structura...

Sport team identification has been considered a cornerstone construct in explaining sport fan behavior. The employment of an appropriate instrument is of paramount importance for academics who wish to comprehend sport fandom. The purpose of the present study was twofold: First, to further evaluate a newly developed unidimensional scale for assessin...

Purpose/Rationale: The primary purpose of this research was to explore whether meanings embedded in sport licensed products are culturally transferrable by surveying sport consumers in four countries. Design/Methodology/Approach: This study tested a model that uses product meaning as a predictor of satisfaction and consumers’ intention to purchase...

Running event organizers are facing an intensive competition today, mainly because the number of events has increased. In such an environment, organizers could obtain a competitive advantage by focusing on the creation of memorable customer experiences. Customer experience is a dynamic process that could be approached as the customer’s journey acro...

The Sport Team Identification Scale (STIS) has been recently developed as a response to raising criticism and shortcomings related to most of the existing scales used to measure fans’ identification with sport teams. However, this instrument has been tested only in one study and has not been empirically compared with any of the existing well-establ...

Σκοπός της παρούσας έρευνας ήταν να διερευνήσει την εμπειρία των συμμετεχόντων σε δρομικά γεγονότα καθόλη την διάρκεια του καταναλωτικού ταξιδιού, προκειμένου να ανακαλύψει τους παράγοντες που την επηρεάζουν. Για την επίτευξη των στόχων της έρευνας, διεξήχθησαν 16 ημι-δομημένες συνεντεύξεις με δρομείς Μαραθωνίων. Τα δεδομένα των συνεντεύξεων αναλύθ...

The purpose of the present study was to develop a new scale, based on social identity theory, for measuring the levels of fans' identification with their favorite sport team overcoming prior shortcomings reported in several well-established instruments (e.g., connection to theory, certain aspects of psychometric properties). The study employed the...

Μια πηγή σημαντικής διαφοροποίησης μεταξύ ανταγωνιστικών επιχειρήσεων είναι η βελτίωση της εμπειρίας των πελατών. Η συγκεκριμένη έρευνα εφάρμοσε μέρη του μοντέλου «Πολυεπίπεδος Σχεδιασμός Υπηρεσιών» για την ανάπτυξη της έννοιας της υπηρεσίας σε δρομικά γεγονότα. Σκοπός ήταν να αποτυπωθούν και να προταθούν υπηρεσίες που θα επηρεάσουν θετικά την εμπε...

Οι επιχειρήσεις έχουν ενσωματώσει την καταναλωτική εμπειρία ως έναν τρόπο επίτευξης βιώσιμου ανταγωνιστικού πλεονεκτήματος και αυτό έχει οδηγήσει ορισμένους ερευνητές να ισχυριστούν ότι η εμπειρία των πελατών θα είναι το επόμενο πεδίο μάχης (Schmitt, Brakus & Sarantonello, 2015). Παρολαυτά, τα μοντέλα που έχουν υιοθετηθεί στο χώρο του αθλητισμού δε...

Τα κίνητρα των συμμετεχόντων σε αθλητικές διοργανώσεις, έχουν αποτελέσει αντικείμενο αρκετών ερευνών, με σκοπό συχνά την τμηματοποίηση των συμμετεχόντων για λόγους μάρκετινγκ, αλλά και την βελτίωσης της πελατειακής εμπειρίας (Kruger & Viljoen, 2019). Σκοπός της παρούσας μελέτης ήταν να διερευνηθούν τα κίνητρα συμμετοχής σε Αθλητικά Γεγονότα Μαζικής...

Purpose Given the increased competition among running events, it is important for event organizers to comprehend how they can retain a base of loyal customers. The purpose of the present study was to investigate the association between sport event personality and loyalty intentions of runners participating in a running event. More specifically, it...

Purpose The concept of sport team identification has been widely used as a theoretical framework in explaining sport fan behavior. However, limited attention has been devoted to the consequences of distant (i.e., foreign) team identification. The purpose of the current research was to examine the way in which fans (local and distant) can increase t...

Αν και η μελέτη της εμπειρίας των καταναλωτών αποτελεί σημαντικό πεδίο έρευνας για τους επιστήμονες του μάνατζμεντ, λίγες προσπάθειες έχουν εστιάσει στην διερεύνηση της εμπειρίας που βιώνουν οι συμμετέχοντες σε αθλητικά γεγονότα μαζικής συμμετοχής (ΑΓΜΣ). Παράλληλα, οι μέθοδοι που έχουν χρησιμοποιηθεί για την εξέταση της στον αθλητικό χώρο δεν έχου...

Sport events constitute attractive platforms for providing unique experiences which increase, among others, participants’ satisfaction and purchase happiness. The current research explores whether (a) how event service quality elements influence have an impact on event satisfaction; (b) how satisfaction with the event influences happiness with the...

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to test the psychometric properties of the Team Brand Personality Scale by Blank et al. (2013, 2018) in the context of the professional football clubs in Greece, based on the perceptions of fans for their own team and the rival team. The brand personality team scores of the fans are also used to create a league...

The present study aimed to examine the attitudes and behaviors of football fans in the Middle East and to make comparisons between the different football markets in the region. Overall, 2133 football fans from 10 countries participated in the survey. Results showed that football is popular among all fans, regardless of country, age and income brack...

Sports services are an important and highly experiential service industry (Grove et al. 2012; Funk 2016;). Sport management research has highlighted the distinctive nature of the $1.3 trillion sports industry and its unique services, influence on people's daily lives and structure (Hums and MacLean 2013; Mullin et al. 2014). Sports management and m...

The aim of the present study was to examine the impact of perceptions of other customers on overall satisfaction and loyalty in the context of public aquatic centres. The proposed relationships were examined using empirical data from 299 customers of four Greek aquatic centres. Structural equation modelling analysis revealed that (a) the Other Cust...

Τα αθλητικά γεγονότα μαζικής συμμετοχής όπως ο μαραθώνιος και ο ημιμαραθώνιος θεωρούνται εξαιρετικά δημοφιλείς δραστηριότητες (Buning & Walker, 2016). Σκοπός της παρούσας έρευνας ήταν να προσδιορίσει τους λόγους για τους οποίους οι δρομείς συμμετέχουν σε ένα τέτοιο γεγονός. Χρησιμοποιήθηκαν οι μέθοδοι της ημι-δομημένης ατομικής συνέντευξης και της...

Recently, scholars from the service management sector proposed that the creation of compelling experiences, throughout a customer’s journey, is vital for the success of organizations. Despite the fact that sport services are highly experiential, the concept of customer experience received little attention from sport and event management researchers...

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to explore the sources of inspiration for active participants in sport events, and the link between inspiration sources and event-related outcomes (i.e. life satisfaction and behavioral intentions). Design/methodology/approach – Research questions were examined using a Greek (n¼264) and a US (n¼103) sample of...

The present study aimed to develop a scale for measuring Qataris’ attitudes toward coaching and their intentions towards this profession. The survey target population included Qataris who were 18 years or older and who lived in residential housing units in Qatar. To assure representation of population a proportionate stratified sampling method was...

The present study was set out to investigate the association between teachers’ perception of the quality of their relationships with their students’ and teachers’ professional self-efficacy. Fifty public school teachers were asked: (a) to assess their perceived levels of efficacy and (b) to randomly select eight students from their classrooms (4 ma...

This study aimed first to investigate if the three service quality dimensions (service environment, interaction and outcome quality) proposed by Brady and Cronin (2001), influence the development of event loyalty, among runners of the “Alexander the Great” International Marathon”, and second test if running loyalty moderates the relationship betwee...

The current investigation extended past efforts on cultural differences in sport fandom by investigating sport fandom in Qatar, a previously unexplored culture. A sample of 259 sport fans completed a questionnaire packet assessing demographic variables, sport fandom, team identification, impacts of various socialization agents, and six typical spor...

Studying the factors that contribute to the development of skiing loyalty holds particular interest for ski resort managers and marketers, since it has been reported that recreational skiers’ dropout rates are considerably high. This study examines how intrapersonal, interpersonal and structural constraints, influence the development of skiers’ sta...

The Sport Spectator Identification Scale (SSIS) is a widely used instrument designed to measure spectators’ levels of identification with a sport team. Despite the fact that several studies were conducted to examine its validity and reliability, these past efforts relied solely on Classical Test Theory (Lock et al. 2009; Theodorakis et al., 2006; W...

The EFQM Excellence Model is an advanced tool for organizations’ improvement, which is based on the principles of the theoretical frame of Total Quality Management (Michalska, 2008). The aim of this study was a first attempt to assess the Hellenic National Sport Federations’ (HNSFs) organizational-managerial operations and the investigation of thei...

This study examines the effect of sport involvement and fans’ beliefs about sponsorship on certain sponsorship outcomes in the context of professional basketball. Quantitative data were collected from a survey of 222 spectators attending a professional basketball game in Greece. A confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) was employed to examine the valid...

This study aimed to extent the use of the Other Customer Perception (OCP) scale by testing its psychometric properties and its generalizability in the context of sport and fitness centres. 360 members of three fitness clubs in Greece participated in the study. They were randomly divided into two subsamples (a calibration and a validation sample). U...

The present study examined the role of social psychological and developmental processes in predicting children’s sport team identification. Although there is previous research on the factors that predict adults’ sport team identification and research on children’s social (mainly ethnic) identification, there is no research on examining children’s t...

This study aims to present a conceptual model of the customer experience in the context of spectator sports by integrating recent theoretical and empirical advances from the literature on service and sport management. Specifically, based on a conceptual model recently published by Verhoef, Lemon, Parasuraman, Roggeveen, Tsiros, & Schlesinger (2009)...

This study aimed to extent the use of the Other Customer Perception (OCP) scale by testing its psychometric properties and its generalizability in the context of sport and fitness centres. 360 members of three fitness clubs in Greece participated in the study. They were randomly divided into two subsamples (a calibration and a validation sample). U...

The present study examined the relationship between service quality, place attachment, and customer loyalty in the context of recreational skiing. Specifically, it was hypothesised that place attachment would mediate the relationship between service quality and skiers’ loyalty. Service quality was measured with an adjusted version of Brady and Cron...

Companies have the opportunity through sponsorship to benefit by linking themselves to an organization that, for some individuals, constitutes a part of their self identity. Fans with high team identification are more likely to view sponsors as members of the same group. The results reported in this study suggest that team identification and involv...

Using data collected from U.S. and Greek respondents, we tested an alternate conceptualization of enduring leisure involvement where identity was considered a key driver of other affective and conative outcomes. Rather than existing on the same temporal plane, as has been the tradition in the leisure literature, we observed that identity was an ant...

Because sport team identification plays an important role in facilitating higher levels of sport attendance and consumption (Wann et al., 2001), sport management and marketing professionals are often interested in determining variables that serve as antecedents of identification. Some authors have suggested that the need to belong may be one such v...

The current investigation examined the interrelationships among overall sport team identification, specific dimensions of team identification, and behavioral intentions. Using an antecedents approach to guide predictions (Dabholkar, Shepherd, & Thorpe, 2000), a model was tested in which overall identification would mediate the relationship between...

The aim of the present study was to examine the role of team identification on the relationship between sport involvement and sponsorship outcomes, measured by purchase intentions, in the context of professional football in Greece. Three hundred and thirty two (N=332) football fans participated in the study and completed the two dimensional sport a...

This study examines the mediating role of Overall Service Quality in the service quality-customer satisfaction relationship in the context of professional football. Quantitative data were collected from a survey of 415 spectators attending a professional football game in Greece. A confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) was employed to examine the valid...

This study examines the mediating role of Overall Service Quality in the service quality-customer satisfaction relationship in the context of professional football. Quantitative data were collected from a survey of 415 spectators attending a professional football game in Greece. A confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) was employed to examine the valid...

The present study examined the extent of measurement invariance of the Greek version of the Sport Spectator Identification Scale (SSIS-G: Theodorakis, Vlachopoulos, Wann, Afthinos, & Nassis, 2006), responses across two samples representing a target team and a preferred team focus point. Sample 1 comprised 443 university students who provided SSIS-G...

The aim of the present study was to explore the multidimensional nature of sport team identification. More specifically, the study tested the psychometric properties of the Team Identification Scale (TIS) among Greek sport fans using a crossvalidation approach. Following a thorough procedure, the TIS was initially translated and then validated usin...

Team identification (the extent to which a fan feels psychologically connected to a team) plays a fundamental role in many fan behaviors. Consequently, the establishment of psychometrically sound instruments for assessing this variable is critical. One of the most successfully utilized measures of identification is the Sport Spectator Identificatio...

The purpose of this study was to examine the factor structure of the Role Ambiguity Scale (Beauchamp, Bray, Eys, & Carron, 2002) by comparing three alternative models of role ambiguity: a four-factor model with correlated latent factors developed by Beauchamp et al. (2002), a single-factor model, and the hierarchical model proposed by Eys et al. (2...

The aim of the present study was twofold: to evaluate the communication effectiveness of specific modifications on water polo players' cap; to suggest new ways of further improving the communication of water polo. For the purposes of the study, content analysis was done of published photographs showing water polo teams in action during the 2004-200...

In this investigation, we tested a model examining the effect of service quality on skiers’ satisfaction and loyalty related to two ski resorts in northern Greece. We conceptualized service quality in terms of three dimensions: interaction quality, which reflected the quality of staff at the resort; facility quality, which reflected the quality of...

The aim of the study was to investigate demographic characteristics as differentiation factors of professional satisfaction of employees of cultural associations in Greece. The Professional Satisfaction Scale questionnaire by Koustelios and Bagiatis [12] was used for the measurement of professional satisfaction. 112 employees from 19 cultural assoc...

The present study examined the relationship between service quality, place attachment, and customer loyalty in the context of recreational skiing. Specifically, it was hypothesised that place attachment would mediate the relationship between service quality and skiers’ loyalty. Service quality was measured with an adjusted version of Brady and Cron...

Purpose This study seeks to examine the moderating role of team identification regarding the relationship between service quality and repurchase intentions among spectators of professional sports. Design/methodology/approach Quantitative data are collected from a questionnaire survey of 257 spectators attending a professional soccer game in Greece...

The present study examined the relationship between service quality, place attachment, and customer loyalty in the context of recreational skiing. Specifically, it was hypothesised that place attachment would mediate the relationship between service quality and skiers' loyalty. Service quality was measured with an adjusted version of Brady and Cron...

The present study examined the relationship between service quality, place attachment, and customer loyalty in the context of recreational skiing. Specifically, it was hypothesised that place attachment would mediate the relationship between service quality and skiers’ loyalty. Service quality was measured with an adjusted version of Brady and Cron...

We tested the reproducibility of the factor structure and the predictive efficacy of the modified involvement scale (MIS) among 260 Greek-speaking exercise participants aged from 15 to 71 years. Confirmatory factor analysis did not clearly support the hypothesized five-factor structure. Subsequent exploratory factor analyses revealed three factors,...

This study aims to examine if service quality dimensions can predict spectators' behavioural intentions in the context of professional soccer in Greece. Data collected from two hundred and forty two (N = 242) spectators, who were fans of a specific professional team. The SPORTSERV scale was used to assess service quality. Behavioural intentions wer...

Although an empirical and theoretical examination of sport fans and spectators appear to be increasing, there is still limited information on cross cultural analyses of fandom. To partially fill this research void, the current investigation involved an examination of sport fandom in Greece. Specifically, four research questions were reviewed: 'To w...

Although an empirical and theoretical examination of sport fans and spectators appear to be increasing, there is still limited information on cross cultural analyses of fandom. To partially fill this research void, the current investigation involved an examination of sport fandom in Greece. Specifically, four research questions were reviewed: 'To w...

The purpose of the study was to evaluate the psychometric properties of the Leisure Constraints scale (Alexandris & Caroll, 1997) and to delineate the role of leisure constrains in determining levels of involvement in leisure traditional dancing activities. The participants completed the Leisure Constraints scale (Alexandris & Caroll, 1997) and the...

Leisure involvement plays a formative role in the development of participants’ loyalty to a leisure provider or a particular place. The purpose of the present study was to examine the relationship between fan involvement with the sport of football (soccer) and their loyalty to their favourite team among 215 Greek university students. The results co...

This study examined the relationship between role ambiguity and athlete satisfaction among team handball players. The sample consisted of 169 Greek team handball players, 53 (33%) men and 116 (67%) women, with a mean age of 16.5 years (SD=1.3). The Role Ambiguity Scale and the Scale of Athlete Satisfaction were used. The results indicated a negativ...

The present study, based on social identity theory, examined the relationship between fan identification and loyalty in prodessional sports. 128 Greek university students participated in the study. Linear regression analyses showed that team identification predicted to a considerable extent various important fan behaviors: (a) the number of games o...

The present study examined the factor structure, internal consistency, and predictive validity of the Leisure Involvement Scale (Kyle, Graefe, Manning, & Bacon, 2003) translated into Greek. Data were collected from 173 members of socialization clubs in the area of Central Macedonia in northern Greece. Of the total sam-ple, 131 (75.6%) women partici...

The purpose was to test the applicability of the Scale of Athlete Satisfaction for Greek swimmers and to assess sex and sport-related differences for swimers' mean satisfaction. The sample of 351 Greek swimmers comprised 186 males and 165 females competing in five categories of the National Swimming Championhip in Greece. Their mean age was 16 yr....

The present study extended the use of the Sport Spectator Identification Scale (SSIS) to Greek sport fans through testing the psychometric properties and the cross-cultural generalizability of the translated SSIS. The study involved two phases. Firstly, the scale was translated and initially validated based on responses of Greek sport fans (N = 443...

This study aimed to identify the aspects of service delivery deemed most important by the users of Greek fitness centers and to examine whether their desires differed according to the type of fitness center they use as well as according to certain demographic and motivation patterns. The study was based on the QUESC instrument developed by Kim and...

Purpose Aims to identify the aspects of service delivery deemed most important by the users of Greek fitness centers and to examine whether their desires differ according to the type of fitness center they use as well as according to certain demographic and motivation patterns. Design/methodology/approach The study was based on the QUESC instrumen...

This study examines role conflict, role ambiguity, and job satisfaction among Greek physical education teachers, and the extent to which role conflict and role ambiguity predict job satisfaction. All members of the sample of 61 physical education teachers were employed in Greek “Sport for all” programs. The standard multiple regression analysis sho...

The aim of this study was to measure the satisfaction of a sample of 234 team handball athletes from the Youth Team Handball Finals Tournament in Greece. 99 men and 135 women completed the Scale of Athlete Satisfaction. Analysis indicated that the athletes were satisfied with their leaders' behavior and their personal outcomes. No differences betwe...

Even though athletes are probably the most important component of every sport program or activity, the concept of athlete satisfaction has received little attention by the researchers. Thus, the purpose of this study was twofold: 1). To assess the construct validity of the “Athletes Satisfaction Scale” presented by Chelladurai et al. (1988), and 2)...

In analyzing the relation between job satisfaction and job security, a sample of 97 Greek fitness instructors, 18 to 42 years of age, showed statistically significant positive correlations between job security and job satisfaction (p < .002). Particularly, job security was correlated with pay .54, promotion .43, job itself .41, and the organization...

In analyzing the relation between job satisfaction and job security, a sample of 97 Greek fitness instructors, 18 to 42 years of age, showed statistically significant positive correlations between job security and job satisfaction (p<.002). Particularly, job security was correlated with pay .54, promotion .43, job itself .41, and the organization a...

The purpose of this study was the examination of the relationship between service quality and behavioural intentions of spectators of dance events in Greece. 162 spectators, who attended performances of traditional dance in Greece, participated in the study. In order to measure service quality, researchers used an adjusted form of SERVQUAL. A scale...

This research attempted to investigate why sport themes are used in advertisements, and the motives that lead companies and advertisers to use sport celebrities and sport concepts in advertisements. The detailed examination of the fieldwork took place in Sydney, prior to and during the 2000 Olympic Games. Printed media were observed for a period of...

Ο σκοπός της παρούσας έρευνας ήταν να διεpευνήσει τις σχέσεις μεταξύ των εννοιών της ασάφειας ρόλων και της σύγκρουσης ρόλων με την ικανοποίηση του προσωπικού σε γυμναστήρια.

The Centres for the Care of Senior Citizens were established in Greece in 1979 by private organisations under the auspices of, and with the financial support of, the Ministry of Health, Care and Social Services. The centres aim to provide the care required by senior citizens and to supply programs in collaboration and reciprocity with the wider com...

This paper attempts to examine the relationship between service quality and customer satisfaction in spectator sports. The relationship between these two constructs is examined, first, by a review of the literature to date and, second, by the results of almost 200 questionnaires completed by spectators at two professional basketball games in Athens...

Communication is one of the most important functions of management. Coaches of team and individual sports should know how to communicate successfully with athletes and assistants in order to maximize individual and team performance. A lack of communication means problems in coordination, cohesion and cooperation among the group. The coach, acting l...