Using sports data to advance management research, by Fabio Fonti

Published in the Journal of Management, a reference for most management scholars (5-star, FT-list journal), Using Sports Data to Advance Management Research: A Review and a Guide for Future Research analyses how to leverage sports data to further our understanding of management theories and phenomena. This is the first comprehensive review of management works using sports data published in a top journal.

Fabio Fonti, NEOMA Associate Dean for Faculty and Research, and his co-authors (Jan-Michael Ross of Imperial College and Paolo Aversa of Bayes Business School), identify and review 249 papers published over the last 50 years that used sports data to advance management theories and shed light on managerial phenomena. As a result of this huge research work, the authors lay out guidelines on “how to” do this type of research and propose new directions for scholars to leverage sports data to further advance management research.

“We aim to provide management researchers guidance to leverage the advantages and avoid the drawbacks of leveraging sports contexts”, Fabio says.

This paper is affiliated to The Complexity Advantage Area of Excellence, NEOMA research area focusing on how to make complexity an advantage for businesses and organisations.

Read the article

Fonti, F., Ross, J.-M., & Aversa, P. (2023). Using Sports Data to Advance Management Research: A Review and a Guide for Future Studies. Journal of Management, 49(1), 325–362. https://doi.org/10.1177/01492063221117525