Using Sports Data to Advance Management Research: A Review and a Guide for Future Studies

Abstract

Sports contexts are increasingly used in management research to test and develop theory and explore managerially relevant phenomena. This growth in publications is likely driven by a series of advantages that sports data offers to management researchers. However, such positive features are not a panacea, as several drawbacks are also associated with leveraging sports data, which can limit their usefulness for management scholars. In this paper, we aim to provide management researchers guidance to leverage the advantages and avoid the drawbacks of leveraging sports contexts. To do so, we 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. After outlining how these works contributed to the growth of several key conversations in management research, we discuss the advantages of using sports data by outlining how they can advance management research both conceptually (e.g., theory building and radical theorizing) and empirically (e.g., triangulation and replication). We then discuss the potential drawbacks of research using sports data and suggest ways to compensate for them. We close by outlining several new directions in which scholars can leverage sports data to further advance management research.