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The Role of Involvement and Expectations in Olympic Games Attitudes: A Cross-National Study

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The Customer is NOT Always Right? Marketing Orientationsin a Dynamic Business World

Abstract

The Olympic Games (OG) is a mega-event on many dimensions, including participants, audience, expenditures, and national rivalries. As such, it creates branding opportunities for the Games themselves, host countries, athletes, and corporate sponsors. This study explores the impact of expectations and involvement levels on attitudes and evaluations of the OG as a sport mega-event and as a destination from the perspective of domestic (i.e., Canadian) and foreign (i.e., American) residents in the context of the XXI Winter Olympic Games. Data were collected from national samples using an on-line commercial panel two months prior to the OG. Hypothesis testing indicated the role of expectations and involvement in relation to beliefs about, evaluations of and behavioral intentions towards the Games. In the research process we introduced and applied a Mega-Event Involvement Inventory. The results provide input to how what people take into the mega-event can impact successful mega-event attitude outcomes.

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Armenakyan, A., Heslop, L.A., Nadeau, J., O’Reilly, N. (2017). The Role of Involvement and Expectations in Olympic Games Attitudes: A Cross-National Study. In: Campbell, C.L. (eds) The Customer is NOT Always Right? Marketing Orientationsin a Dynamic Business World. Developments in Marketing Science: Proceedings of the Academy of Marketing Science. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-50008-9_44

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