Spectator sports are one of the largest industries in the United States (Byon, Zhang & Baker, 2013). In this regard, sports marketers and organizations have focused on maintaining or attracting spectators utilizing various promotion methods. However, according to a Sport Business Research Network (SBRnet, 2012) report, the trend of attendance at Division I college football games has declined since 2010. Specifically, the NCAA member schools reported that the average attendance of Division I-FBS decreased from 45, 912 to 44,970 from 2010 to 2012. Due to the fact that attendance at college football games has seen some decline, it has become more important for sports marketers and organizations to better understand factors affecting consumers in order to attract consumers (Byon, Zhang & Baker, 2013). Researchers have studied various factors affecting why spectators attend a sporting event (Chen & Rylander, 2008). Yoshida and James (2010) mention that customer satisfaction is one way to assess spectator's intention of revisiting. To predict customer's satisfaction and behavioral intention of revisiting, researchers have examined service quality variables and core product quality variables and found that overall service quality has had a significant influence on both satisfaction and consumers' behavior intentions (Yoshida & James, 2010; Wakefield & Blodgett, 1996). Therefore, it is important for sports organizations and sports marketers to provide good service quality to positively impact spectator satisfaction. In addition, scholars have found that spectator satisfaction may vary based on personality traits (Anand, 1977; Barrick & Mount, 1991). John (2003) found that the satisfaction of perceived service quality varied by customer personality traits. John (2003) also suggested that it will be useful to examine what types of personality traits affect perceptions of service quality. In a sport context, Donavan, Carlson and Zimmerman (2005) stated that "individual differences may exist that stem from personality differences" (p. 31). In this sense, they argue that assessment of individual personality traits can be utilized by sports teams and sports managers to influence attendance (Donavan, Carlson & Zimmerman, 2005). Building from the information about individual differences, the proposed study will include a measure of spectators' personality traits to determine if there are differences in ratings of satisfaction with service quality. The main purpose of this study is to examine spectators' personality traits, and customer satisfaction with dimensions of service quality and core product quality. The current study was quantitative; paper and pencil questionnaires were used. The instruments in this study were adapted from existing studies. Four hundred questionnaires were distributed to spectators who attended football games at Florida State University. A descriptive analysis was conducted to assess the frequency of age (based on date of birth), gender, race and year in school. I analyzed the data to assess evidence of reliability pertaining to the constructs of interest: service quality, core product quality, and satisfaction. Multivariate analysis of variance (MANOVA) was used to test, and subsequently found, that there were significant differences in ratings of satisfaction, service quality, and core product quality based on the four personality traits. Overall, spectators with Influence and Steadiness as a primary personality traits had a higher mean score of service quality, core product quality, and satisfaction, while spectators characterized by Dominance and Conscientiousness had a lower mean score. / A Thesis submitted to the Department of Sport Management in partial fulfillment of the Master of Science. / Spring Semester, 2015. / March 6, 2015. / Personality traits, Satisfaction, Service Quality / Includes bibliographical references. / Jeffrey James, Professor Directing Thesis; Amy Chan Hyung Kim, Committee Member; Joshua I. Newman, Committee Member.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:fsu.edu/oai:fsu.digital.flvc.org:fsu_253496 |
| Contributors | Yu, Hoyeol (authoraut), James, Jeffrey D. (Jeffrey Dalton) (professor directing thesis), Kim, Amy Chan Hyung (committee member), Newman, Joshua I. (committee member), Florida State University (degree granting institution), College of Education (degree granting college), Department of Sport Management (degree granting department) |
| Publisher | Florida State University, Florida State University |
| Source Sets | Florida State University |
| Language | English, English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Text, text |
| Format | 1 online resource (102 pages), computer, application/pdf |
| Rights | This Item is protected by copyright and/or related rights. You are free to use this Item in any way that is permitted by the copyright and related rights legislation that applies to your use. For other uses you need to obtain permission from the rights-holder(s). The copyright in theses and dissertations completed at Florida State University is held by the students who author them. |
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