Exploring a suitable youth football training model for China: From the perspective of customer engagement

• Main Author: ZHENG, Nanyan
• Format: text
• Language: English
• Published: Institutional Knowledge at Singapore Management University 2022
• Subjects: Youth Football Training; Convenience; Fun; Empathy; Customer Engagement; Asian Studies; Business Administration, Management, and Operations; Sales and Merchandising
• Online Access: https://ink.library.smu.edu.sg/etd_coll/469; https://ink.library.smu.edu.sg/context/etd_coll/article/1467/viewcontent/GPBA_AY2017_CKGSB_SMU_DBA_Zheng_Nanyan.pdf
• Institution: Singapore Management University

As a major sport country, China’s football is facing tricky problems of insufficient reserve players and football culture alienation. Improving the quality of youth football training not only can supplement a large number of reserve players, but also shape a sound football culture, which is a good approach to the current problems of China’s football. Based on the theory of customer engagement, this dissertation starts from the reality of Chinese youth football training, analyzes the problems existing in current youth football training in depth, and proposes that convenience, interest and empathy can improve the customer engagement of youth trainees. Outland household registration and youth trainee identity at private schools also help strengthen these relationships. In this study, a total of 209 sheets of valid data were collected from a questionnaire survey of football training institutions in Beijing, Guangzhou, Chengdu and Shenzhen. Using the above survey data and OLS regression analysis method, this dissertation has found that convenience, fun and empathy can improve customer engagement of youth trainees, and outland household registration and youth trainee identity in private schools help strengthen the above relationship. In addition, customer engagement plays a partial intermediary role between the youth training characteristics and the youth training performance. This research has important theoretical and practical significance, for it not only enriches the interpretation of customer engagement in marketing, but also adds to the research on convenience, fun and empathy at the organizational level; it is of important reference value for youth training institutions in optimizing training models and improving training quality, and may also provide reference to the nation for formulating football-related policies.