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Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to investigate how professional football clubs from the English Premier League, German Bundesliga and Spanish Primera División use digital media to expand their international reach in emerging football markets (EFM) outside of Europe. Based on the EPRG framework and Rugman’s home-region hypothesis, the aim is to broaden the perspective where “sports go global” for a further understanding of actors’ international orientation in the digital sphere.
Design/methodology/approach
The study is based on data from desk research and a qualitative survey, comprising information on international digital media activities of 58 European clubs. Cluster analysis is used to identify different international orientations with regard to digital media activities.
Findings
The data provide evidence that clubs differ strongly in their orientations towards EFM. While some global players that provide digital media content in several EFM languages and attract a large share of Facebook followers from EFM exist, other clubs focus on their home region. League-specific differences become apparent.
Originality/value
This study determines the international online orientations of European football clubs by combining two previously separated research streams in football management studies: internationalisation and digital media activities. Most clubs with a strong EFM fan base choose polycentric, multi-language digital media strategies, followed by geocentric, standardised approaches. By offering a novel angle on internationalisation in professional football, this study contributes towards optimising clubs’ international online strategies for EFM, which are markets that promise high growth rates.
Business applications in multi-stakeholder settings use automated decision-making algorithms to increase efficiency and enable consensus in business processes. However, current algorithms for decision-making automation in business lack trust and transparency. Additionally, they can suffer from mistakes if stakeholders with limited digital literacy report no or wrong data to the algorithm. Allowing stakeholders to participate directly in decision-making processes has the potential to enhance acceptance of decisions and strengthen cooperation. This paper proposes the concept of Cyber-Social Consensus (CSC), an inclusive, trustworthy and transparent automated decision-making protocol that combines algorithms with human participation. Algorithmic automation is facilitated via blockchain-based smart contracts, human involvement via email communication as a traditional, widely-used tool to accommodate different levels of digital literacy. The proposed algorithmic CSC concept serves as a foundation for future research with the goal to expand extant literature on automated decision-making, algorithms and blockchain technology.
