Dixon, Marlene Professor

My research focuses on relationships between sport and life quality. Since the capacity of sport to deliver socially valued outcomes (e.g., health, well-being, sense of community, economic development) depends on the nature of sport program content and delivery, my work endeavors to identify how sport can be designed, managed, and marketed to promote and enhance the life quality of individuals, families, and communities. Using a human resource management and systems approach, my research has examined the micro (employee, participant), meso (organizational), and macro (delivery system) elements of sport that illumine relationships between the ways that sport programs and systems are designed and implemented, on the one hand, and their consequent outcomes, on the other. Normatively, these findings also bear implications for modification of sport programs and systems. Thus, my work has two goals: (1) to formulate a model that describes and explains relations between the characteristics of sport programs and systems and their consequent effects on the lives of those who provide or who do sport, and (2) to thereby enable formulation, management, and marketing of sport programs that consistently and effectively add value to the lives of individuals, families, the communities in which they live.