ABSTRACT
Today, the importance of strategic management is considerably rising as many sport organizations face competitions from both domestic and global market contexts. Globalization has substantially changed the competitive landscape of the sport industry, such as flexible international movement of athletes, coaches, and managerial and medical staff, global production of sporting goods, overseas marketing penetrations of sport teams, and international broadcasting of sport events. These changes have brought more opportunities and in the meantime more challenges for sport organizations. In this chapter, basic concepts of strategic management are first reviewed, which is followed by an overview of how strategic management process can contribute to sustain competitive advantages for sport organizations. In particular, strategic partnership as an effective tool for optimally leveraging, preparing, positioning, and managing sport organizations is comprehensively illustrated in terms of gaining access to new products and markets, generating financial resources, building up brand image, carrying out corporate social responsibilities, glocalizing marketing practices, and ultimately achieving organizational goals and objectives. This chapter concludes with an in-depth discussion on how best to use the strategic management process as strong driving force for creating and sustaining competitive advantages of sport organizations.
