Toward a model of Citizenship Behaviour and Innovation - a study of sport clusters

The focus of this research is on the nexus of three fields: organisational behaviour, innovation management, and economic geography. The unit of analysis are bi-or multilateral interorganisational relationships in clusters. The research question is: how does citizenship behaviour (CB) influence innovation. CB is discretionary and voluntary behaviour of individuals or organisations within a group that is not formally rewarded but promotes the functioning of the group. We investigate in particular the role of interorganisational citizenship behaviour (ICB) with regards to product innovation in sport clusters. Sport clusters are geographic concentrations of interconnected organisations that have an interest in a particular sport as buyer or seller of related services or products. Four clusters are analysed contrasting two different locations, France and Australasia, and two sports of different maturity and level of organisation, sailing and surfing. In the first stage qualitative data is collected to map out clusters and their interorganisational relationships and behaviour. In the second step multivariate analysis is applied to investigate how much ICB (independent variable) influences product innovation (dependent variable) in those relationships. This research aims at improving the innovativeness of clusters and its organisations. Overall, the results are expected to create a better understanding of clusters, their organisations, relationships, and interactions. The objective is to disclose benefits of clusters as industrial structure with regards to innovation. The authors' intention is furthermore to interpret the results in a wider context, such as other sport or consumer goods markets with similar characteristics, and countries and locations with similar conditions.