Year: 2025
Type: article
Abstract: This study offers a perspective on the sport sector’s work by examining the values that guide Finnish fathers working as small-scale sport entrepreneurs. In Finland, sport has traditionally been organized by the public and non-profit third sectors. However, the private sector’s role is expanding, reflecting broader transformations in sport culture, and creating space for entrepreneurship. At the same time, contemporary parenthood culture increasingly expects fathers to be fully involved in family life and be so called caring fathers. As a flexible form of work, entrepreneurship may support this involvement. Viewing these developments together, this study explores how father entrepreneurs balance and prioritize their values across sport work, parenting and leisure. It asks: What values guide their decisions, and how do they navigate the interplay between entrepreneurship and caregiving? Drawing on Shalom Schwartz’s theory of basic values, this study provides a framework for understanding how entrepreneurial and family-oriented values may align or conflict. The findings contribute to discussions on changing work–life dynamics and gendered expectations in the evolving sport sector.
Source: Sport in Society
Authors: Tero Viljanen, Hanna-Mari Ikonen
Institution: University of Jyväskylä
Language: English
Subfield: Sociology and Political Science
Field: Social Sciences
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: hybrid
Award: G8156226391
OpenAlex ID: W4417319744