Designing a participatory governance model of Coronavirus crisis management in Small and Medium Sports Business

In times of crisis, a specific action plan to promote more resilient and sustainable sports can be considered a model for participatory governance in crisis management. The research purpose was to investigate participatory governance of coronavirus crisis management in small and medium sports businesses. The research method was mixed (qualitative-quantitative). The statistical population in the qualitative part included faculty members and university lecturers, managers and experts in the field of sports and in the quantitative part included faculty members and sports managers. In the qualitative part, 15 people were needed and in the quantitative part, between 5 and 10 subjects were needed for each question, so 320 people formed a statistical sample. The data collection tool in the qualitative section was semi-structured interview that the results of interviews were designed in the form of a questionnaire with 7 main factors. For content validity, expert’s opinion and construct validity (exploratory and confirmatory factor analysis) and combined reliability indicators, Cronbach's alpha, divergent and convergent validation and structural equation modeling were used by SPSS23 and PLS2 software. The fit index of model was reported 0.47 and results confirmed 7 main factors: Systematic approach, compensatory strategy, e-government, NGOs, policy-making of dealing with crisis, crisis governance and media support. Establishing a headquarter of returning to sports under the participatory governance of crisis management and using experienced researchers, managers, and knowledgeable experts are among the practical suggestions of research that can help resilience of sports businesses and reducing the effects of the crisis on them.