The Moderating Role of Entrepreneurial Marketing in the Relationship between Intellectual Capital and Performance of Sports Enterprises

Today, by changing the sources of value creation and focusing on intangible resources rather than physical resources, intellectual capital can be used as an indicator to assess the impact of marketing on the performance of businesses, including sports enterprises. Therefore, the purpose of this study was to investigate the moderating role of entrepreneurial marketing in the relationship between intellectual capital and performance of sports enterprises.

The statistical population of this study, which was conducted by a descriptive-survey method, consisted of active sports enterprises entrepreneurs in Big Khorasan Province (Razavi, Jonobi & Shomali). Due to the limited population, the statistical sample was considered as a whole (n=150). The data collection tool was a questionnaire consisting of 49 specialized questions on the five-point Likert scale with acceptable validity and reliability. Structural Equation Modeling approach and Partial Least Squares method were used to test the general model fitting of the research.

The results showed that not only entrepreneurial marketing has a moderating role on the relationship between intellectual capital and sport enterprises performance, but also moderates the impact of intellectual capital components (human capital, structural capital and relational capital) on sport enterprises performance.

As a result, one of the most important tasks for managers and entrepreneurs to succeed and improve the financial and non-financial performance of the sports enterprises is to shape and guide entrepreneurial behavior in marketing and management practices.