E-urheilun johtaminen : lähtölaukaus empiiriselle tutkimukselle suomalaisesta näkökulmasta

Abstract

Esports – as a rapidly growing field of sport, entertainment, and business – offers an interesting arena for leadership research. In this qualitative study, we focus on Finnish esports leadership, considering both the definitions as well as the leadership processes in the professional electronic gaming. Our aim is to chart the terrain and increase understanding of the theme so far little empirically studied, and to open views for further research. This study can be seen as an opening for further empirical research on Finnish esports leadership. Due to scarcity of scientific discussions, a wider selection of literature on leadership research and international esports leadership studies have been utilized. This study aims to add value to both practice- and theoryoriented development of esports education and leadership. The empirical data consists of eight semi-structured theme interviews supplemented with ethnographic observation (field diaries). In our analysis, we describe how esports professionals define an esports organisation, and how the informants perceive management and leadership in an esports organisation. We also discuss some leadership-related challenges that emerged in our data. Based on our findings, it seems that the esports professionals have a surprisingly traditional view on leadership and management, yet it seems that the emphasis is more on a family-type leadership instead of hierarchical and rational-oriented leadership.