Coping strategies with team identity threat and social well-being

This study examines the relationships among team identification, threat(stress), emotion-focused coping response, disengagement coping response, and social well-being. Fans of Jeonju KCC EGIS (N=302) participated in a self-administered survey. A confirmatory factor analysis and a structural equation modeling analysis were performed to reveal the proposed relationships. The findings show that the fans with high team identity tend to have two different types of coping responses, emotion-focused and disengagement, to the stressful situation which is a relocation of the EGIS, but it is surprising that the fans only employs disengagement coping response to engage in their social well-being. This indicates that their former fans are more likely to stay away from the EGIS; thus, the team managers should be aware that they need to maintain a strong connection with former EGIS’s fans, ensuring they continue to feel valued and integral to the team’s identity.