Use of Social Reference Groups in Sport Policy Making

Based on reference group theory the purpose of the present study was to determine how sport political decision-makers acted while making decisions, and which reference groups and backgrounds they selected for supporting their behavior. Furthermore, the aim was to find out how the reference group strategy of decision-makers had changed since the middle of the 1970's (Olin, 1982). A sample of 1788 officials and appointed representatives from 167 cities in Finland were selected for the study. The results indicated that the reference groups and backgrounds the majority of the decision-makers chose as bases for their decision behavior in order of descending importance were: the city officials p…