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Maintaining Professional Face: Deceptive Impression Management in Community Sport Coaching

Nelson, Lee J.; Shulman, David; Potrac, Paul A.; Gale, Laura A.; Ives, Ben A.

Authors

Lee J. Nelson

David Shulman

Paul A. Potrac

Dr Laura Gale Laura.Gale@hull.ac.uk
Lecturer in Sport Coaching and Performance

Ben A. Ives



Abstract

This article breaks new ground in the sociology of sports work through its novel exploration of workplace deception and the associated development of an original typology of deceptive impression management. Analysis of data collected from a two-phased research design, comprising online interviews and survey responses from 102 participants, revealed that community sport coaches employed deceptive impression management to display emotional control, an ideal practice of their work, and to feign expert knowledge. These types of deceptive impression management consisted of disguising disdain, flattering insincerely, camouflaging alternative approaches, covering-up mistakes, hiding a lack of expected knowledge, and reporting favourable metrics. Drawing on theories of dramaturgical analysis (Goffman, 1959, 1967, 1974) and emotional labour (Hochschild, 1979, 1983) as used in constructing a professional image, we examine how the coaches used deception to cope with challenging work circumstances that endanger projecting a professional appearance. The present article not only advances our sociological understanding of sports work but raises important questions for the preparation, development, and support of sports workers.

Citation

Nelson, L. J., Shulman, D., Potrac, P. A., Gale, L. A., & Ives, B. A. (online). Maintaining Professional Face: Deceptive Impression Management in Community Sport Coaching. Sport, Education and Society, https://doi.org/10.1080/13573322.2024.2349954

Journal Article Type Article
Acceptance Date Apr 26, 2024
Online Publication Date May 20, 2024
Deposit Date May 8, 2024
Publicly Available Date Nov 21, 2025
Journal Sport, Education and Society
Print ISSN 1357-3322
Publisher Routledge
Peer Reviewed Peer Reviewed
DOI https://doi.org/10.1080/13573322.2024.2349954
Keywords Deception; Sport work; Impression management; Emotion management
Public URL https://hull-repository.worktribe.com/output/4662060

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Publisher Licence URL
https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/

Copyright Statement
© 2024 The Author(s). Published by Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group
This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/), which permits non-commercial re-use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited, and is not altered, transformed, or built upon in any way. The terms on which this article has been published allow the posting of the Accepted Manuscript in a repository by the author(s) or with their consent.




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