Presenting the model of ethics in sports: (case study: professional sports)

Ethics is one of the concerns of professional sports in the contemporary world. The purpose of this study was to provide a model of ethics in professional sports in the country. This research was a qualitative research that was conducted using an emergent data-based method. The statistical population of the research was the academic staff members of the country's universities specializing in sports ethics and industry, sports managers, sports media people, economic activists in sports and professional sports fans. The research tool in this study was an interview that was conducted with semi-structured and in-depth questions. Theoretical saturation was obtained in 23 interviews. The interviewees included university faculty members, sports managers, members of the media active in professional sports, coaches and professional athletes of the country, who were selected in a targeted and snowball way. For data analysis, three stages of open, selective and theoretical coding were performed and the research model was obtained. The main categories of the model include individual (moral intelligence, spiritual intelligence and religiosity), social (collective ethics and social responsibility), professional (work ethics, organizational ethics and management ethics), commercial (ethical marketing, financial fair play, and ethical contracts), media (media literacy, moral literacy and public relations) and fan (fan ethics and fan culture). What can be obtained from this study is that individual ethics, collective ethics, professional ethics, business ethics, media ethics and fan ethics are involved in ethics in professional sports and planning and creating Mechanisms for operationalizing the development of these factors in sports clubs can facilitate the process of institutionalizing ethics in professional sports.