Social and educational outcomes at Mercedes F1 team

: an explanatory study of team identification in the context of Formula

Abstract

The global interest in Formula 1 and its economic relevance has grown steadily in recent years. Special focus was given to the Mercedes team due to its utter sporting dominance in the past. For those reasons, the aim of the thesis is two-folded: On the one hand, it analyses the Mercedes F1 team to derive managerial implications and best practices to ensure sporting, financial and socio-educational outcomes of an F1 organization. For this purpose, the 4-O model is applied to aggregate an overview about the team's performances in the four different areas. On the other hand, the thesis aims to determine the most and least important drivers for fans to identify with a F1 team. In that regard, a team identification survey is conducted to investigate the team-related drivers that impact fans' team identification process. The 4-O model analysis of the Mercedes F1 team indicates that sporting, financial and socio educational outcomes are interrelated and influence each other. Therefore, the thesis recommends a holistic organizational strategy far beyond the sporting targets to reinforce a long-term F1 viability. The F1 fan survey reveals that next to the team performance, F1 drivers themselves are important factors for fans to identify with a F1 team. As a consequence, the thesis suggests to focus on those and other determined key identification drivers to leverage a team's fan base.

Date of Award	19 Oct 2022
Original language	English
Awarding Institution	Universidade Católica Portuguesa
Supervisor	Cataldo Ruta (Supervisor)