Thriving together: conceptual and methodological considerations for examining thriving in interdependent sport

Abstract

Despite conceptual advances and preliminary associations highlighting the benefits of thriving in sport, opportunities for continued research are numerous. Notably, sport-specific research involving thriving has predominantly taken an individual athlete perspective. Interestingly, evidence from the organisational domain suggests that thriving can manifest at a collective level through interdependent team member interactions. Given the potential for thriving to emerge as a higher-level phenomenon in interdependent sport, a critique of thriving at the group-level is advanced. More specifically, we provide a summary of existing individual athlete thriving literature and organisational thriving research at the group-level (Part 1), propose three approaches to conceptualising thriving in interdependent sport (i.e. common, team, and collective thriving) grounded in multilevel research (Part 2), pose guiding questions and key considerations for future exploration (Part 3), and conclude by emphasising the potential value of examining thriving as a higher-level construct for sport researchers and invested partners (Part 4).