Participatory sport events are increasingly promoted as vehicles for physical activity and public health, yet event exposure alone does not guarantee sustained participation. This study developed and empirically evaluated a context-sensitive organizational model for health-oriented participatory sports competitions in Iran. An exploratory sequential mixed-methods design was used. In the qualitative phase, 15 experts in sport management, sport-for-all, public health, and event delivery were recruited purposively and theoretically. Semi-structured interviews were analysed using classical grounded theory with open, selective, and theoretical coding. The emergent framework was operationalized for quantitative professional evaluation in 400 respondents with relevant sport, health, municipal, federation, or event-management experience. PLS-SEM was used to assess the measurement and structural models. Qualitative analysis yielded 106 initial codes, 41 subcategories, and 13 main categories organized into four higher-order dimensions: institutional and strategic requirements; participation and health architecture; responsible implementation assurance; and learning and health legacy. The core category was transformation of episodic competition into sustainable health-promoting participation. In the quantitative professional-evaluation model, all four dimensions were positively associated with the expert-rated sustainable-participation construct: responsible implementation assurance (β=0.332, t=8.246, p<0.001), learning and health legacy (β=0.302, t=7.628, p<0.001), participation and health architecture (β=0.238, t=6.328, p<0.001), and institutional and strategic requirements (β=0.209, t=5.067, p<0.001). Together they explained 49.9% of the variance in the outcome construct (R²=0.499). Measurement quality and model fit were satisfactory (factor loadings 0.833-0.908; SRMR=0.042; estimated-model NFI=0.915). The findings support an integrated organizational framework for planning, delivering, and evaluating health-oriented participatory competitions. Because the quantitative phase used cross-sectional professional judgments rather than longitudinal participant behaviour, the model should be interpreted as an empirically supported framework of perceived organizational conditions for sustainable participation, not as direct evidence of sustained physical activity or public-health effects.

Purpose: This study developed a context-sensitive model for para-swimming development in Iran using Strauss and Corbin’s systematic grounded theory. Methods: The applied, exploratory qualitative study involved 18 experts drawn from academia, sport administration, coaching, para swimming, pool management, and disability sport. Participants were selected purposively and through snowball and theoretical sampling. Semi-structured interviews continued until theoretical saturation. Data were analysed through open, axial, and selective coding and organised within the Strauss-Corbin paradigm. Results: Strategic governance, policymaking and sustainable financing, together with an integrated talent-identification, progression, and competition system, constituted the causal conditions. The core phenomenon was the integrated, sustainable, and performance-oriented development of para swimming in Iran. Contextual conditions comprised a network of accessible physical infrastructure, equipment and training technologies, and specialist human-capital development. Intervening conditions included integrated health, sports medicine and sport-science services; dual-career empowerment, personal development and family participation; and internationalisation, knowledge transfer and the media ecosystem. Monitoring, evaluation, standardisation and continuous performance improvement formed the principal strategy. Expected outcomes were improved elite performance, participation and retention, talent development, international presence, pathway quality, and the social standing of para swimming. Conclusion: The proposed model offers an actionable framework for coherent policy, planning, implementation, and evaluation of sustainable, performance-oriented para-swimming development in Iran.

Financial instability has become a persistent constraint on the professionalization of football clubs in Iran, yet the mechanisms linking ownership, financial discipline, environmental conditions, managerial action, and organizational outcomes have not been integrated in a context-specific empirical model. This study developed and validated a financial management model for Iranian professional football clubs. An exploratory sequential mixed-methods design was used. In the qualitative phase, 16 experts in sport management, sport economics, club administration, finance, football governance, marketing, and sports law were selected purposively and theoretically. Semi-structured interviews lasting 60–100 minutes continued until theoretical saturation; saturation was reached at interview 15 and a final interview confirmed adequacy. Data were analyzed through open, axial, and selective coding following grounded-theory procedures. In the quantitative phase, an 88-item researcher-developed questionnaire derived from the qualitative model was administered to relevant professionals. Of 250 distributed questionnaires, 215 complete responses were analyzed using SPSS 22 and SmartPLS 3. The qualitative analysis produced a six-part paradigm model comprising causal conditions, the central phenomenon, contextual conditions, intervening conditions, strategies, and consequences. Sustainable financial management—expressed through financial sustainability, economic governance, and commercial development—formed the central phenomenon. Causal conditions positively predicted financial management (β = .793, t = 25.064, p < .001). Contextual conditions (β = .534, t = 6.358), intervening conditions (β = .581, t = 7.490), and financial management (β = .527, t = 11.423) positively predicted strategies, while strategies strongly predicted consequences (β = .853, t = 29.738); all p values were < .001. The model showed strong overall fit (GOF = .713). Sustainable club finance therefore requires simultaneous reform of ownership and accountability, realistic budgeting and debt control, transparent reporting, diversified commercial income, systematic fan monetization, and long-term financial partnerships. The model provides a locally grounded framework for club boards, the league organization, the football federation, investors, and regulators seeking to replace short-term financial rescue with institutionalized financial sustainability.

Recreational scuba diving is both a sport activity and a tourism product conducted in an environment that exposes participants to interacting environmental, equipment-related, physiological, behavioral, and organizational hazards. This narrative review critically integrates evidence relevant to recreational scuba diving, dive centers, and dive-tourism operations. A non-systematic, purposive review approach was used, with evidence organized across hazard identification, risk assessment, prevention, human factors, governance, emergency preparedness, environmental sustainability, and technology. Peer-reviewed empirical studies and authoritative guidance were given greater interpretive weight than theses, conference papers, and technology prototypes. The literature suggests that effective risk management is a continuous cycle of hazard identification, context-sensitive assessment, layered control, dynamic monitoring, emergency readiness, and organizational learning. Accidents usually emerge through interactions among environmental conditions, equipment and breathing-gas systems, participant health and behavior, team performance, and organizational decisions. Pre-dive screening, structured equipment checks, competence-based activity matching, gas and ascent planning, buddy-team communication, explicit stop criteria, emergency oxygen delivered by trained personnel, rescue rehearsal, incident and near-miss learning, and ecologically responsible site controls together provide a defensible safety architecture. However, the strength of evidence varies across these interventions, and several operational recommendations remain based on expert guidance or practice-oriented literature rather than controlled studies. Dive safety should therefore be managed as an adaptive organizational system while recognizing uncertainty, professional boundaries in medical decision-making, and the ecological conditions on which dive tourism depends.

Talent identification in athletics is frequently treated as a one-time selection exercise, although athletic potential develops through dynamic interactions among biological maturation, event-specific demands, coaching, organizational support, and opportunity. Iran lacks an integrated, context-sensitive management framework connecting schools, provincial boards, clubs, coaches, families, and the national federation. This study developed and quantitatively validated a grounded model of talent identification management for Iranian athletics. An applied-developmental sequential exploratory mixed-methods design was used. In the qualitative phase, 15 experts were selected through purposive and theoretical sampling and interviewed using a semi-structured protocol. Data were analyzed through open, axial, and selective coding following the systematic grounded-theory approach. In the quantitative phase, a researcher-developed questionnaire derived from the qualitative categories was administered to 400 managers, federation and provincial-board experts, athletics coaches, physical-education teachers, school-sport specialists, academics, and sport-science specialists. The measurement and structural models were assessed using partial least squares structural equation modeling in SmartPLS 3. Analysis produced 170 initial codes, refined to 120 non-redundant open codes, 30 subcategories, and 15 main categories. The paradigm comprised causal conditions (inefficiency of the existing system; complexity of talent), the core phenomenon (organizing the talent cycle; sustainable talent development), contextual conditions (regional and social contexts), intervening conditions (policy environment; macro-level support), strategies (institutional integration; professionalization of implementation; stakeholder mobilization), and outcomes (identification effectiveness; athlete flourishing; a stronger championship pipeline; development of athletics). All five structural paths were positive and significant: causal conditions to the core phenomenon (β = .95, t = 133.13); core phenomenon to strategies (β = .96, t = 119.76); contextual conditions to strategies (β = .78, t = 88.61); intervening conditions to strategies (β = .95, t = 121.23); and strategies to outcomes (β = .96, t = 175.18). R² values were .917, .937, and .936 for the core phenomenon, strategies, and outcomes, respectively. Sustainable athletics talent development in Iran requires a continuous, evidence-informed governance system rather than isolated screening campaigns. The model provides an actionable framework for coordinated identification, event allocation, development, monitoring, retention, and equitable access.

Selecting the head coach of a national football team is a high-consequence governance decision in which technical evaluation intersects with leadership, organizational strategy, financial capacity, stakeholder pressure, media scrutiny, and socio-cultural expectations. This study developed and examined an integrated model of the determinants influencing national team coach selection in Iranian football. A sequential exploratory mixed-methods design was used. In the qualitative phase, 34 experts drawn from university faculties, the football federation, professional clubs, national-level coaching, elite playing, licensed agency work, sport media, and supporter associations participated in semi-structured interviews. Grounded theory procedures involving open, axial, and selective coding were used to identify the principal categories and their relationships. The resulting framework informed a questionnaire administered to 396 football stakeholders in the quantitative phase, and the proposed structure was examined using confirmatory factor analysis and structural equation modeling. The findings characterized coach selection as a multidimensional governance process. Technical and professional competence, previous coaching performance, and leadership qualities formed the central candidate-level determinants. Organizational governance and financial feasibility shaped the formal decision environment, while media influence, political and institutional pressures, stakeholder networks, and socio-cultural expectations affected perceived legitimacy and final appointment choices. Technical competence and previous performance emerged as the most prominent determinants, but their influence was conditioned by governance quality and contextual pressures. The integrated model offers football federations a basis for transparent, competency-oriented, and strategically aligned recruitment procedures. It also extends sport governance and human resource management scholarship by explaining coach appointment as an interaction among candidate capital, institutional arrangements, and external legitimacy.

Entry-level coaching courses frequently emphasize sport-specific rules and technical instruction, although coaches are also expected to manage relationships, emotions, teams, professional development, and technology. This study identified the components that should be included in effective coaching-skills education for participants in Level 3 coaching courses in Kermanshah Province, Iran. An exploratory qualitative design was used. Fifteen experts in coach education and development were recruited through criterion-based purposive and snowball sampling. Participants included experienced coaches, coach educators and evaluators, sport administrators, university faculty members, and specialists in sport psychology and sport management. Data were collected through in-depth semi-structured interviews lasting 45–60 minutes. Data collection and analysis proceeded concurrently. Thematic saturation was observed after the twelfth interview, and three additional interviews were conducted to confirm the stability of the findings. The data were analyzed inductively using Braun and Clarke’s six-phase thematic analysis. Credibility was supported through pilot interviews, participant review of preliminary findings, expert review, field notes, and independent recoding of selected interviews. Intercoder agreement was 80%. Eight main themes and 16 subthemes were identified: (1) specialized and scientific coaching knowledge; (2) communication and interpersonal skills; (3) leadership and team-management competencies; (4) emotional intelligence and coach self-regulation; (5) experiential learning and reflective practice; (6) career management and professional development; (7) technology and contemporary instructional approaches; and (8) contextual and environmental factors. Together, the themes contained 80 initial codes. Level 3 coach education should move beyond the transmission of technical knowledge. A competency-based curriculum should integrate scientific literacy, communication, leadership, emotional regulation, reflective learning, career planning, digital competence, ethical practice, and context-sensitive application. The framework provides a basis for revising course content and assessment in Kermanshah and comparable coach-education settings.

Effective sport coaching depends on more than technical knowledge. Contemporary evidence shows that coaches influence athlete learning, motivation, well-being, safety, retention, and performance through an integrated set of professional, interpersonal, intrapersonal, ethical, and context-sensitive skills. However, coach education programs are frequently delivered as short, content-heavy courses that do not adequately translate knowledge into observable coaching behavior. This integrative review synthesizes evidence from coaching effectiveness theory, international coaching frameworks, self-determination theory, coach-athlete relationship research, coach education studies, feedback research, reflective practice, and safeguarding-oriented coaching to design a practical model for training effective skills among sport coaches. The proposed Effective Coaching Skills Training Model (ECSTM) is organized into five interdependent domains: professional-pedagogical competence, interpersonal communication and relationship building, motivational and psychosocial support, intrapersonal reflection and self-regulation, and ethical-safeguarding and digital practice. The model also specifies training mechanisms, including needs assessment, modular blended learning, deliberate practice, role play, video feedback, mentoring, peer learning, reflective portfolios, and multilevel evaluation. The review argues that effective coach education should be longitudinal, context-sensitive, behavior-focused, and evaluated through coach outcomes, athlete outcomes, and implementation sustainability. The proposed model provides a theoretically grounded and practice-oriented framework that can be tested through Delphi validation, pilot implementation, structural modeling, and longitudinal intervention studies.