Shiro Yamaguchi

Shiro Yamaguchi is an associate professor of sport management in the Faculty of Human and Social Sciences at the University of Marketing and Distribution Sciences (UMDS) in Kobe, Japan. Since October 2021, he is a visiting scholar in the Sport and Society research unit at the Vrije Universiteit Brussel where he collaborates with prof. dr. Inge Derom. Shiro earned a Bachelor degree (Sport Science) in 2008 and Master (Sport Management) degree from the Juntendo University in 2010. Following his Master degree, Shiro moved to Oregon (USA) to study sport business under prof. dr. Bettina Cornwell and worked at the Warsaw Sports Marketing Center at the University of Oregon as a research intern while working at the Sasakawa Sports Foundation as a research assistant. After returning to Japan, he worked at the YMCA as a physical education teacher and became a cooperative research fellow at the Juntendo University. Since 2014, he became an assistant professor at the UMDS . In 2020, he earned his Ph.D. (Tourism) at the Wakayama University. His PhD thesis was “Application of the image transfer theory and the brand equity for a destination to city marathon contexts”. 

His research interests focus on sport management and event management, specifically, in the areas of  sport marketing, sport tourism, and sponsorship. Currently, Shiro is engaging in the following three research projects: (1) online community and social ties (networks) through virtual cycling, (2) conceptualization and measuring of perceived risk from the participant perspective in trail running events, and (3) leverage strategies from the stakeholder perspective in cycling events. Except for above projects, he has many practical works (e.g., host of the Arima & Mt. Rokko Virtual Ride Race, director of Sport Industry Network in KOBE, and consulting to local governments and participatory sporting events) and research projects (e.g., investigation of Kobe Marathon and Ako City Marathon, SROI of CSR activities by Japanese professional soccer team, social impact for Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games, and promotion of cycle tourism from Arima to Mt. Rokko through virtual cycling). Shiro has published in peer-reviewed journals, such as  Event Management,  Journal of Convention & Event Tourism,  Frontiers in Sports and Active Living,  Journal of Asiania Sport for All,  Japanese Journal of Sport Management,  and so on.  He received the award for Nakauchi at the UMDS in 2021, the award for excellence from the Sport Agency in 2020, young research presentation award at the Japanese Society of Lifelong Sport in 2018, and the encouragement award at the Japanese Association for Sport Management in 2016.