The effect of government-public relationships on residents’ support in mega sport events: a moderating effect of government crisis response

The study seeks to investigate the role of host governments’ policy public relations and crisis response strategies in shaping residents’ support for mega sport events. Specifically, the research focuses on the moderation effects of crisis response strategies on the relationships between the government-public relationships (GPR) dimensions (i.e., control mutuality, trust, and satisfaction) and residents’ support. The research targeted residents of Tokyo, a host city for the 2020 Olympic and Paralympic Games. Online surveys were disseminated via an international survey company between 23rd to 29th October 2020, obtaining 500 complete responses. Then, a two-step approach was utilised to ensure the tenability of the hypothesised model: CFA for testing the measurement model and SEM for testing the hypothetical relationships. There was a positive association between perceived control mutuality and satisfaction with residents’ support for the mega sport event. The study reaffirmed the importance of control mutuality and satisfaction as GPR indicators for residents’ support, introducing this concept into the mega sport event context. In addition, the relationship between control mutuality and residents’ support was moderated by their perception of the appropriateness of crisis response. Based on the results, theoretical and practical implications were presented.