College sports culture is rooted in campus environments, with college students as the main participants, sports activities as the core content, and campus spirit as the foundational support. As a key component of college sports culture, university sports association culture contributes significantly to enhancing students’ physical health and advancing the development of campus sports culture. To support students’ physical growth and the promotion of campus sports culture, it is essential to increase resource investment in campus sports initiatives, ensure the rational utilization of these resources, and thereby strengthen the operational capabilities of sports associations. However, university sports associations currently face notable operational challenges, primarily reflected in low organizational performance, difficulties in motivating students’ enthusiasm for sports participation, and consequent constraints on campus culture development. These issues stem from weak organizational capabilities of associations, a shortage of professional organizers, insufficient understanding of available association resources, and ineffective resource utilization. Fundamentally, the mechanism through which the network ties strength of university sports associations influences their organizational performance remains unclear, and empirical research exploring this relationship is lacking. Against this backdrop, this study focuses on investigating the influence mechanism of university sports associations’ network ties strength on organizational performance. This study first conducted a literature review and synthesis, then constructed an influence model to examine the relationship between network ties strength and organizational performance—with network ties strength as the independent variable, organizational ability as the mediating variable, and organizational performance as the dependent variable. Empirical research was carried out among members of sports associations in undergraduate colleges in Urumqi, using a combination of questionnaire surveys, field investigations, and expert interviews, resulting in the collection of 2,246 valid questionnaires. Correlation analysis, structural equation modeling, and regression analysis were employed to verify the research hypotheses. Finally, the study analyzed and summarized its findings, drew relevant conclusions, and put forward suggestions for improving the organizational performance of university sports associations. The results indicate that the influence mechanism of network ties strength on the organizational performance of university sports associations involves three core elements: network ties strength, organizational performance, and organizational ability. The specific mechanisms are as follows: (1) Both the network ties strength and organizational ability of university sports associations exert a positive impact on organizational performance; (2) the network ties strength of university sports associations has a positive influence on both organizational ability and organizational performance; (3) the organizational ability of university sports associations plays a partial mediating role in the relationship between network ties strength and organizational performance. This study clarifies the internal logical relationship between network ties strength and organizational performance of university sports associations, and provides theoretical support and practical guidance for optimizing the operation of university sports associations and promoting the high-quality development of campus sports culture.
Zhu et al. (Mon,) studied this question.