Sports management principles and practices

Sports Management

The subject of sports is today not a method only for individuals to get enjoyment from it, but sports has become an important method for individuals also to maintain fitness and thus contribute to his being able to perform as per requirements of his main financial earnings source. At the same time, this has given rise to a group of individuals who are the leaders in the management of sport. They exist at different levels of sport. There are also relationships between the transformational leadership of sports and the resultant performance of the organization in the level of sports that it is engaged in -- recreation or leisure.

For this purpose, there has to be an examination of transformational leadership, and then an investigation of different approaches concerning the type and concept of the organization that it is and then a judgment of the effectiveness of the organization. At the same time, there are controversies regarding the effect that transformational leadership will have on the effectiveness of the organization. At the same time, there are quite a few mundane matters like self-confidence and sport confidence that are also viewed as important factors influencing performance. Another important question is the ethics maintained by coaches and sportsmen. A sizeable amount of research literature is presently being prepared significantly in the field of sports management. In spite of all the studies have gone through, there is still doubt whether transformational leadership directly helps organizational effectiveness. The question still remains as to how that is related to sports management and its leadership. One of the practical and important roles of sports management and leadership is fund raising, and this is a very time consuming process. This will be reflected in Job descriptions of most sports managers, and even when the fund has been raised, the job continues. On the other side, let us look at transformational leadership. It starts with a vision and that vision must be so good that it will excite others and get them to become followers. The next step is to sell the vision as being one with good advertising value.

This does not mean that sports do not do any good. Participating in sports has several advantages. An important set of benefits from sports is the task oriented characteristics or functions that develop. It enables girls to develop physical competence. Another set of points is regarding the reasons for success and some relate it to the look of the person as being beautiful or handsome. Several examples show that sports management could provide a source of leadership to humankind or large parts thereof, but we have to be clear about the direction where we want to go. Another question that has to be discussed is the implication of alternative delivery programs that are becoming more important for all other education programs. The biggest advantage of these programs is that they are sent over the Internet and this permits even otherwise busy persons to get the advantage of educational opportunities. Another important question for leaders is ethics and this has been defined as a set of criteria by which certain decisions are being made regarding as to what is right and what is wrong. Like all other organizations, sports organizations also develop cultures and these come from the beliefs, values and assumptions that are shared by the members of the organization. They decide the identity and behavioral norms for the group. When one looks at them deeply, one can understand the inner workings and belief systems of the unit and may also be in a position to offer behavior codes to the members. However since the situation now is that budgets and human resources for the purpose are being cut down, and the leaders in athletic management are being expected to do more with less money, the leadership that can change people or inspire people will be most useful for the organizations to use for development. This is the type of leaders that seem to be the most useful and in demand.

Introduction

One supposes it is clear that we are talking about leadership in sports management, and while there have not been so much of a study on this subject, there has been study on general leadership. One of the famous scholars on the subject was Yukl and he said that "the study of leadership has been an important and central part of the literature of management and organization behavior for several decades" in the year 1989. (Transformational Leadership and Organizational Effectiveness in Recreational Sports/Fitness Programs) There were others like Paton who also mentioned that leadership had become a popular subject in sports management. Yet there are many controversies regarding the concept and definition of leadership. One of the popular areas was the transactional- transformational leadership models and this led to study of relationship of transformational leadership and organizational effectiveness. To study this one would require the definitions of transactional leadership and transformational leadership. This would lead on to the discussions on transactional-transformational leadership. This also requires the laying out of all the four elements of transformational leadership. There has to be a study of the issues in detail along with opinions of the experts on the subject. (Transformational Leadership and Organizational Effectiveness in Recreational Sports/Fitness Programs)

At the same time, there are quite a few mundane matters like self-confidence and sport confidence that are also viewed as important factors influencing performance. This is seen in the case of athletes with high sport confidence having better concentration, game strategies, healthy emotions, control of tempos and better performance. The relationship is so direct and high that it may be worthwhile for psychologists to look into the entire issue. Competition in sport is required for influencing the sportsmen to pursue excellence, and confidence may be inconsistent or variable for performances in competition. A lot of time, the performances are affected by the level of confidence that the athlete has and detailed research would require a study of the level of confidence, cognition, emotion and behavior. The sources of confidence may also be understood of the interaction of the social background, organizational culture and the characteristic of the athlete. (Implementation of a Sport Management Major within an Undergraduate Exercise and Sport Science Department)

The reason for discussing all this is that all leadership issues may not be due to the influences of the leader only. It is also seen that there are direct links between appearance enhancement, health enhancement and psychological well being to performance. There are individuals who take great care in improving their physical appearance through weight management, good nutrition, and regular exercise. This gives them not only better health, but also more opportunities. (The Image-Building Triangle How Rejuvenology Helps Competitors Look, Feel, and Perform Better, Longer) In the end those who have a positive mental attitude to their performance in sports end up living a happier and more productive life.

Another important question is the ethics maintained by coaches and sportsmen. Some examples of unethical conduct can be seen from the firing of Indiana University's infamous Bobby Knight and the suspension of John Rocker of baseball. The reasons were poor decisions taken by the athletes. Ethics means not only being honest and obeying the law; it means being morally good. This is a problem that every athlete and every coach has to face and they have to decide what ethics they should follow. This is also not a question that comes up once in their lives, but continues to recur. Knowing what is right and what is wrong are the limitations of the question of ethics. At the same time, an unethical act will be reflected in the public relations that they get, and they have to decide what action they should take. The problem is that many athletes do not know how to tackle the controversial issues and public relations. (Ethic in Coaching?) Thus we can see that leaders may face problems that are not of their own making, and this is a very difficult issue to solve. Instead we shall concentrate on the methods that a leader shall use to get success in managing his trainees and get results. For this purpose we shall now go on discussion of different methods and problems, before coming to the probable solution. Let us see the different methods of training and what a leader should adopt.

Literature Review

A sizeable amount of research literature is presently being prepared significantly in the field of sports management. Sport as a product has now generated much demand in the era of professionalism and consumer relationship management than ever before. Some studies have concentrated on sport as a portion of enduring education. (Sporting Organizations and their websites) Moreover, sport has also currently been considered as a tool to prevent social exclusion by enhancing participation and broadening access to all. The community volunteer program is seen to be one of the most related social influences of sports. Research analysis has revealed that voluntary activity is considered as pivotal to the development of a socially inclusive and more democratic society. This indicates that sport can be advantageous not only through involvement of people in it, but also through other types of participation and therefore recommends that the necessity for a broader evaluation of the influence on involvement and participation on sport, post games. (Literature Review: The impact of major sporting events)

The quality of service has been analyzed in the field of business management for years since the market is more competitive and marketing management has shifted its concentration from inherent performance like production to outward objectives like satisfaction and customers' perception of service quality. But the term service quality has only focused in the field of sport and recreational literature during the last twenty years. SERVQUAL that indicates the conventional disconfirmatory model was considered the initiate attempts in fictionalization of service quality. Irrespective of the fact that it made great contribution in the field of service quality and was famous among service quality researchers in many fields, it is not adequate as a result of its conceptual loopholes generated by the disconfirmatory standard and its practical irrelevance. (A Review of Service Quality in Corporate and Recreational Sport/Fitness Programs)

Subsequently, the service quality models with more dimensions were adopted. The current models like hierarchical multidimensional model of Brady's of 1997 combined the previous strategies and indicated the intricacies of the construct of service quality perception. Irrespective of the fact that innumerable attempts have been made in the areas of both business management and sport/fitness; the analysis of service quality is even in a condition of ambiguity as a result of the complexity of the construct. No unanimity has been achieved upon the conceptualization or operationalization of the consumers' service quality perceptions. (A Review of Service Quality in Corporate and Recreational Sport/Fitness Programs)

Several theories have been advanced to find out the reasons for occurrence of specialization in the field of sports activities. Novak opined that it has a reference to the play, games and sports as the growing loss of liberty in exchange for enhanced excellence and precision. Therefore, the young athletes who prefer to concentrate give up creative impulsiveness and playful impulses to become progressively inclined towards record-setting and quantitative evaluation. A fascinating bifurcation in the literature acknowledges the significance of specialization to rationalize pediatric performance while confessing that specialization make these athletes vulnerable to physical, psychological, and social damage. For example, Hill and Simons reveal that a particular magnitude of specialization is essential for best possible individual and team performance in sport. (Sport Specialization in Youth: A Literature Review)

Besides, Ericsson and others could discover that an athlete that experiences a skill with enhanced magnitude and duration becomes more efficient and more skilled. But there prevails some anxiety about youth sport specialization like withdrawal/burnout and the excess involvement and expectations of parents and adults in youth sport programs. Unfavorable psychological outcomes as a result of over training have also been discovered. Guttman could find the specialization in the field of youth sports is a representation of highly advanced society. The consequences for a skill in a particular field surpass the common knowledge or skills, giving rise to competition for those specialized roles and to specialization among youth athletes at increasingly earlier ages. With a considerable amount of evidence recommending that elite performers necessitate more than a decade practice to attain the essential proficiency and expertise to perform at the international level, it is not surprising that their parents have their children specialize and at earlier eras.

Unfavorable outcomes from intensive training and competition have been indicated in the lay and medical literature. Unreliable reports and case studies have inadequate reasons for drawing conclusions about the security of intense training or high level competition. Studies have indicated that a heavy stress is laid on competition that largely enhances the inclination of coaches to over-train children with unsuitable volume and intensity in practices/competition. While some researchers reveal that crucial periods may prevail when a sport is skilled the best, scientific evidence does not give rise to the faith that particular skills must be attained and cultured and refined prior to advent of puberty. Besides, the anticipated athletic excellence is hard to foresee since the continuing influences of growth and maturation and the flexibility of learning experiences at varied times and diverse settings. (Sport Specialization in Youth: A Literature Review)

While we transit through the era of professionalism and both international and national sporting culture advances we can start to visualize the sport becoming more and more inattentive with image. As per Ferrand and Pages there is a progressive acknowledge that image has the capacity to persuade all those associated within a sporting organization; its members, even spectators, journalists, sponsors etc. Sporting organization is starting to coordinate their marketing communications to the objective groups of consumers with the same values and beliefs. Sporting organizations tend to have normal objectives: to generate loyalty amongst members, to enhance the number of spectators and to organize their sponsorship relationships. So as to create loyalty and create large fan bases, sporting organization must educate to converse with their target market effectively and efficiently, creating enduring relationship that will be profitable in the future. (Sporting Organizations and their websites)

As per Tajfel and Turner, it is necessary for an individual to attain or to maintain a positive social identity as a member of his or her own group. A membership of a sporting organization or team permits the individuals to fulfill their requirement. It has since been acknowledged therefore, that much of the appeal of sporting organizations and the events they are associated in is that fans can be spotted with the sport and the various parts associated with it. As per Mason, the most remarkable distinction that sport has is in the relationship it generates with the consumer. Whannel indicates that while there are some aesthetic pleasures associated in merely observing a sporting competition, the real outcome comes from detecting with an individual or team as they strive to win. It is the obligation of the sporting organization that confirms the consumer to attain this benefit from their specific sporting offering. Many consumers find out a search for a sense of belonging, a necessity that is in portion attained through sport. Unlike other industries, sports managing are confined in the magnitude to which one can regulate some of the major marketing variables. Probably the most significant element of the marketing mix in a contesting sporting marketplace is the field of promotion.

A study by Coalter in 1999 indicates that policies have the objective at sports development necessary to take account of wider social, economic and cultural effects. He reveals that policy makers might be better to 'go with the flow' instead of trying to 'buck the trends' of patterns of sports involvement, implying that provisions should react to the necessity of the consumers, instead of attempting to encourage involvement in sports that are presently less popular. (Literature Review: The impact of major sporting events) As per Parker, sports and the organizations, associated with them must aim at generating value, increasing brand equity, and finally entailing variations in consumer behavior. Since promotion is considered to be such a significant variable in the communication of sport as a product, the way organizations converse must be implemented successfully. In order to interact with an over-informed society, it is pertinent that sporting organizations make there messages easy to comprehend. In this respect the most successful message will be one that is related to the interaction objective of one. Instead of competing in the narrow, sport-specific markets of the past, sporting organizations presently find themselves vulnerable to an international marketplace where entertainment is of growing significance. With the progress of the Internet, sporting organizations presently have the reach to the audiences worldwide, some of that may have prospective objective in the product that they have to market. The Internet, supported with the ever growing television / media, coverage of sport, has increased and strengthened fan identification by generating a more personal relationship between fan and athlete, in accordance with the player interviews, profiles, interactive capabilities and other features (Sporting Organizations and their websites)

Discussion

The first question is to study the relationship between leadership - mainly transformational leadership and organizational effectiveness. In spite of all the studies have gone through, there is still doubt whether transformational leadership directly helps organizational effectiveness. One of the latest studies was done by Weese and he showed that there was no significant and effective relation between transformational leadership, organizational culture and organizational effectiveness. The earlier studies also showed that there was no direct and significant relationship. The suggestion was instead that it was the subordinates who played an important role in determining the effectiveness of an organization. At the same time, in an earlier article, the same author had pointed out that many scholars on the leadership issue had provided convincing evidence that leadership was very important for the success and survival of the organization. The effects of the leaders were mainly on employee satisfaction, productivity and organizational effectiveness. (Transformational Leadership and Organizational Effectiveness in Recreational Sports/Fitness Programs)

While that may be true, the question still remains as to how that is related to sports management and its leadership? Some studies had also recognized an important relationship between transformational leadership and organizational culture, though the same relationship did not have much of an effect of the effectiveness within the organization. At the same time, they said that organizational culture has a great effect on organizational effectiveness. (Transformational Leadership and Organizational Effectiveness in Recreational Sports/Fitness Programs) This clearly seems contradictory, as if something has an effect on organizational culture, then it should end up in having an effect of organizational effectiveness. In any case it seems that the study was not directly related to leadership in sports management. It has to be realized that the role of sports manager as a leader has to work in a different mode than other trainers. The job of the trainer is not teaching the students through education as it is clear that no amount of discussions can make a person a good player. Let us take the example of tennis. Can any individual become a good tennis player by just reading about it, or writing about it, or even just thinking about it? The individual to be trained has to be out on the field and learning about the game through experience and the sports manager has to provide the leadership for him to be encouraged into doing it. (Transformational Leadership)

One of the practical and important roles of sports management and leadership is fund raising, and this is a very time consuming process. This will be reflected in Job descriptions of most sports managers, and even when the fund has been raised, the job continues. The manager has to develop and implement the program and the leader, or project director will be loaded with the responsibility of writing the reports, presenting the reports at conferences, evaluating results and giving out the materials, even when the fund has ended. (On the Hunt for Fiscal Fuel) On the other side, let us look at transformational leadership. It starts with a vision and that vision must be so good that it will excite others and get them to become followers. The vision need not come only from the leader, but it may come from any one of the seniors, or even from a range of discussions. (Creating change in mindset and behavior) The next part is to sell the vision, and this is where the leader in sports management meets the transformational leader. This takes a lot of time and effort as most people will not accept the vision, and the leader has to make all efforts to get others to help him by buying the vision. We are all aware that most buyers of sports programs buy them to get useful advertising, and it seems what we are talking about is being able to sell the program as being one with good advertising value.

This does not mean that sports do not do any good. Participating in sports is one of the methods for girls to develop physical competence. They develop a change in their own attitudes to their bodies when they find out what they can do, and start concentrating less on their appearance. When the girls get accustomed to the sports environment they begin to depend on their physical skills. It is also a method through which they learn to rely on themselves and their teammates as they have a common goal at least on the sports field. Through participation in sports girls can find out their own capacities and excellences. There have also been studies on this, and there was a study by women's Sports Foundation on 30,000 girls. There was direct comparison of athletes to non-athletes. It is interesting to go through the results and the study mentioned -- athletes were more likely to score higher on achievement tests, feel popular among others, get involved in extracurricular activities, graduate from high school, attend college and get a bachelor's degree, stay involved in sports even when being adults, not become involved with drugs, and not become pregnant while a teenager. (You Go Girl! The Link between Girls Positive Self-Esteem and Sports) These are important reasons for leaders to try and achieve.

Another problem that the country has, and for which a solution may be found through sports is our ethnic minorities. The country has a very high proportion of minorities with only about 65% of the population being white and the remaining are other ethnic groups: black of 13%; Hispanic of 13%; Asian-Pacific Islander of 4.5%; and American-Indian/Alaskan native of 1.5%. Only about 2.5% of the population consider themselves as bi-ethnic, and this figure would increase. (Cultural Diversity at the End of Life: Issues and Guidelines for Family Physicians) This has made the country a culturally diverse society and this poses a challenge to the existing politics, schools, developments in science and even many professions. This has made it compulsory for many commissions, agencies and professional organizations to look at propositions through an angle concerning ethnicity and cultural diversity.

The situation has compelled psychologists to "recognize ethnicity and culture as significant parameters in understanding psychological processes." (Cultural Diversity and Treatment of Children) On the other side, many members of minority communities feel the status of being a minority is in itself a stress. Some of the sections do not advance and this leads to withdrawal and hostility in them. They generally belong to the African-American and Native American groups. (Cultural Diversity and Treatment of Children) Another set of research indicates that there is some family resistance to education for children among some communities. This difficulty also applies to training them. (Why Urban Parents Resist Involvement in their Children's Elementary Education) This situation can be changed when the teachers develop an understanding of the cultural backgrounds of the children and make sustained and creative efforts to contact and work with the families. Even in the other difficult situations, it may become easier if the sports managers take leadership and build up a bridge to them. Most of them are good in sports anyhow.

Another set of benefits that come from sports is the task oriented characteristics or functions that develop. This is expected to give them higher self-perception; self-perceived abilities and positive emotion. This ends up providing more confidence as realized by athletes. At the same time, there are confidences that develop due to environmental factors and organizational culture and these were not found even through research. This showed that some individuals are task oriented and they prefer to work in a task oriented atmosphere and they were more interested in participation than results, and sports did not help them. The participation itself would have a good image on the games that they participated in. This brings up the suggestion that it is important to understand the mentality of the athlete by the manager, if the manager is to play a proper leadership role. (Male and Female Basketball Players' Goal Orientation, Perceived Motivational Climate, Perceived Ability and the Sources of Sport Confidence)

Another set of points is regarding the reasons for success and some relate it to the look of the person as being beautiful or handsome. There are of course suggestions which say that people should not use advantages that they are born with. But our experiences with human beings say that exactly the opposite happens. This is the interplay of psychological, physical and aesthetic relationships that exist and this was not started by the human beings. Even in the plant and animals, beauty and color are major factors in the process of reproduction. The process of pollination comes when insects move from one beautifully colored flower to another. Among the animals, ones with beautiful colors move around in attractive manners so that the male suitor will be satisfied and choose the female so that the particular gene will continue for the next generation. Similarly humans are attracted to other humans who have beauty and skill, and this is probably a part of our development. It is also believed that among all animals, men are the only ones who are able to reason. (The Image-Building Triangle How Rejuvenology Helps Competitors Look, Feel, and Perform Better, Longer)

Thus the reasons for men to have developed athletics and aesthetics for creation of a combination of graces and charms may have been instinctive like all other animals or due to his rational development. At the same time, these developments make them more appealing to other members of the human race. This gives them advantages as has been the practice from ancient times, and the rationale must only be the beauty that they have developed. True that the possessors of beauty have to spend time and efforts to develop it, at the same time, this leads to a development of the future of humans. Appearance determines marriage of the person and also the other person to whom the marriage will take place. At the same time it is clear that human race will be led by the most talented and wisest among human species. Yet the next set of leaders will be determined by the process of attractiveness and that is determined to a large extent by sports.

This has contributed to development of man. In Orient there was a combination of martial arts with athletics in terms of discipline which instruct, entertain and provide defense. This was supported by the kings and emperors of the region, and the Samurai warriors are probably the best known of this lot. They are famous for skills, strength, dexterity and mental discipline and have thus become icons of the psycho-physical-athletic combination. In Greece also building of bodies into images was popular. This was probably due to the Greek appreciation of both form and function of the human body. This led to a situation where the ideal bodies were displayed as statues. In competitions there had an underlying appreciation of the mind and body working together. At the same time, Greeks did not forget about the creative capacities of men and this led to the progress of image building in academics and art. The roots of modern government, medicine and philosophy are still indebted to Greeks. (The Image-Building Triangle How Rejuvenology Helps Competitors Look, Feel, and Perform Better, Longer)

Their great thinkers are revered even today and influence our arguments. The demands for beauty progressed from the body to armors and plumes with the advent of the Caesars of Rome and they became symbols of superiority and aesthetic appreciation. Then it lost touch with human form and the sporting events turned into events of massacre with gladiators fighting each other and even slaves from other nations fight each other for their lives. They even fought animals where they had little chance of survival. Yet the image building movement did not end, and next passed into the hands of the rulers of Europe. They also started orders of warriors and performers. Knights were dressed in shining armor and the processions had colorful banners -- a tradition which we follow even today. Entertainment was provided to public through contests on festive occasions. Regular tournaments were also held for determination of skill and military might. Even today military follows the same traditions with demonstrations of their might and performance capabilities. (The Image-Building Triangle How Rejuvenology Helps Competitors Look, Feel, and Perform Better, Longer)

The military in United States have a directive from Department of Defense which states that individual service members have to develop the stamina and strength to carry out the missions for which they are sent. For achieving this, the directive has also each military service to develop suitable fitness programs so that the members of the service will develop combat readiness and combat effectiveness. There are also descriptions of the methods of doing this. (Descriptive Comparisons of United States Military Physical Fitness Programs) The problem of imagery and sports has however has always been problematic and nothing illustrates this more than the situation of the Olympics. It is interesting to note that Coubertin was trying to establish a new world religion through Olympic spirit. It is true that his writings are not clear as to his interpretation of this religion.

The concept of religion also brought up the natural hostility of the regular religions. This gives rise to the thinking that what Coubertin meant was not a religion in the strict religious sense, but asking the athletes to be infused with a spirit like a religion. He also wanted that all athletes practice the spirit of Olympics in their lives. The entire philosophy is one with moral education, international peace, artistic beauty and physical effort. It is expected that if it was possible, then it would have had an appeal to the transcendent religious nature of sport along with the concept of mutual respect among all humans so that everybody could progress. (Peace through Sport and Religion Athlete: Antiquated Ideas or Viable Options?) It is clear from these examples that sports management could also provide a source of leadership to humankind or large parts thereof, but we have to be clear about the direction where we want to go.

Another question that has to be discussed is the implication of alternative delivery programs that are becoming more important for all other education programs. The biggest advantage of these programs is that they are sent over the Internet and this permits even otherwise busy persons to get the advantage of educational opportunities. These methods are used when the teachers and students are separated by physical distance and can yet be connected through technology. Along with this, there are methods to put them face-to-face with each other through the same technology. (Interactive Distance Learning Effectively Provides Winning Sports Nutrition Workshops) Exactly is the reverse side of the business of tele-education and that is tele-working. This is viewed as one of the major benefits of Information technology, as this permits the teacher to enjoy flexible work schedule, low household expenses, less stress from conflicts between family and work and saving of commuting times thorough the use of computers for working. (Research on Impacts) Our question is how these relate to leadership in sports management. These methods may be looked into, for use by individuals who are already leaders for extending the sphere of their work. These methods should enable them to cover larger areas than what they were covering earlier.