Does the organizational climate in a sports clubs matter? Management implications and intervention proposals

The organizational climate is one of the most important factors in an organization to take into account since it has a direct and positive relationship with the final performance of employees. This construct has been widely studied in different fields; however, despite the economic, social, and sporting importance of non-professional sports clubs in Spanish society, practically no studies have focused on the organizational climate of nonprofessional Spanish sports clubs. This study analyzed 382 Spanish non-professional sports clubs, 63.6% of which are at a national–international competition level, and 70.2% are mainly privately funded. The instrument used has been previously validated and presented good psychometric properties in this study. To determine whether there are differences in the organizational climate of sports clubs according to the competition level and the type of funding, comparative analyses of averages were performed for independent samples. According to the results obtained, there were no differences in the organizational climate according to the type of funding, but the national–international sports clubs showed significantly higher levels of training, motivation, and overall organizational climate than in the regional–local sports clubs. This may have different causes and consequences that were determined in this article compared with those in the existing literature in organizational and sports fields. Thus, this study presented various management implications and proposals for useful interventions for management teams of sports clubs. However, the study has limitations, and future areas of research are discussed

Creation of a brand model through SEM to predict users’ loyalty and recommendations regarding a public sports service

Brand perception is a key element in achieving business success: how a brand is perceived by current and potential users determines what they think and their disposition towards the brand. The users' perception also determines whether they will perceive the sports service as offering a greater quality or value than other services, whether they will be more loyal, or whether they will recommend the service. This paper analyses the brand perception of users of a public sports service, creating a model of structural equations that analyses how credibility and trust influence a user's congruence with the brand and the generation of positive attitudes towards the brand and how these variables influence loyalty levels and recommendations. The results indicate that the proposed model can explain the variables of trust, congruence, attitudes, loyalty and word of mouth by more than 60%. The study finds that credibility influences trust but that credibility in itself does not cause a congruence with the brand, whereas trust does. Similarly, trust does not generate attitudes towards the brand but credibility and congruence do. Congruence generates loyalty but attitudes do not, and congruence, attitudes and loyalty influence recommendation to a similar extent, with congruence having the highest influence

The use of Focus Group Interviews to define the perceived importance of competencies related to the entrepreneurship as starting point for a new career in European athletes: an AtLETyC study

Purpose: The present study aimed to investigate the perceived importance of competencies related to entrepreneurship as starting point for a new career in European athletes. Methods: A Focus Group Interview (FGI) within AtLETyC project (Erasmus+) was administered to 78 European athletes (i.e., 26 female: 27 ± 7 years; 52 male: 28 ± 9 years) related to six countries (i.e., Austria, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Lithuania, Slovenia, Hungary, and Italy). Among 22 items of the FGI, 8 items were focused on general aspects, contact information, the evaluation of the educational background, the sport entrepreneurship expertise, and learning capacity, whereas the remaining 14 Likert scale (i.e., 1–7) items were specifically oriented to determine the perceived importance of entrepreneurship-related competences. For the latter part of the FGI, not-parametric analyses (i.e., Kruskal–Wallis, Mann–Whitney U) were applied. Results: Results showed that all athletes highly consider the importance of both general and entrepreneurship-related competencies, excepting for the latter items in Slovenian athletes. However, main effects between athletes of different countries emerged in 12 of the 14 items, with the highest mean values (6.0–7.0) reported from Bosnia and Herzegovina athletes and the lowest ones (range 3.6–4.8) from Slovenian counterpart. Conclusion: Although a cross-national scenario in relation to the perceived importance of sport entrepreneurship competences seems to be influenced by different institutional supports for dual career, general results showed that European athletes highly perceived the importance of such competences, confirming the substantial necessity to apply the AtLETyC action. © 2017, Springer-Verlag Italia S.r.