The major purpose of this study was to assess the impact of leadership style on
service quality in intercollegiate athletics. Specifically, the study examined the
relationship between the athletic directors'ÃÂÃÂ transformational leadership and service
quality as perceived by the student athletes via the organizational outcomes including
organizational citizenship behavior, organizational commitment, and job satisfaction.
To accomplish this purpose, two web-based surveys were utilized to collect data
from 927 head coaches and 1,064 student athletes from 53 institutions of the major five
conferences in the NCAA during the 2005-06 academic year. The final response rate
from the head coaches was 19% (175/927), and from the student athletes was 25%
(271/1064).
The instrument included basic demographic information, a nine-item to measure
the athletic directors'ÃÂÃÂ transformational leadership (Bass, 1985a), a twelve-item measure
to assess head coaches'ÃÂÃÂ organizational citizenship behavior (Smith, Organ, & Near,
1983), a six-item measure to capture head coaches' affective commitment (Meyer &
Allen, 1997), a three-item measure to assess head coaches'ÃÂÃÂ overall job satisfaction (Cammann, Fichman, Jenkins, & Klesh, 1983), and a fourteen-item measure to assess
student athletes' perceived service quality (Harris, 2002).
The descriptive data revealed that the athletic directors' charismatic leadership,
one dimension of transformational leadership, was the prominent factor, as perceived by
the head coaches. Further, the student athletes perceived responsiveness and empathy as
the prominent dimensions of service quality. Results from the SEM indicated that the
overall athletic directors' transformational leadership was correlated to all organizational
outcomes. In the relationship between the transformational leadership and service quality
via the organizational outcomes, generalized compliance mediated the relationship
between the transformational leadership and service quality
