HUMAN RESOURCE MANAGEMENT IN SPORT JOURNAL
Year:2020 | Volume:7 | Issue:2|Papers Count:12

Summary: The purpose of this work was to investigate the role of the customer relationship management in the employees’ customer orientation in the Sport and Youth offices of the Golestan Province. The research method is descriptive correlation, and the statistical population consists of all the employees of the Sport and Youth offices in the Golestan Province. For data gathering, the questionnaires of the customer relationship management and the customer orientation are used. In order to analyze the data obtained for the research variables, the structural equation modeling the Smart PLS software is used. The findings show that the focus on the key customer and knowledge management has a positive and significant effect on the customer orientation. Another research finding has shown that the organizing customer relationship management and the customer relationship management based on technology do not have significant effects on the customer orientation. Introduction: Today, the sports organizations such as the non-sports organizations are experiencing a new era of competition. In this situation, the need for the sports customers are changing, and the most important challenge facing sports organizations is to gain the customer satisfaction and loyalty, and ultimately achieve a sustainable competitive advantage. To be more successful in this competitive environment, sports organizations are required to focus on their customers. Given the importance of the customers, the sports organizations such as the Sport and Youth offices require a customer relationship management. The customer relationship management can provide better services to the customers of sports organizations by improving the employees’ customer orientation. Methodology and Approach: The research method was descriptive correlation, and the statistical population included all the employees of the Sport and Youth offices in the Golestan Province; 132 employees were selected as the research sample. For data gathering, the questionnaires of customer relationship management (Hong-kit et al., 2005) and the customer orientation (Donavan et al., 2004) were used. In order to analyze the data and identify the effects of the research variables, the structural equation modeling Smart PLS software was used. Results and Conclusions: The findings showed that the focus on the key customer and knowledge management had a positive and significant effect on the customer orientation. Another research finding showed that the organizing customer relationship management and the customer relationship management based on technology did not have significant effects on the customer orientation. According to the research results, it can be concluded that the customer relationship management can play an important role in the employees’ customer orientation of the Sport and Youth offices in the Golestan Province. Hence, it is suggested that the managers of the Sport and Youth offices by choosing a powerful customer relationship management system increase the customer orientation of their employees.

Summary: The purpose of this work is to investigate the effect of strategic thinking on the productivity of the employees of the Sports and Youth departments of the west of the country with the mediating role of organizational agility. Introduction: Sport is one of the most important and fundamental factors in ensuring the health and vitality of the society, in which the country's Sports and Youth departments play a significant role in promoting the people's participation. Take a break because today's organizations are under increasing pressure to find new ways to compete effectively in the dynamic global markets. Methodology and Approach: The statistical population of the work consisted of all employees of the Sports and Youth departments of the west of the country, among which 356 responders were selected as the statistical sample by random-cluster shape sampling. The measurement tools used were the Sharifi & Zhang's (2000) organizational agility, Goldman's strategic thinking (2005), and manpower productivity of Sarmad et al. (2011) questioners. The descriptive and inferential statistics were used to analyze the data. Results and Conclusions: The research findings showed that the strategic thinking (r = 0. 52) and organizational agility (r = 0. 428) had a positive and significant effect on the organizational productivity. Also strategic thinking had a positive and significant effect on the organizational agility (r = 0. 836). In addition, it was determined that the strategic thinking had a positive and significant effect on the organizational productivity through the organizational agility (r = 0. 358). Considering the results of this research work, the prospective, conceptual thinking, system thinking, and clever opportunism of employees along with speed, competence, flexibility, and accountability of the organization could lead the employees to improve their productivity, which should be considered by the managers of the Sports and Youth departments of the west of the country.

Summary: This work is carried out in order to identify the effective factors in cloud computing adoption among the staff of the Physical Education faculties in Tehran. For this purpose, 400 persons from the staff of the Physical Education faculties in Tehran are selected, and 278 valid questionnaires are used for the statistical analysis. The research tools are two questionnaires including the cloud computing adoption (12 components including 47 items) and adoption intention questionnaire (3 items) designed by the researchers. The path analysis test shows that 11 factors affect positively and the complexity negatively affects the intention to cloud computing adoption. Technology readiness also has the highest impact on the cloud computing adoption. The technology readiness, data security, and reduced complexity among the Physical Education faculties have been identified as the most important factors in the cloud computing adoption. Introduction: The purpose of this work is to identify the effective factors in cloud computing adoption among the staff of the Physical Education faculties in Tehran. Methodology and Approach: In terms of purpose, this work was a kind of applied research, and in terms of data collection, it was descriptive-survey. For this purpose, the staff of the Physical Education faculties in Tehran (400 persons) were sampled, and 278 valid questionnaires were used for the statistical analysis. The research tools were two questionnaires including the cloud computing adoption (12 components including 47 items) and adoption intention questionnaire (3 items) designed by the researchers. The face validity of the instrument was confirmed by 12 faculty members in sport management, and the content validity was confirmed by the confirmatory factor analysis. The reliability of the instrument was assessed by Cronbach's alpha for the whole effective factors’ questionnaire (α = 0. 921) and the adoption intention questionnaire (α = 0. 769). Results and Conclusions: The findings showed that the research instrument was well-suited to measure the effective factors in cloud computing adoption, and the path analysis test showed the effects of 12 factors on the intention to adopt cloud computing. 11 factors affected positively, and the complexity negatively affected the intention to cloud computing adoption. Technology readiness also had the highest impact on the cloud computing adoption. Based on the results obtained, 12 effective factors in cloud computing adoption were identified and evaluated among the Physical Education faculties in Tehran. Technology readiness, data security, and reduced complexity among the Physical Education faculties were identified as the most important factors in cloud computing adoption and could have a beneficial effect on a faster cloud computing adoption.

Summary: In the last decade, the most common form of sports business in the community has been provided by the recreational and sports clubs, which cover a wide variety of services in both the health and professional sports. However, despite the government support policies, only 10% of small businesses have been successful, and the main problems are marketing (40. 2 %) and human resource management (15. 3 %). Introduction: Entrepreneurship faces failure and decline regardless of the human motivating factors and establishment of efficient performance management systems. Reviewing the research works carried out to identify the barriers and failures of the country's sports businesses shows that creating a powerful bridge between the three categories of creative product, valuable resources, and product presentation strategies is one of the most important strategies for the business success. Therefore, the purpose of the present research work is modeling the entrepreneurial process in terms of a high-performance system: mediating role of job empowerment. Methodology and Approach: The present work was an exploratory mix method study. The qualitative population consisted of 23 people of entrepreneurship professors, business owners, sports business launchers, and managers of owners of the private sport organizations in the Golestan province with snowball sampling, quantitative population consisting of 250 managers, owners, and human resources of sports clubs with a minimum of 5 years of work experience that were selected by a purposeful sampling. The research tools were the corrected version of the high-performance system management of Chin tasi (2007), Badger's (2017) empowerment questionnaire, and researcher-made questionnaire of sport entrepreneurship that was set to a 5-point Likert scale (1: very low to 5: very high). After confirmation of the contextual and visual validity of the questioner, the internal reliability was confirmed by the experts using the Cronbach's alpha method (α = 0. 76). Finally, after insurance of good fit index of the model based on the Fornell and Larker triple indices, the data obtained was analyzed using the partial least squares technique (Smart PLS( and the SPSS software. Results and Conclusions: The values for the coefficient of economic indicators and the comparative indicators showed that the research model had a good brush. Therefore, in the next step, the structural equation paths of the research work were examined. The results obtained from the factor analysis showed that the direct effects of the HRM system on sport entrepreneurship and staff empowerment were significant. Therefore, the club managers could by deploying high-performance systems in terms of job training, efficient feedback, and career development alongside with staff empowerment develop and improve new sports business opportunities.

Summary: The purpose of this research work is to study the talent management of the leading countries in the world. Among these countries, the German program is selected because of being successful and up-to-date. The method used in this research work is the Sandelowski and Barroso's (2007) 7-stage one. The process of data analysis consists of the 3 stages of open coding, concepts, and categories, and then the analysis of the talent development process in the German football. The talent process in the German football includes four stages. In order to make this program practical, it is required to close the cooperation between all the football organizations. A strategic plan is required to develop and follow based on the Iranian needs and facilities. The football federation will also work closely with the clubs, soccer committees, municipalities, education schools, government as a governing body, Ministry of Sport and Youth, and coaches. It is also necessary that the football federation closely cooperates with the clubs, football association, municipality, education schools, Government, Ministry of Sports and Youth, and coaches. Introduction: Talent identification (TID) and talent management during a long-term process are the essential concepts in this sports field. Thus today, in many countries, these new approaches are used for the talent identification of players, and a long-term perspective for the talented players has been defined, and the talent identification programs have been set out so that the talented people enter a program from their childhood and are present until they become professional players. Thus, due to the attractiveness of football and the high importance of TID and talent management, the subject of this research work was selected to present a model of the German football talent management program. Methodology and Approach: The method of this research work was purposeful, and it was applied in terms of nature, qualitative, and cross-linked approaches made in 2 stages. The first was some various review documents from 2000 to 2018 using the library study method. The second was done with the Sandelowski and Barroso's qualitative approach meta-synthesis in 7 steps. Results and Conclusions: The talent process in the German football includes four stages: essential development, talent development, elite development, and professional or championship football. The program focuses on the cooperation in the executive organization between the football association, football league, government, sports science universities, coordinators, professional clubs, regional amateur clubs, state and regional associations, education schools, national teams, committee academies, youth academies, IFX residential and international academies, DFB local bases, elite football schools, football camps, and professional players union.

Summary: Each year, the sport events host thousands of tourists who come to participate and watch the games. Provision of a safe and secure environment for these tourists is necessary. Therefore, in this work, the role of management and planning in sport tourism security management is investigated, and the factors affecting the management and planning of event security are identified. Introduction: Millions of spectators attend the sporting events annually, necessitating the provision of a safe and secure environment for these patrons in the sports tourism destinations. Despite the incidents such as the crowd problems, fires, bombs, structure collapses, and overcrowding as well as threats of terrorism in sport events, there must always be a mindset that the safety of sport tourism can potentially be compromised. In the area of security, the lack of planning can have devastating consequences and increase the likelihood of disaster. Thus, exploring the critical factors affecting the issues related to management and planning in the field of tourism security seem to be essential. In order to prevent the possible threats, the sports event authorities and organizers should be encouraged to focus on the strategies that might reduce the risks and threats, while developing the plans, policies, procedures, and effective security measures in order to enhance safety and security. Methodology and Approach: The methodology of this research work was applied in terms of purpose, the data collection was descriptive-survey, and the research approach was mixed. 17 semi-structured interviews with the experts were conducted to provide the data on the main factors affecting the sport tourism security management. A 31-item questionnaire related to the impact of planning and managing on the security of the sport tourism was designed, and 240 keys answered them. The data obtained was analyzed using the exploratory factor analysis (EFA) in order to identify the factors involved, followed by a confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) that was conducted to test the impact of the identified factors and items on the sports tourism security. Results and Conclusions: The results obtained showed that planning and management were the main factors affecting the sport tourism security management. In addition, the human resource management, event management, risk management, crisis management, and collaborating event organizers as five sub-factors for planning and management affect the sports tourism security. According to the results obtained, a proper human resource management and the use of skilled manpower to ensure the security of sporting events as well as the proper planning and consideration of risk management and crisis approaches can increase the security and increase the satisfaction of the tourists present at the events.

Summary: In this work, a concise and comprehensive summary of the English extended abstract is presented. It concisely describes the content, subject, objectives, scientific logic or method(s), and the most important findings and conclusions of the research work. Introduction: The growth of sports participation institutions such as athletes, spectators, volunteers, coaches, media, and companies has led to the growth of sports as a new industry. Therefore, one of the basic prerequisites for the development of sports is the growth of the participation of different stakeholders, and in fact, the type of participation of stakeholders in the sports industry determines the extent of its development. In this regard, a research review showed that a comprehensive understanding of the factors that determine it, especially the emerging factors, had not yet been provided. The purpose of this work was to design and explain a framework for the conceptual analysis of stakeholder participation in the sports industry in Iran. Methodology and Approach: The research methodology was a systematic qualitative one. The sources of data collection consisted of two sections: information resources (scientific resources) and human resources (experts) related to the research subject. The studied sources in both sections were estimated sufficiently based on the theoretical saturation and sampled purposefully (24 subjects and 108 copies). The research tool was a transcript of a library study and an exploratory interviewed framework. The validity of the tool was first controlled on the basis of the scientific and legal validity of the individuals and documents, and then from the viewpoint of the experts used to examine the content and formality of the content. In addition, the coefficient of agreement between the scribes was calculated. In order to analyze the findings, the conceptual coding-based framework analysis and design methods were used. Results and Conclusions: 187 identified components were categorized into 5 levels, 9 landscapes, and 31 dimensions that included the level of environment and ecosystem (national and international environment), level of role and actors (elements and guidance), level of support and structure (processes and resources), level of engagement and participation (levels of sport and industry sectors), and level of outcomes and development (functions and sustainability). The general relationships between the variables in the model were plotted. Based on the framework, it can be said that development of the sports industry follows the principles of system management, and its key and strategic factors determine the strategic direction of development in the model so that the managers must base it on the planning, implementation, and evaluation.

Summary: One of the most important facts involved in the success of any organization is how human resources behave, especially the behavior of the managers inside and outside the organization. In fact, every manager who enters an organization should think that s/he has entered a competition, and thus it is necessary to be aware of all its rules and regulations and follow them during the competition. The managers are required to be aware of the strategic thinking with the spirit of teamwork and synergy, strengthen behavior, and transform the organization into a transformative and strategic organization. In this work, the analysis of the paradigmatic model of the strategic behavior of the Iranian sports managers is carried out. The present work will show that the behavior of the managers is based on their managerial knowledge, beliefs, and thoughts, and the researcher intends to provide a solution for the managerial processes according to the strategic barriers. Introduction: In order to gain a competitive advantage, the sports organizations are trying to select the managers who can identify the strategic threats and barriers of the strategic behavior, and make decisions in line with the goals of the organization using the features of the strategic thinking, resources, and facilities of the organization in the conditions of uncertainty. In the present work, we intend to design a strategic behavior model for the Iranian sports managers. Methodology and Approach: In order to achieve this goal, the qualitative methodology and research method of the data foundation theory was used, and in terms of purpose, it was in the category of the applied research. The research population included the elites in the field of physical education in the university sports (including the senior managers of the physical education departments of the universities and the managers and experts of the general directorate of physical education), and the subjects were sampled theoretically by the snowball’ s method. The data collection tool was the semi-structured interviews, and the data from the interviews was coded and analyzed in a contextual method. Results and Conclusions: The achievements were identified in the form of sixdimensions of the paradigm model including the factors (12 categories), main causes (6 categories), strategy (6 categories), background factors (4 categories), consequences (8 categories), and intervention factors (6 categories). It seems that the managers can eliminate many strategic bottlenecks of the sports organizations by institutionalizing strategic thinking and making decisions based on the strategic behavior.

Summary: Commercialization is one of the key steps in the process of economic and social development of societies making research and inventions of the marketable products. Today, the universities, and within them, the competence of the faculty members play an important role in the economic development and commercialization of the research works. Competence of the faculty members is also an important factor in the student success. Therefore, the lack of skills and competencies required by the faculty members can affect their performance and that of the students. Therefore, this work is conducted in order to identify the competencies of the faculty members in the commercialization of the research works. In order to achieve these competencies, a qualitative approach (grounded theory approach-Glaser method) and 19 semi-structured interviews are used. The results obtained show that the core competencies of the faculty members include 74 concepts, 11 categories, and 5 dimensions. Using the findings of this work, the rate of return on investment in the academic research will increase, and as a result, the private sector will be attracted to investing in this area. Introduction: The faculty members are now one of the key elements in the universities and higher education institutions. The future development of the universities depends on the competencies of the faculty members. Therefore, the aim of this work was to design a model of core competencies of the faculty members in the commercialization of academic research in the field of sports. Methodology and Approach: This work was a qualitative research work in the field of interpretive-constructive paradigm. In the present work, a semi-structured interview was used as a data collection tool. The statistical population of the work included the faculty members of the physical education colleges, academic entrepreneurs, academic inventors in the field of sports, and the faculty members who are members of the National Elite Foundation. The sampling was performed using the theoretical sampling and targeted judgment. Results: The results obtained showed that the faculty members required communication, behavioral and technical personality, value, strategic, creative, professional, leadership, financial management, and market recognition competencies to commercialize. Results and Conclusions: The higher education system of any society, in order to fulfill its mission, must have qualified and capable professors and human resources in order to be able to show an effective performance in the educational and research processes. To this end, paying attention to the competencies developed in this research work and creating the ground for attracting, developing, guiding, and promoting professors based on these competencies can be very effective and efficient.

Summary: Through the qualitative research that uses the grounded theory and the Glaser approach (1992), this work identifies the marketing capabilities of the human resources in the Iran’ s Football clubs. Analysis of the data collected from 15 interviews shows that the human resource marketing capabilities consist of the managers, players and coaches, staff and logistics, celebrities and pioneers, and club leaders marketing capabilities. Thus, by utilizing these capabilities, the clubs can improve their marketing and revenue conditions. Introduction: Undoubtedly, manpower is the most important factor in the production, and plays a key role in providing services and can be said to be the most important asset of an organization. On the other hand, all the ways of earning money in organizations in general, and football clubs in particular, go beyond the context of the marketing activities that are the responsibility of the human resources. Therefore, the research works on the human resource capabilities such as the marketing capabilities is very important. Much research work has been done on the importance of manpower in the financial and marketing performance such as Odumeru and Hesanmi (2013), Baker et al. (2016), and Vorhies et al. (2009). Thus, the aim of this work was to identify the marketing and earning capabilities of the human resources in the Iran’ s Football Premier League clubs and designing a model. Methodology and Approach: This was a qualitative research that used the grounded theory and the Glaser approach (1992). The population included all the club managers and sport management faculty members who were selected by the theoretical and snowball sampling. In order to collect the data, interviews by open-ended questions were used. Results and Conclusions: The data collected from 15 interviews was coded and analyzed by the grounded theory. In total, from the analysis of the interview data and the background of the research, 426 open codes were obtained. After extracting the same codes, 134 distinct codes were obtained, and in the axial coding step, 21 codes were obtained. In the next step, the axial codes were categorized into five groups of selected codes from human resource marketing capability consisting of the manager marketing capabilities, player and coach marketing capabilities, staff and logistics marketing capabilities, celebrities and pioneers marketing capabilities, and club leader marketing capabilities. The final model based on the connections between these five groups of the human resource marketing capabilities was designed in a circle in which the manager marketing capabilities were placed at the center and the other capabilities in the circle environment. The proposed model can be used as a tool in order to identify the human resource marketing capabilities in the soccer clubs; and by utilizing these capabilities, it helped marketing and earning. On the other hand, by planning and organizing these capabilities and developing them in a logical and principled way, it helped the financial independence of the clubs and solved the problems in this field.

Summary: Due to the lack of research works on the employer brand in sports federations and the need to understand the importance of this factor on their performance, the purpose of this work is to investigate the effect of the employer branding on the individual and organizational performance of human resources in the Iranian sports federations. Introduction: In the recent years, the staff loyalty to organizations has sharply declined, and this crisis, especially in the case of the elite human resources, can be irreparable. Under these circumstances, the employer branding is so important to implement the right planning for the successful management of valuable human resources and the potential talents of the organization. The findings of the research work on the employer branding in sports can provide a great knowledge for the managers of sports organizations in the current competitive conditions. Methodology and Approach: This research work was applied in terms of purpose, and it was descriptive/correlation in terms of method. The statistical population of this work consisted of 15 sport federations in Iran, which included 300 presidents, vice presidents, general secretaries, committee’ s managers, coaches, referees, and experts. The statistical sample was considered equal to the total population, and after the distribution of the questionnaire, 248 were completed and entered into the research process. For data collection, three questionnaires were used including the organizational performance questionnaire of Yang et al. (2004), the individual performance questionnaire of Paterson and Breton (1992), and the employer branding questionnaire of Ewing and Hah (2005). The descriptive and inferential statistics were used in order to analyze the data obtained. In order to test the hypotheses and modeling, the structural equation modeling and confirmatory factor analysis were used. Result and Conclusion: The findings of this work showed that the employer branding had a significant positive effect on the individual and organizational performance, and the individual performance had a positive and significant effect on the organizational performance. Also, the model of employer branding had an impact on the individual and organizational performance of human resources in the Iranian sports federations. According to the research findings, the employer branding plays a significant role in explaining the organizational performance (β = 0. 70, t = 8. 03) and the individual performance (β = 0. 92, 47). Also, the personal performance had a significant effect on the organizational performance (β = 0. 94, t = 10. 22). Also, the model of the effect of the employer branding on the individual and organizational performance of human resources in the Iranian sport federations was suitable. According to the research findings, the implementation of the employer branding in sports federations will increase their performance and efficiency, and the sports federation managers and policymakers can use branding as a leverage to develop the performance.

Summary: The universities and research centers in the field of sports are expected to play a role in the process of economic and social development by engaging in the production and dissemination of knowledge and the development of knowledge-based capacities. The purpose of this work is to investigate the role of human resource management practices and knowledge inertia in the academic entrepreneurship actions of sport science students and graduates. To do this, we collect data from the students and graduates of the sport science faculties in Tehran. For data analysis, the confirmatory factor analysis and structural equations are used. According to the results obtained, the knowledge inertia negatively affects the academic entrepreneurship actions. The human resource management practices also have a positive effect on the academic entrepreneurship actions. Introduction: Sports science faculties as a platform for preparing human capital, and the academic actors as the generators of knowledge and innovation, both desperately require an entrepreneurial action in order to transfer the knowledge and technology successfully. For this purpose, the human resource management practices can be considered as the effective and efficient strategies by the organizations (including sport science faculties), and affect the skills, attitudes, and behaviors of the individuals to do their job and achieve the goals of the organization. On the other hand, the academic actors face new issues and complexities that need to have a flexible knowledge. The purpose of this work was to investigate the role of human resource management practices and knowledge inertia in the academic entrepreneurship actions of the sport science students and graduates. Methodology and Approach: The present work was applicable in terms of purpose, and descriptive-correlational in terms of the data collection method, and it was conducted in a survey. The statistical population included the students and graduates of the postgraduate studies in sports sciences in the Tehran universities who were studying in 2011-2019. The statistical sample of this work was 384 people with emphasis on the Morgan sample size table for an unlimited community. In order to collect the data, the standard questionnaires were used, which were designed in two parts: demographic and specialized questions, and in a five-point Likert scale. The content validity of these questionnaires was investigated with the help of the corrective opinions of 8 professors in sport sciences and 3 professors in entrepreneurship, and their reliability was confirmed by the Cronbach’ s alpha and composite reliability. For data analysis, the confirmatory factor analysis and the structural equations were used (SPSS20 & PLS3). Results and Conclusion: The results obtained showed that the inertia of knowledge and each one of its components, namely learning and experience, had an indirect and significant relationship with the academic entrepreneurship actions. Also, the human resource management actions and each one of its components, namely selection and employment, training and development, performance assessment, and motivation and reward, had a direct and significant relationship with the academic entrepreneurship actions. Based on the findings, it can be concluded that paying attention to overcoming the barriers of knowledge inertia along with the human resource management measures in sports science faculties are useful and valuable strategies to achieve academic entrepreneurship and entrepreneurial actions. These results can also be considered for an effective management and performance evaluation of the sport science faculties. Accordingly, it is suggested that the future researchers, in addition to a broader analysis of the knowledge inertia and human resource management practices, address other factors such as the cultural factors, teaching methods, and backgrounds and personal characteristics that are effective in the realization and emergence of the academic entrepreneurship actions.