Top-ranking sports teams make attempts to exploit the results of sports science research, ..... of Turkish or Polish origin in the national football team of Germany.
Pályázat címe: A 21. század követelményeinek megfelelő, felsőoktatási sportot érintő differenciált, komplex felsőoktatási szolgáltatások fejlesztése a Dél-alföldi Régió felsőoktatásában Pályázati azonosító: TÁMOP-4.1.2.E-13/1/KONV-2013-0011
László Balogh The author is a Docent at the Institute of Physical Education and Sports Science, Gyula Juhász Faculty of Education, University of Szeged.
Sport-Culture-Sports Culture The influence of organisational psychological factors on the performance of sports teams and organisations
lector: Dr. Kovács Zoltán, Budapesti Corvinus Egyetem
ISBN 978-963-306-315-6
Kedvezményezett: Szegedi Tudományegyetem Cím: 6720 Szeged, Dugonics tér 13. www.u-szeged.hu www.palyazat.gov.hu
Preface Having been teaching sports science at university level (training sports experts) for several years and studying the psychological issues of the functioning of sports teams and sports clubs, the topic I am most interested in, I can consider myself lucky. Furthermore, I also belong to the lucky few (sports teams these days have an urgent need for the help of TEAMs composed of experts in various fields such as nutrition, sports science, and sport psychology) who have the chance to work with professional sports teams; I am employed as a sport psychologist and organisational consultants by a national but also internationally recognised handball team in order to enhance the performance of the club and the team. And above all, as the icing on the cake, I am able to give direct examples from professional sport in the form of case studies when teaching my university students besides providing them with ample theoretical knowledge, just as it is required from a professor in a country with deep university culture. However, knowing how certain Hungarian sports organisations work, these are not always positive examples, but it is instructive to see them anyway. During the past years, I have had the opportunity to study our leading national sports organisations in many different ways. These organisations differ largely on the basis of their sports scientific background. Top-ranking sports teams make attempts to exploit the results of sports science research, especially those of natural scientific nature such as biomedicine. Sport psychology, a branch of social sciences, is also gaining relevance; however, experts need to fight valiantly in order to promote their results despite all the success, ranking in the Olympics, or gold medals won at World Championships. The excellent psychologists working in the aforementioned field might have had difficulties at the start several years ago – I also experienced the same as a handball coach – in winning the trust and attention of coaches and club leaders/managers. Hopefully, this situation is about to change soon. With the advancement of science, the scope of international research in sports science is growing, and the application of results is also improving a lot. The present work provides an insight into the questions of two moderately fresh fields of science, and specific practical examples are given from the field of professional sport in order to illustrate the theoretical background. This book is based on my doctoral dissertation and the articles published and conference presentations given since the publication thereof. The aforementioned sources constitute the theoretical framework and the conceptual basis of the present work. Furthermore, working with top leading athletes recognised at national and international level and sports leaders has enabled me to experience several situations which are suitable for illustrating the theories I have relied on. It is needless to say that theory and practice do not always match, but that is what makes the whole job absolutely exciting. I hope that the book is of interest to researchers of sports science: sport psychologists, sports managers, those dealing with organisational and leadership theories, and, most of all, to students of sports science. Moreover, I would also highly recommend this work to sports leaders (club leaders, club owners, managers) having practical knowledge. It may make their tasks easier when assessing certain situations and their options, and they may find it less difficult to arrive at better decisions. Last but not least, those might also be interested in reading the present work who simply love sport and read about it every day but have never 2
grabbed any book that would answer their questions related to the topic in a scientific and exact way.1
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The following is not the objective of the book: apart from describing the concept of organisations, no insight is given into the field of management, as it has been comprehensively dealt with by national and international literature.
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Chapters PREFACE ........................................................................................................................................................... 2 CHAPTERS ........................................................................................................................................................ 4 INTRODUCTION ................................................................................................................................................ 5 I.
ORGANISATIONAL FACTORS AFFECTING PERFORMANCE ......................................................................... 8
II.
PERFORMANCE IN SPORTS ORGANISATIONS ......................................................................................... 10
III.
TYPES OF SPORTS ORGANIZATIONS ....................................................................................................... 11 III.1
IV.
MAIN TYPES OF ORGANISATIONS .................................................................................................................. 13 ORGANISATIONAL CULTURE .............................................................................................................. 20
IV.1 IV.2 IV.3 IV.4 IV.5
THE CONCEPT OF ORGANISATIONAL CULTURE ................................................................................................. 20 ORGANISATIONAL CULTURE IN SPORT............................................................................................................ 22 CHARLES HANDY’S MODEL OF ORGANISATIONAL CULTURE ................................................................................ 23 THE COMPETING VALUES FRAMEWORK BY QUINN AND ROHRBAUGH ................................................................. 24 HOFSTEDE’S DIMENSIONS OF NATIONAL CULTURES .......................................................................................... 25
V.
CULTURAL DIFFERENCES IN SPORT ......................................................................................................... 30
VI.
PSYCHOLOGICAL FACTORS AFFECTING ORGANISATIONAL BEHAVIOUR ............................................. 33
VI.1 PSYCHOLOGICAL CONTRACT ........................................................................................................................ 33 VI.2 ORGANISATIONAL SOCIALISATION ................................................................................................................ 36 VI.3 LEADERSHIP BEHAVIOUR............................................................................................................................. 38 VI.4 TRUST .................................................................................................................................................... 44 VI.4.1 The development of trust ............................................................................................................ 48 VI.4.2 Trust as a cohesive force within a group ..................................................................................... 51 VI.5 SATISFACTION .......................................................................................................................................... 52 VI.5.1 Some interpretations of satisfaction ........................................................................................... 52 VI.5.2 Personal and organisational factors affecting satisfaction ........................................................ 55 VI.5.3 Possible sources of satisfaction in sports organisations ............................................................. 57 VI.6 JUSTICE................................................................................................................................................... 58 VI.7 COMMITMENT ......................................................................................................................................... 63 VI.7.1 Organisational commitment ....................................................................................................... 63 VI.7.2 The concept of organisational commitment ............................................................................... 64 VI.7.3 Antecedents of organisational commitment and its relation to other factors ........................... 65 VI.7.4 The three-component model of organisational commitment ..................................................... 67 VI.7.5 6. Possibilities of measuring organizational commitment .......................................................... 71 VI.7.6 Relationship between satisfaction and organisational commitment ......................................... 72 VII. ORGANISATION DEVELOPMENT AND ITS POSSIBILITIES AT SPORTS ORGANISATIONS, THROUGH THE PRESENTATION OF AN ORGANISATION DIAGNOSTIC STUDY. ......................................................................... 75 APPENDIX 1. ................................................................................................................................................... 83 CONCLUSION .................................................................................................................................................. 90 REFERENCES ................................................................................................................................................... 91
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Introduction There are two core motivations in sport these days: keeping athletes’ performance at peak levels and achieving better results. Sport has changed dramatically over time; it is neither pure competition nor a way of maintaining one’s physical health only. Sport has become a part of our everyday lives, as it is connected with many ties to society, politics, economy, and business. There is no doubt that sport has always belonged to the domain of culture, but today there are multicultural club teams and even multicultural national teams as a result of the self-strengthening attempts of nations as well as the effect of globalisation. This is a powerful tool which contributes to the strengthening of national identities. For instance, an American basketball player can be found in the Hungarian national team, or there are players of Turkish or Polish origin in the national football team of Germany. Professional sports teams2 are in an ever-increasing battle for achieving the desired results, which motivates them to make use of various performance-enhancing options, such as scientific results, among many other opportunities legally available for them. This is not only about gold medals or holding the title of Olympic champion; it is more than that. Besides entertaining spectators and viewers, sport is a billion-dollar industry, a source of income for many. However, one thing should not be forgotten, the future of culture and sports culture is also at stake. In order to enhance the performance of athletes during their training and competitions, experts rely on the most recent results in sports science research. They primarily make use of the knowledge accrued in training theory and methodology as well as physiology, disciplines belonging to the field of biomedicine. With the emergence of sport psychology as a discipline, the number of personal psychological analyses in the case of athletes and social psychological analyses in the case of sports teams3 has grown considerably. Several excellent articles, studies, and books appeared in print discussing the factors contributing to the optimisation of performance from the perspective of individuals, partners, and teams. Two independent sport-related branches of science have emerged in the past 30 or 40 years, which have also justified their necessity since that time. On the one hand, various new scientific results in organisational sciences (mainly in the fields of organisational psychology and organisational behaviour studies) enable experts to identify several other performanceenhancing factors. And on the other hand, besides identifying these factors, a detailed theoretical and practical basis might be developed in order to extend the scope of performance-enhancing elements, even at organisational levels. As a matter of fact, no matter whether we take a look at individual or team sports (both categories are going to be defined later), preparation and competition take place in various organisational structures (sports club, association, etc.). Figure No. 1 illustrates the areas related to organisational psychology. Both organisational theory and psychology have a prominent role in the field of sports management too. There has been a huge number of studies focusing on organisational
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The same holds true for recreational sports. Cs. Nagykáldi’s A sport és a testnevelés pszichológiai alapjai, Computer Arts, Budapest, 1998 [Pychological bases of sport and physical education] discusses the scope of research and research methods in detail. 3
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culture and organisational attitudes in the international literature (see Parks, Quterman, Thibault, 2007) recently.
Figure 1: Organisational psychology-related areas by Klein (2007:369) on the basis of Bass (1965:5) That is why it is not advisable to disregard those common problems and issues which professional sportsmen and sportswomen mention as factors influencing their performance in general: they complain that their coaches do not have trust in them, or – quite the opposite – they are thrilled as their trainers trust them completely. Many are satisfied with their positions in foreign teams while making a fortune; however, there are players who are not happy about warming the bench almost all the time despite earning loads of money abroad. It can also happen that a player inspite of taking an oath of loyalty to the club he is playing for is capable of quitting six months later to join another team, where he kisses the team’s logo on his uniform without hesitation, claiming that a childhood dream has come true with the transfer. If not getting into a national team or first team, sportsmen and sportswomen tend to feel mistreated, or sometimes they even blame club leaders for being unfair. Speaking of club leaders: guided by their intuition, they often tend to follow the principle „little money – little football, big money – big football” [as Ferenc Puskás put it, meaning that the amount of money influences how football is played], being unaware of how much damage they cause. They create problems that could be felt in the long term, not at the moment; they ruin the future of the new generation of sportswomen and sportsmen, sports culture, and athletes’ attitudes to sports. All these factors can be seen when studying the organisational culture of a sports club. What is more, when we take a look at the unwritten agreements, also known as pyschological contracts, made between employees and employers, influencing their relationships, we can also understand how these effects actually work. It has also been widely accepted lately that psychological theories, models and laws are not present in the same way in each and every culture. What is it like, for instance, for a poor 6
African boy to arrive in Europe at the age of eighteen after having been raised in his country of origin and having acquired the cultural values and way of thinking characterising the people of his homeland? How can a boy like this hold his ground in a culture so different from his own, where nothing could be more important than good performance? Not to mention many of those 14-year-olds who are sent to sports academies and turned into slaves in these „factories” instead of becoming successful and mentally healthy athletes. It is also interesting to see how a traineir being used to an autocratic style of leadership feels when he starts working in another culture where players have their say in questions concerning them. Thus, a conflict of roles might arise, and – regardless of the trainer’s competence – the relationship between him and the players and later their results too will be seriously affected in an adverse way. Although the question has been raised in other fields before, it might be useful to consider the same within the field of sports, namely, whether it is worth employing a trainer coming from abroad in order to have the sports culture of his own nation introduced in another culture too. The basics of cultural sport psychology derive from the field of cultural psychology. A key concept of the former is national culture, defining it within the widest possible conceptual framework (including languages, geographical locations, religions, lifestyle, families, gender roles, openness, attitudes towards others, etc.).
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I. Organisational factors affecting performance Mainly in organisations where performance plays a key role (and it is rather difficult to identify its components in an objective way), psychological contracts, defining the relationship between the organisation and the individual, have great significance. The content of this type of contract might not be the same as that of the written one (employment or player’s contract). The latter includes all the rights and obligations of the employee (athlete/player) and the employer (club, trainer) in a written form, while the former is an unwritten set of mutual and informal expectations. The concept of psychological contract is defined by Robinson and Rousseau (1994:246) in the following way: “… the perceived mutual obligations that characterise the employee’s relationship with his/her employer. The psychological contract, unlike expectations, entails a belief in what the employer is obliged to provide, based on perceived promises of reciprocal exchange.” It is basically built on the existence of trust between the partners and aims to create commitment. The same applies to teams and sports organisations. Trust, the components of satisfaction, as well as mutual commitment are seen as requirements on the part of the members (players in the case of sports teams) of an organisation, and these are included in psychological contracts. As Rousseau, one of the greatest authorities on psychological contracts, describes in an interview4, she expects future research to reveal those factors “which give rise to “mutuality”, the agreement of commitments between employers and employees.” When joining a new club, athletes are helped to adapt themselves to new conditions, which is known as organisational socialisation. During this process, experts make attempts to familiarise newcomers with the values, norms, and the way the sports club works in order to create a high level of emotional commitment. And such commitment, acting as a mediator, indirectly contributes to the improvement of performance. As it has been already mentioned above, trust (professional and emotional) in one another, in trainers and clubs/organisations also affects successful performance a lot in the case of interactive teams that require members to cooperate at a high level. Players, trainers and leaders all depend on each other in order to perform well. According to Deutsch (1973), trust is especially important in groups requiring a high level of cooperation: it is crucial to see whether members working together have enough confidence in each other to take the risks related to cooperation (see Tarnai, 2003). However, one might be interested in finding out whether placing greater trust in each other would automatically come hand in hand with a rise in performance. According to Tarnai (2003), it is a widely accepted fact that the more members trust each other, the better their performance will be, also ensuring smoother group processes. Moreover, as Sass (2005) puts it, members are rather motivated to make joint efforts (instead of taking individual actions) in groups with high levels of trust, which might also enhance performance. As I see it, factors affecting team atmosphere also determine the quality of performance. Therefore, I find that satisfaction, a factor among many others, plays a defining role in this respect. Athletes often complain about the lack of playing opportunities, delays in pay, conflicts with trainers and team members, poor sports field conditions, and horrible facilities. 4
Rafe Harwood: The psychological contract and remote working:" An interview with Prof. Denise M. Rousseau (http://www.unfortu.net/~rafe/links/rousseau.htm)
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These complaints mainly come up on those occasions when players and the team do not perform as well as expected. Several experts (such as Judge, Thoresen, Bono, Patton, 2001)5 agree that the more satisfied the members of an organisation are, the more efficient and successful the organisation becomes. Nádori (1991) considered the relationship between an athlete and its club, association or team as another important factor affecting sports performance. In addition, special attention is also frequently given to the concept of organisational commitment when trust and satisfaction are mentioned. Mowday and his colleagues (1979) define it on the basis of the following three distinct components: (1) the level of an individual’s identification with the beliefs and values held by an organisation, (2) the degree of an individual’s intent to maintain organisational membership, and (3) the degree of an individual’s attempts to make any effort on behalf of an organisation in order to reach various goals. There are authors (such as Perry, 2004) who consider trust and satisfaction as the predictors of commitment. However, there are a number of researchers who claim that a committed member might be able to make considerable effort to reach mutually set goals, and thus this person may also do better (Meyer, Allen, 1991). All the aforementioned variables play a significant role in the workings of organisations. These components might take various forms in reality, and all belong to the domain of organisational culture, being comprised of the values, attitudes, norms, assumptions, and beliefs characterising an organisation (Kovács et al., 2005). It functions as a framework for the members of an organisation and defines expected behaviour, influences attitudes and enhances the success of an organisation as a result.
5
Robbins, Judge (2007):Organizational Behavior, Prentice- Hall International, Inc., Englewood Cliffs, NJ., p. 89
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II. Performance in sports organisations It also worth watching how the body of an athlete, another important factor influencing performance, is considered in sports science research. According to Nádori (1991:39), performance consists of the following components: “features and sets of features characterising sportsmen/sportswomen that are possibly enhanced by training and profoundly influence sports performance. Moreover, those activities are also included that lead to results directly or indirectly.” There are two key components of performance in the field of sports too. One of them is the (performance) ability of athletes, being comprised of the physical abilities, such as physical condition (strength, speed, stamina, and flexibility) and coordination skills (the perception of balance, space and time, as well as dexterity) necessary for performing a physical activity pursued by a sportsperson, as well as the technical and tactical knowledge and the intelligence of an athlete. The second component is an athlete’s performance readiness, “reflecting a sportsperson’s attitudes towards his trainer, the sport he is doing, his environment, and the regimen he follows” (Nádori, 1991:39). Therefore, we can see that someone’s willingness to perform creates a motivational basis which helps a sportsman to put a lot of effort into the achievement of a goal. As Nádori (1991) puts it, the attitudes of an athlete towards his sports club or association greatly affect his level of performance. What is more, the same is true the other way around too: clubs and associations have their own expectations of athletes. Meeting these requirements on both sides might also contribute to better performance. Either an athlete’s performance ability or his performance readiness is missing, general sports performance is going to be weaker or zero (it is like the product of a sum of two elements)6. All these are interrelated factors, and according to Nádori (1991), the enhancement of the ability to perform belongs to the domain of education, whereas the enhancement of the readiness to perform belongs the domain of training/discipline. In order to be able to undertake physically demanding trainings (development of certain skills), it is necessary for athletes to possess the proper moral character and strong willpower, as well as a high level of readiness to perform in sports, i.e. a drive to mobilise efforts to do well. As Nádori (1991:40) summarises it: “one timely goal of research should be to reveal the aforementioned relations”. Studies in sport have rather focused on the analysis of performance ability; however, more attention should be paid to the examination of factors influencing athletes’ performance readiness, especially from the perspective of organisational psychology.
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Performance = performance ability X performance readiness. If any of the elements is zero, performance will equal zero too. Therefore, both elements are required to be over zero to reach maximum effect in performance.
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III. Types of sports organizations First of all, what do we mean by a sports team7? A team may also be considered as an organisation. One might immediately think of football or handball teams when talking about sports teams; however, rowing, tennis with two players (doubles) or gymnastics teams are also listed among teams by the current literature in special cases. What are the key differences then? Those groups of players that consist of at least two members are generally called teams in any branch of sport. The literature analyses these branches from several perspectives. The following section deals with some of these features. Team cohesion, required for successful sports performance between members who cooperate in order to achieve a goal, can be interactive (in the case of handball, basketball, volleyball, football, etc.). As we can see it, a special inner structure characterises these teams due to the interactions of members, and that is why each and every team-mate has to find his/her position (not only on the field but also in the locker room, which is very often forgotten by them). On the other hand, in other groups, also known as additive or summative team types (kayaking and canoeing, tennis with two players (doubles), gymnastics teams), the efficacy of members is added together (Baumann, 2006). According to another model, there are interactive and coactive (not much or no interaction or cooperation is required in the latter) groups. Interactive sports require individuals to work directly with each other. Members may only be successful in attack and defence if they constantly adjust their movements to match others’. Therefore, we could say that the evergreen proverb seems to be true here, “one swallow does not make a summer”, meaning that even teams with poor performance abilities might have the chance to be successful with high levels of cooperation (Baumann, 2006). Cratty (1983), who studied the relation between group cohesiveness and performance, divided team sports into the following three main categories on the basis of the level of cohesion related to the goal (Nagykáldi, 1998:97):
coactive teams: the frequency of interaction and the level of coordination between members are rather low (for example, archery, bowling, shooting, wrestling);
interactive teams: the frequency of interaction and the level of cooperation between members are both required (for example, handball, football, volleyball);
mixed teams: display all the features mentioned above (for example, jumping in athletics, rowing, relay swimming).
The two basic components of cohesion occur differently in the groups listed above. A goal functions as a stronger cohesive force in the case of coactive teams, while these groups are characterised by weaker social cohesive forces. The reverse is true of interactive teams, whereas mixed groups have almost identical levels of goal-oriented and social cohesive forces. 7
I find it important to briefly discuss the theories related to sports teams because basically these groups are organisations having their own subcultures, and players are the members of sports organisations, thus anything told about them characterise every member (including the employees) of the organisation too.
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In his work, Baumann (2006), a sport psychologist, cites the thoughts of Steiner (1972), who studied the key psychological factors of team performance and proved that a team’s level of performance is always lower than the simple sum of individual performance. The root cause of this is losses resulting from team processes such as a deficit caused by the lack of trust, the loss of trust, or dissatisfaction. Therefore, Baumann finds it crucial to further investigate these variables. As stated by Rókusfalvy (1992:148): “We might find it unimportant or try not to realise the significance of the development of a good atmosphere in the association/organisation that employs players, as well as that of a healthy team spirit, and a strong trainer-player relationship, but these factors most of all do not only contribute to the good mood of athletes (which is not secondary at all but is not the most important factor) but also have an objective influence (resulting in goals, scores, etc.) on general performance, thus shall be enhanced by sports experts.” As we can see it, players’ attitudes towards their club and team play a crucial role when developing the abilities to cope with psychological burdens (Rókusfalvy, 1992), all the expectations coming from inside and outside of their groups, they face all the time. Sports teams are actually special organisations the members of which work together to reach common goals by means of coordinated activities, having their own unique inner dynamics, structures, and hierarchy. In addition to this, group identity is normally strong in sports teams, by the help of which team members differentiate themselves from the members of other groups and strengthen their own unity. There are several expectations both on the part of athletes and clubs which may increase or decrease players’ effort to reach goals, thus influencing the performance itself, when met or failed to be met, respectively. These mutual expectations are included in the so-called psychological contract, as described above. We can also claim that the success of sports organisations has two dimensions. One of them is the results achieved by a sports team, for example, winning a championship or a cup. And the other one is of economic nature, for instance, making the biggest possible profit. The two go hand in hand at best, but there are cases – however, it happens rarely – when a club does better in terms of sports results than economic gains (for example, the former MizoPécs women basketball team, which despite having won titles in a row, got financially overwhelmed, ceased to exist finally due to financial problems). Otherwise, there are occasions when teams are financially more successful than in terms of results, for example, due to the organisation of professional championships in North America, teams which do not qualify for the payoffs but play over 80 matches during a season might make a great deal of profit after receiving money from tickets sold, TV broadcasting, and merchandising. Review questions: 1) Which factors may affect the results of a sports team? 2) What is the relation between organisational psychology and factors affecting performance? 3) What is the relation between sports teams and sports organisations?
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III.1 Main types of organisations The word organisation is frequently used both in the literature and everyday language. Our lives are dominated by organisations such as families, schools, workplaces or sports organisations, etc. The following expressions are also often used interchangeably: sports organisation, sports association, sports club, and sports team. Depending on the framework we apply, such usage might actually be correct in a wide range of cases. However, the meaning of sports laws, sports associations, sports organisations, and sports foundations/companies is approached in a different way by legal experts and researchers of organisational science. Definitions also differ according to the branches within the latter field, but it is possible to detect several common features. An organisation is a unit of people, tools, and resources structured in order to pursue collective goals by means of balanced and coordinated effort and a functional division of work, having a hierarchical structure and continuously adjusting to the changing circumstances within and outside of it. According to Klein (2007), there are 5 distinct strategic elements that fundamentally determine the workings of organisations. (1) Content, i.e. all the resources together, (2) structure, i.e. the structure, hierarchy, units, etc. of organisations that can be represented by using an organogram, (3) communication system, which enables members to receive the appropriate information in the appropriate time and place, (4) monitoring/controlling/supervision is also required to be able to find the most suitable place to carry out goals, and (5) decision-making, which is the key component of all, as the previous four elements may be present on a higher level, but without making correct decisions, or making no decisions at all, organisations may not function properly. We may also take the view of an organisation as a living being, an organism, being composed of the parts of such unit, which can be human resources, instruments or financial resources. Darwin’s idea of a successful organism might also apply in the case of organisations too, more precisely, we could say that only flexible ones can flourish. These are able to adapt to new circumstances easily and make proper decisions. Organisations can be characterised in many different ways depending on their goals and profiles. As mentioned above, an organisation is established in order to work towards certain goals, which might be long-term, for example, maintaining a sports club for 100 years, while there can also be short-term goals such as founding a project organisation for a period of a year. Setting realistic goals related to the time of functioning, short-, medium- or long-term ones, is crucial in each and every case. These features appear in the strategies of an organisation, containing the goals to be achieved. In order to see how well an organisation is functioning, continuous monitoring/controlling is required, and certain processes should be modified on the basis of any feedback received. There are general goals that organisations have; these are included in the “mission statement” of an establishment, detailing why and with what purpose it was founded. There are operative goals too, describing the concrete steps to be taken for a certain period of time or related to an event (e.g. a programme or a competition). Moreover, hidden goals might also exist, which are not manifested but affect the workings of organisations. To sum up, the main functions of goals can be described as follows: they 13
determine various criteria, help to organise planning and management, have controlling functions, function as the basis of evaluation/assessment, determine the division of work and the type of technologies used, make employees committed towards organisations, and define the company itself. The mission statement of Arsenal Football Club can be read under the link below, serving as a perfect example of the way how historic professional sports clubs enhance emotional commitment towards their organisations by means of these tools too:
http://www.arsenal.com/the-club/the-arsenal-way Max Weber’s model of bureaucratic organisations is based on control and strong centralisation. There are certain fields where such type of leadership might be really successful, for instance, when quantitative indicators are the most important to achieve; however, where creativity and innovation are required, this style of leadership would lead to little success. In addition, one could also claim that an overcontrolling leadership style might also create lower levels of organisational trust (and vice versa), having adverse effects on the performance of organisations in the long term. Furthermore, F. W. Taylor’s management theory (also known as scientific management) considered individuals (workers) as if they were incapable of making decisions on their own and needed to be told what to do. These employees had to follow all the instructions without thinking or hesitation, as if they were only “parts of a machine”. These models speak volumes about the underlying assumptions these thinkers had in connection with an individual in the age when they lived, which were all based on the notion of the so-called economic-rational human being (homo economicus). In the following section, Fayol’s 14 principles of management are listed, which have had a significant influence on French industry, and these points have also become widespread in other fields later too. 1. The division of labour is part of the natural order, and its importance grows with the development of social organisations. 14
2. On the basis of authority and responsibility, the members of the management have the right to give orders and the power to make others obey them. Provided a manager is not able to act responsibly, he loses all his virtues as a leader. 3. Discipline involves obedience, diligence, and persistence. 4. The unity of command means that workers shall only receive orders from one manager (superior) only. 5. The unity of direction ensures organisational activities and efforts to be properly coordinated. 6. The interests of any individual should never take precedence over the interests of the organisation as a whole. 7. Remuneration should be given to any individual who serves the organisation. 8. Centralisation is required both in nature and society. 9. In order to have efficient management, the hierarchical system should be well-defined within an organisation. 10. Organisations are unable to function without order. 11. Equity should be present at every level of management. 12. The stability of personnel is required to maintain the continuous operation of organisations. 13. Sensible work may not be present without encouraging initiative. 14. Team spirit is what maintains harmony and unity within an organization. Those interested in this theme can read the articles related to the topic under the links below:
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http://hu.wikipedia.org/wiki/Max_Weber
http://hu.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frederick_Winslow_Taylor
http://hu.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henri_Fayol According to other experts, a charismatic leader is the one who mainly determines the direction in which an organisation is heading and influences its culture as well. As long as this person is present, this type of organisation functions well and smoothly; however, when this individual leaves the organisation for any reason, it may collapse due to strong centralisation and charismatic leadership. The same takes place in sports clubs and teams 16
too when an association or a team ceases to exist as soon as its excellent leader or trainer, who was able to integrate team members, quits. Newer approaches address the question of how centralised or decentralised organisations are. Organisation may be centralised or decentralised geographically (where certain parts of an organisation are located), functionally (how many functions are related to one body), and in terms of decision-making (how much decision-making is kept firmly at the top of the hierarchy or delegated down the hierarchy). Organisational psychology focuses on the last issue most of all. Successful organisations normally try to delegate authority to achieve objectives, that is to say, they are decentralised ones (Klein, 2007). Also there has been a long tradition of differentiating between formal and informal organisations since the emergence of organisational theories. A formal organisation is governed by a set of rules (bylaws, statutes, etc.) written down in order to achieve its objectives. However, there may be one or more so-called informal bodies within an organisation. In most cases informal and formal organisations share the same goals, values, and norms, but there could be “cliques” which make attempts to sabotage the operation of an organisation. The section on satisfaction will further detail such cases. The video under the following link gives a short introduction into the advantages and disadvantages of formal and informal organisations:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gAaCG516TVo As for the structure of organisations, one can talk about flat/horizontal (Figure 2) and tall (Figure 3) organisational structures. The number of levels and the number of individuals on certain levels define which category an organisation falls into.
Figure 2: The organogramm of a first-class Spanish football team In the case of a flat organisation, there are many subordinates under a superior, while a tall organisation employs fewer subordinates under one manager. Superiors “have no choice” but delegate some of their managerial tasks, thus the degree of supervision becomes lower here, which requires higher levels of trust on the other hand. Tall organisations exercise stricter supervision, as there are fewer subordinates under a manager.
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Figure 3: The structure of a tall organisation Under the link below, one can take a look at the official website of the New York Islanders, which introduces what kind of departments and units are required to operate the sports club properly, serving as a good example to illustrate what is described in this section.
http://islanders.nhl.com/club/page.htm?id=43475 A system-theoretical approach, more precisely a network-theoretical approach8 in the present case, should also be applied here in order to see how organisations work. All the parts of a system are related to each other; these may not only be hierarchically connected parts but might also be overlapping elements on several occasions. These organic organisations are characterised by the fast flow of information. Furthermore, one should also bear in mind that the modification of any element of a system leads to the changing of the whole system when changes at organisational level are under consideration.
Az intelligens sportszervezet - a szervezeti magatartástudomány tükrében -
-avagy hogyan fokozható egy szervezet eredményességeDr. Balogh László PhD. (c)
Figure 4: The following slideshow includes the notions of organisation and sports organisation, the main components of the same, as well as the definitions of performance and success 8
The article under the link below introduces http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ludwig_von_Bertalanffy
the founder of general system
theory:
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Review questions: 1) Give the definition of an organisation. 2) Which strategic elements determine the success of organisations? 3) On the basis of which factors and for how long time are goals set in the case of sports organisations? 4) What are the advantages and disadvantages of flat and tall organisations? 5) What do we mean by an informal organisation, and in what way it may influence the operation of a formal organisation? 6) How is an “ideal” sports organisation structured?
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IV. Organisational culture9 As I see it, to be able to investigate how organisational processes take place, studying the organisational culture of sports teams might be of vital importance in research. Among many other attitudes and factors, the framework of organisational culture also includes the psychological contract, commitment, trust, satisfaction, leadership style, and organisational socialisation (the term referring to the introduction of newcomers), which can be considered as the components of organisational culture after all. Based on everyday experience, we can also see that commitment, trust, and satisfaction are factors that contribute to the mobilisation of individual and team effort; therefore, they are identified as elements influencing the quality of the operation of organisations.
IV.1 The concept of organisational culture “Organisational culture represents they system of values, attitudes, habits, assumptions, and beliefs within an organisation, including aspects that may be both directly and indirectly experienced. Organisational culture affects the behaviour and attitudes of members, as it influences the atmosphere of an organisation, the way an organisation deals with its members, goals, environment, thus having an effect on its performance and abilities to adjust to the changing circumstances.” (Kovács et al., 2005:52) Organisational culture aims to integrate members, support an organisation’s abilities to adapt to changes and reduce the uncertainty of members. Schein’s (1985) model of organisational culture identifies the implicit, submerged and the visible, observable levels of culture, represented as an iceberg. From a functional perspective, he claimed that organisational culture aims to enhance the integration of members and the abilities of an organisation to react to changes in the environment. According to Kotter and Heskett (1992) (see Bíró, Serfőző, 2003), organisations with good performance are characterised by the following features:
strong culture (a well-functioning system of commonly accepted and shared values and norms),
flexibility (the ability to adapt to changes),
the culture of an organization harmonises with its strategies,
takes into consideration its employees’ and superiors’ interests.
Team and group norms (values) significantly influence the behaviour and attitudes of members. There are formal (official, mainly written sets of rules regarding professional conduct) and informal (spontaneous, mainly unwritten sets of rules regarding the behaviour of members, which also affect the individuals’ way of thinking) norms (Baumann, 2006). 9
The following brief article discusses the concept of organisational culture under the link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Organizational_culture
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Should any team member fail to identify with any of these rules, his/her group membership might be at risk. New members in this case may have serious problems with adapting themselves to their new surroundings. Lack of norm-following behaviour in the case of old team members can turn into a factor diminishing overall performance. In both of the above cases, members might quit the team, towards which the first step to be made can be the individual’s demand to terminate the psychological contract, or after that the following step might also be the termination of the official employment or player’s contract. There are several authors examining the relationship between group cohesion (e.g. Fogarasi, 1994) and organisational culture; therefore, the present section also deals with this issue. In teams with high cohesion and strong organisational culture (as a result of the former), generally conformity to norms is high too (Nagykáldi, 1998). To conclude, the higher group cohesion is, the more individuals tend to follow team norms, which finally makes it possible for a member to find his place in a team and perform at his best. Some experts also find strong associations between group cohesion and trust, thus simply defining it as the trust between the members of a group (Siebold, 2007). Furthermore, group cohesion, performance, and satisfaction are factors that seem to reverberate through and influence one another from time to time (Thomas, 1998, see Fig. 5).
Figure 1: The model established by Raymond Thomas (1998)10 According to Denison (1990) (see Bíró, Serfőző, 2003), strong organisational culture may result in the following characteristics:
it has positive effects on members’ identification with an organisation’s goals,
10
Raymod Thomas (1988): Psychologie du Sport, PUF, Quesaisje?, Paris
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it improves performance and motivates members,
it uses past experience appropriately, resulting in adequately developed learning competence,
shared values enable members to set goals and select the mode of achieving these goals.
Robbins and Judge (2007) also attribute great significance to the strength of organisational culture. As they see it, the stronger organisational culture is, the better an organisation performs, and the members of such organisations also become much more satisfied (Fig. 6).
Figure 6: Robbins and Judge’s (2007) model of the outcomes of strong organisational culture
IV.2 Organisational culture in sport Organisational culture is present in the everyday operations of sports organisations, either strengthening or weakening their performance11. Taking this fact into consideration, talented and well-educated leaders make attempts to exploit all the direct and indirect effects of strong organisational culture in order to improve the performance of teams. However, as everyday practice shows, sports leaders unfortunately rarely take advantage of this opportunity. In spite of this, the following positive examples prove that there are sports organisations that make use of certain elements of their organisational culture in a spontaneous way to improve individuals’ commitment and performance.
Artefacts are the directly observable (tangible, audible, visible) elements of the culture of an organisation: the name, logo, emblem, crest and uniform of a team, its
11
The analysis of the organisational culture of sports teams has already been conducted by means of Quinn’s Competing Values Framework and Robbin’s dimensions of organisational culture. Results are to be discussed in a nutshell in an upcoming section.
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history, traditions, establishments (such as a stadium or a sports hall), its famous players, heroes (such as the Hall of Fame), its rules, organisational structure, routines, mottos and well-known sayings (such as the song entitled “You’ll never walk alone!’ – belonging to Liverpool F.C.) all belong to this category.
The directly not observable elements of the culture of an organisation: the values, philosophy, norms, and assumptions (such as trust, satisfaction and commitment) of a team (club)
The following video provides an opportunity to identify almost all the above listed characteristics and artefacts that are typical of a strong organisational culture – in the present case those of Liverpool F. C.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lq40rc7HM-M To see another example, every newcomer at the Los Angeles Lakers, an American professional basketball team, receives a so-called playbook, which involves a compilation of basic strategies the team would like to use during games, right before the very first training takes place (what is more, the book contains several moves named after once famous players or coaches, which also strengthens a new player’s commitment and his feeling of “wenees”). In addition to this, the book also contains all the important information on the club such as its history, structure, hierarchy, traditions, and philosophy. This is an illustrative example of the existence of sports organisations relying on the effects of strong organisational culture12. Taking into consideration what Kotter, Heskett, and Denison put into writing, we may conclude that organisational culture functions as a certain framework for an organisation to be able to reach high performance in a good atmosphere. It also enables new members to adhere to all the written and unwritten rules of their organisation; however, it is much more useful in the latter case. Furthermore, it has already been mentioned previously that organisational culture generally determines the systems of values and norms that the members are expected to believe in and act on, thus directly facilitating the emergence and maintenance of organisational trust. Doney et al. highlight that organisational culture contains all the appropriate beliefs, values, expectations, accepted behaviour, and faith related to trust (see Sass, 2005). The next section discusses some models that are applicable to the study of sports organisations.
IV.3 Charles Handy’s model of organisational culture Handy defines culture as the way individuals live and follow unwritten rules and norms (Klein, 2007). According to him, the culture characterising an organisation is determined, built and disseminated by the dominant group within the organisation. However, besides (or rather below) a dominant culture, subcultures may exist, which can either improve or diminish the performance of an organisation. Handy identified the following four types of organisational culture. (1) Power culture: power is concentrated among a few people, in the hands of one leader or a small group of individuals only. This type of culture is based on the work of 12
Feature: Building a Sports Team: www.psychedonline.org/Articles/Vol1Iss2/TeamBuilding.htm
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individuals; performance and success are significant elements of it. (2) Role culture: power mainly derives from the personal position; there is strict control, and the bodies and roles within such organisations are more important than individuals. (3) Task culture: the structure of such cultures resembles a matrix, where those individuals with expertise gain power rather than those having favourable positions or strong personalities. These organisations are flexible and adaptable. (4) Person culture: individuals stand in the core of such organisations, which basically have no structure as these cultures are made up of non-cooperating individuals creating a cluster. The size of an organisation is also determined by the certain types described above. Namely, a power culture is typical of smaller organisations, such as a sports team, where decisions are rather made by the leader (and other co-workers). Role cultures are present in larger organisations which normally include more units/bodies, such as a sports association being constituted by various departments. Mainly different bodies and the rights delegated to them are what count here. Task and person cultures are irrelevant to the case of sports organisations; however, if we take the example of a sporting goods manufacturer being made up of design engineers or a legal counsellor’s sports lawyers, these two types of culture can also be observable, more or less, within the field of sport. Those interested might find it useful to read about Handy’s typology of culture in detail under the following link:
http://sourcepov.com/2010/03/02/cultural-types/
IV.4 The Competing Values Framework by Quinn and Rohrbaugh According to Quinn, the dominant values of a community can be represented in a hierarchical order, structured into value dimensions. With the help of such lists or value maps, one is able to compare and describe the features of different organisational cultures. The authors created a three-dimensional theoretical framework using multidimensional scaling for the analysis of organisational effectiveness: 24
1. The attention of an organisation: inwards, within the organisation and/or outwards, towards the external environment 2. Control within an organisation: some may prefer stability and control and/or others may support flexibility and changes On the basis of such distinction, there are four main types of organisational cultures: the supportive clan, the innovation-oriented adhocracy, the rule-oriented hierarchy, and the goaloriented market. Cameron and Freeman (1991) were the authors who originally distinguished the four types as clan, adhocracy, hierarchy, and market. The relationship between them is shown in Fig. 7. below.
Figure 7: The Competing Values Framework by Quinn and Rohrbaugh
IV.5 Hofstede’s dimensions of national cultures One may wonder whether a nation’s cultural characteristics are present in the cultures of the country’s (nation’s) organisations too. Hofstede, on the basis of the well-known IBM study13, developed a new theoretical framework which makes it possible to describe and compare the characteristics of any national culture by means of 5 fundamental dimensions (see Fig. 8 and Fig. 9). Hofstede established the following 5 dimensions (however, the original theory proposed only four in the beginning, and the fifth one, long-term orientation, was added later):
13
For further details it is recommended to visit the homepage of Geert Hofstede: http://geerthofstede.com/
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1. Power distance: the degree of inequality that is accepted by those having power and those lacking the same. Low power distance means little inequality, while high power distance shows more serious inequality. 2. Individualism vs. collectivism: certain national cultures prefer individuals working on their own, whereas other cultures find working as a member of a group much more important. Collectivistic societies value loyalty towards one’s groups and communities, and they also put special emphasis on helping one another. Individualistic societies, on the other hand, value individuals; the self is more important than the group, individuals “who can stand on their own feet” are preferred here. 3. Masculinity vs. femininity: national cultures might also be characterised by means of the behaviour attributed to genders. The values that masculine cultures promote are performance, success, competitiveness, perseverance, whereas the values that characterise feminine cultures are sensitivity, solidarity, support, and human relationships. In masculine cultures, the differences between gender roles are more dramatic and distinct than in feminine ones. 4. Uncertainty avoidance: this dimension shows how much certain societies need situations that are structured and controlled by rules. The latter might be either written or unwritten. Cultures with high uncertainty avoidance find it hard to cope with anxiety and are afraid of new situations, while cultures with low degrees of uncertainty avoidance are more flexible and happy with changes. 5. Long-term orientation vs. short-term orientation: the way of thinking typical of cultures related to time.
Figure 8: Hofstede’s five-dimensional model of culture 26
Figure 9: The scores Hungary received in Hofstede’s framework According to Hofstede, power distance and uncertainty avoidance are those dimensions that mainly determine what type of organisational structures are preferred in a country. As a matter of fact, the way people think of organisations mainly depends on what kind of employer-employee relationship they find acceptable, and how their environment tolerates uncertainty. On the basis of these characteristics, Hofstede differentiated between 4 types of organisations (see Fig. 10): 1. Village market: low power distance and weak uncertainty avoidance characterise this type; Anglo-Saxon and Scandinavian countries belong to this category 2. Well-oiled machine: low power distance and strong uncertainty avoidance characterise this type; mainly German-speaking countries belong to this category 3. Family: high power distance and weak uncertainty avoidance characterise this type; South-eastern Asian countries belong to this category 4. Pyramid: high power distance and strong uncertainty avoidance characterise this type; Latin cultures, some of the Far Eastern countries, and Islamic countries belong to this category The following free prezi.com presentation summarises Hofstede’s work under the link below.
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http://prezi.com/k8i3tuy1ddyw/new-hofstede/
Figure 10: A map of the world for each cultural dimension on the basis of Hofstede’s work Source: http://www.nkkhoo.com/2012/04/13/repost-marina-mahathirs-article-censored-bythe-star-malaysia-is-number-one-in-the-power-distance-index/
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Organisational culture significantly affects how well organisations work; it is responsible for their success or failure. When establishing a sports organisation, or taking the leadership of one that has been working for a while, we should bear in mind that the strengthening of its organisational culture is of primary importance, if required also by means of rules (such as a code of conduct). These solutions help individuals act according to what is accepted, improves the club and its identity, differentiates the club from others, and promotes the achievement of mutually set goals through shared values and norms. Review questions: 1) What do we mean by organisational culture? 2) Which components is organisational culture made up of? 3) What are the ways of improving the performance of an organisation through the development of organisational culture? 4) What do we mean by subculture? 5) What kind of relationship is there between organisational and national culture in the case of sports organisations?
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V. Cultural differences in sport As every field of life, sport has also undergone globalisation. In the 19th century at the time of nation states, the importance of sport grew a lot. Then in the 20th century, certain systems claimed that the superiority of their nations and systems could be proved by means of sports competitions, thus sport became a powerful tool of expressing national identities. Moreover, there have been interesting changes in sport today as well (see Fig.11). Arsenal F. C., the English professional football club, was the first one not having any English players at all in its starting lineup. The same occurred when participating in national and international competitions as well. Although this caused quite a stir, the sporting world calmed down in the end. What is more, there are players of Turkish, Polish and African origin in the national football team of Germany, who sing the national anthem about the greatness of the German “Vaterland”. In addition to this, an American basketball player can also be found in the Hungarian national team, just like players of foreign origin (Cuban and Serbian) in the case of our national male handball team. Are these teams able to express our national identity? Are they able to strengthen the same? What kind of processes may support and prevent new athletes coming from a culture different than ours from fitting in (or their organisational socialisation in other words)? Cultural sport psychology was born to answer such questions. Such cases are not completely new among organisations. To take an example, one might remember the conflicts arising at Hankook or Suzuki factories hitting the headlines in Hungary, during which it turned out that most of the problems occurred due to the differences between the European and Asian cultures and the ways of thinking.
Figure 11: From the beginning until today
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What are the foundations of cultural psychology, sport psychology, and organisational psychology? Nothing indicates better how new these areas are than the article written by Schinke and Hanrahan (2009) 14 based on the results of the content analysis of the Journal of Sport and Exercise Psychology (including all of the issues until 1987), according to which even the most popular journal in sport psychology lacks any article or study that would approach culture as an independent variable – instead of a multicultural approach, the authors only discovered monocultural approaches in the works they studied. Not until that time did scientists and psychologists realise that culture could have been seen both as the cause and effect of something. Duda and Allison (1990) 15 claimed that the success of sport psychological support and counselling ultimately depends on the culture experts are working in as basic concepts, frameworks, the way of thinking, assumptions, values, and norms may all differ culturally. Figure 12 below summarises what psychologists need to be aware of when working with multicultural teams or organisations.
1) Cultural awareness 2) Cultural knowledge 3) Techniques suitable for the examination of various cultures One should be aware of his own values, beliefs, and preconceptions, as well as one should realise how these factors influence his perception of a client, the understanding of the individual’s problems, and one’s objectivity
Figure 12: Some points that experts should be aware of when improving organisational socialisation in international teams Adopting an open attitude and the willingness to become open to anything new are the most important in this situation. Additionally, being able to communicate with people is also significant, so it might be problematic if one does not speak the language of the people he is working with. One should never be ashamed when asking for help from anyone who knows the culture they are working in to understand it better. Moreover, a great deal of patience and empathy is also required even if immediate results are expected. There are actually a lot more examples, but hopefully this brief summary will raise the awareness of sport experts and enable them to consider what was mentioned here when working with athletes of foreign origin.
14 15
Robert Schinke, Stephanie Hanrahan (2009): Cultural Sport Psychology ISBN-13: 9780736071338, Duda, Allison (1990): Cross-cultural analysis in exercise and sport psychology: a void in the field, Journal of Sport &Exercise Psychology (JSEP), 12 (2), 114 - 131.
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Review questions: 1) Which direction is sport heading, and what are the consequences of such changes on national and international levels? 2) What kind of challenges are there in the case of leading organisations the members of which are individuals with different cultural background? 3) Which principles shall be observed in order to cooperate in an appropriate way with others? 4) Which nation’s sports culture resembles Hungary’s sports culture the most? Why?
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VI. Psychological factors affecting organisational behaviour VI.1 Psychological contract A psychological contract is individual’s personal belief in mutual commitment (Robinson, 1996). The concept was further developed by the scholar Rousseau (2000) 16 in contemporary research, and it refers to the relationship between employees and the organisation they are working for. Organisations set up the expectations of their members/workers in the form of contracts (work descriptions). There are two basic types of contracts: one of them is the traditional employment or player’s contract (in the case of sports teams), which is written down, and the other type is the unwritten, informal psychological contract concluded between the members and the organisation (leader), determining their relationship (Sass, 2005). The work of Coyle-Shapiro and Parzefall (2008) gives us an insight into the historical development of the psychological contract. The excellent article can be read under the following link in English:
http://eprints.lse.ac.uk/26866/1/Psychological_contracts_(LSERO).pdf It has been already mentioned in the introductory chapter that the concept of the psychological contract is defined by Robinson and Rousseau (1994) in the following way: the perceived mutual obligations that characterize the employee’s relationship with his/her employer, where the psychological contract contains all the beliefs concerning what the 16
Although the term was first introduced by Argyris and Levinson in the form of psychological work contract, it was Rousseau who made it widely known in contemporary research dealing with organisational psychology (Lemir, Saba, 2005).
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employer and the employee are obliged to provide and what they are entitled to expect from one another. There are different types of psychological contracts. The following section describes the frameworks on these types suggested by Rousseau, Shore and Barksdale. Rousseau (1990, 1995) identified the following four types of psychological contracts on the basis of the dimensions of time frame and tangibility: a transactional, a transitional, a balanced and a relational psychological contract.
A transactional psychological contract comprises specific and detailed rules that are to be followed by employees, which means that individual decisions may not be made in situations to which they are applicable. In these cases, neither employers nor employees find it important to make new members become more committed ones (Mező, Kovács, 1999).
A relational psychological contract puts more emphasis on the freedom of members as individual solutions are important too. This type of contract is characterised by a great extent of flexibility and the ability to change to suit new situations (Mező, Kovács, 1999). Members are loyal to each other and mutually take care of one another, which enables them to put extra effort into their work in order to achieve goals. Relational contracts help employees internalise certain goals, those of their organisations, for themselves. This situation enables them to identify with their organisation and strengthens their commitment too.
A transitional psychological contract is characterised by insecurity in general, which means that the future of a member is unpredictable leading to low confidence; additionally goals are undefined as well. Members have little information about the organisation and the changes occurring there, which does not help them to consider their future to be predictable and secure.
A balanced psychological contract requires members to be able to undertake welldefined tasks, enabling them to develop their skills (while such organisations also provide courses and trainings for their employees), which is also advantageous for the organisation. Individuals are employed for a long period of time, which offers them future perspective and improves their commitment in this way too. Table 1: The types of psychological contract identified by Rousseau (1995) Well-defined goals
Undefined goals
Short-term Transactional
Transitional
E.g. completing a project
E.g.
work
in
an
organisation undergoing changes Long-term Balanced E.g. work
Relational
performance-based E.g.
emotion-based
work
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The second typology of psychological contracts was established by Shore and Barksdale (1998) (Janssens et. al, 2003). Based on the degree of balance and the level of obligations, they identified four types of contracts. 1. Mutual high obligations: this is a balanced type of psychological contract, and it is characterised by high levels of mutual commitment between members, creating the employees’ affective involvement, which also maintains their intention to stay. 2. Mutual low obligations: although this is a balanced type of psychological contract too, there are low levels of commitment between parties. Members are not involved emotionally. The remaining two types are not balanced: 3. Employee over-obligation: it is an imbalanced state when an employee is much more committed to an organisation than it is required, making the relationship asymmetrical. Such organisations do not wish to maintain relationships with individuals. 4. Employee under-obligation: this is the direct opposite of the previous type. An employer is more obliged than an employee, who does not want to be a member of the organisation, making the relationship imbalanced. As a matter of fact, only the first type creates optimal working conditions, also improving the performance of organisations (see Janssens, Sels, Van Den Brande, 2003). There is another widely-discussed topic in the research on psychological contracts, namely the consequences of the violation of such contracts (Turnley et al, 2003). According to the scholars dealing with this question, such violations affect the attitude and behaviour of members in a negative way: these occurrences diminish members’ satisfaction and trust, increase staff turnover, creating a negative atmosphere within the organisation. There are other researchers who also studies the effects of psychological contract violations (Lemire, Saba, 2005). The ones examining the cases of such violations at state-owned and private organisations concluded that these occurrences might lead to a decrease in mutual trust and affective commitment, as well as to the fall of organisations. In such cases, members consider what is going on at the organisation and weigh the current situation in order to make appropriate decisions after looking at organisational and locational factors carefully. Behaviour types following such situations are to be described later. Sharpe (2003) describes the components of psychological contracts from the perspective of the changes in working conditions. According to Sharpe, a psychological contract consists of the following key components: the environment, culture, the basics of reward, the components of motivation, the conditions of promotion, the delegation of tasks, mobility within the organisation, status, opportunities for personal development, responsibility, trust, and attachment (commitment).
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To conclude, we can see that psychological contracts in general aim to develop organisational commitment, which is mainly based on the existence of trust (between an organisation and its members) and satisfaction (that of an employee/member). Review questions: 1) What do we mean by psychological contracts? What is the role of such contracts in the case of sports organisations? 2) Give a specific example of the violation of psychological contracts in the case of sports organisations. 3) What might be the consequences of violating a psychological contract? 4) Name the types of contracts and commitment you are familiar with. How do these types affect the behaviour of members?
VI.2 Organisational socialisation In lucky cases, the emergence of an individual’s affective commitment to an organisation precedes his introduction to the organisation. Of course, the whole process is affected by the way one gets into an organisation. Most studies have found that the harder it is for applicants to become hired, i.e. through “challenging tests”, the more committed they become. These new employees value their new positions better than those getting a job by pure chance. It is not accidental then that applicants are tested in several distinct phases by headhunters/recruiters or the human resources staff of the organisation where they would like to work. Applicants are not only tested for professional knowledge or personal abilities, but they also undergo serious psychological tests, which is basically an early phase of organisational socialisation. A similar procedure takes place at sports organisations too, which include trial games and careful medical check-ups during which – if everything goes well – unaware athletes start getting to know the new club they are to be hired by. After the transfer of an athlete, however, the process of organisational socialisation accelerates, and a new member becomes informed about the club’s organisational structure at once. As detailed in a previous chapter, both written employment contracts and unwritten psychological contracts are concluded at the same time when a new player joins an organisation. It is often mentioned that right before the start of their work, fresh members get the opportunity to become acquainted with their new employer. For instance, newcomers at the Los Angeles Lakers receive a so-called playbook, which involves a compilation of basic strategies the team would like to use during games. What is more, the book also contains all the important information on the club, such as its history, structure, hierarchy, traditions, and the way it works. Every club should follow this example and publish a book like this, which would be of great use to new players who need lots of information on the club and help in the beginning. In this way, they might also learn whom to ask when they need help to cope with certain problems. Additionally, if we think it over, there may be several individuals coming 36
from other cultures who would be grateful to receive such publications, not mention the psychological advantages of the feeling of being taken care of by one’s club. Figure 13 represents the process of organisational socialisation.
Figure 13: The process of organisational socialisation When entering an organisation, newcomers start to familiarise themselves with their new workplace; however, there are cases when this process already begins in the form of presocialisation, which helps new members to fit in. Newly employed individuals get to know the culture, values, norms, rules of the organisation, as well as the way it works, and who they can turn to. This process can be speeded up by, for example, taking part in training camps, club events, etc. Following the completion of the first phase of socialisation, one is ready to occupy his new role in the organisation and identify with the same. Then, after a while, if everything goes well, a new member does not only identify with his new workplace but also becomes a follower who completely accepts and agrees with the organisation’s values, norms, and goals. The phases described above are similar in many aspects to Tuckman’s stages of group development (see Nagykáldi, 1998), which include four phases necessary for a group to turn into a well-functioning one. During the first phase, also known as forming, new members are eager to show their best behaviour, making a good impression on others. After a while, however, conflicts might arise among/between group members, who all “fight for” fulfilling an important role in the organisational hierarchy. This is the phase of storming. If members manage to resolve their differences, the stage of norming begins when every individual has his own place, role, or status within the group. Finally, when arriving at the stage of performing, the team is ready to function in an appropriate way, making every attempt to perform at its best. Time is required for teams to go through these stages. One should never
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expect a newly employed member to put in an excellent performance immediately. Newcomers need our help with fitting in, and experts should be aware of every detail. Review questions: 1) What are the phases of organisational socialisation? 2) What are the ways of helping a new player to fin in a sports organisation faster? 3) What are the stages of group development, and what is the role of a sports leader in this process? 4) Why are the procedures (test, interview, trial period) that applicants need to undergo before starting their employment are considered crucial?
VI.3 Leadership behaviour What makes a good leader? In the course of history, there have been a number of excellent leaders, great generals and statesmen making attempts to “influence”, control and monitor those being led by or subordinated to them and the way these people carried out the tasks and goals set for them. And the same is true these days. However, we have taken a long way to develop such theories like organisational theory or organisational psychology, which both claim that there is no such thing as a good or bad leader, only leaders acting in an effective and efficient way exist. Figure 14 below shows us two distinct descriptions of a good leader, which are quite interesting to study carefully as there are many decades of difference between the two.
Figure 14: What makes a good leader? Stuller’s (1980) and Fayol’s (1918) descriptions have a lot in common despite the fact that
the two scholars’ cultural backgrounds and the ages they were born in differ significantly 38
There have been a number of attempts to define leadership. According to Klein (2007:29), leadership may be described as a process of “achieving a goal through others’ help”. Individuals cooperate in order to reach a common goal by exploiting their abilities, energy, and talents. There is one aspect most scholars have the same opinion about, namely, it is the fact that it depends on the type of domain/environment/the “space” where leaders and those being led are present, which might be called an organisation. Figure 15 represents how the picture of a good leader has changed since the end of the 19th century in accordance with the ideological changes taking place in certain periods.
Figure 15: The evolution of the main models of leadership with special emphasis on those which are relevant to our research Figure 16, furthermore, provides us an interesting summary of leadership theories related to sports. The author creating the chart below considered leadership styles and characters from the perspective of sports teams; however, there are lots of common features if we think of leadership behaviours typical of sports organisations too.
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Figure 16: Leadership styles in sports (Murphy, 2005) It is commonly held that the responsibilities of leaders include the following: leading and coordinating activities, setting/delegating tasks, and checking/monitoring how these processes are carried out. One might be interested in asking what makes an ideal leader. Leaders of sports organisations definitely benefit from pursuing sports themselves, enabling them to experience at first hand how such organisations work. However, being successful on the international stage as a professional athlete does not make someone a well-trained leader. The two professions differ significantly. If we try to list the names of those ex-athletes who became excellent trainers, we might not be surprised to find few examples only. Turning into a leader is a process during which one improves partly his professional competencies (however, these might develop the less, as everyone becoming a leader should have a high level of professional expertise), and mainly his personal, decision-making, communicational and other competencies. On top of this, this process takes place in a special cultural environment (no matter whether we think of organisational cultures or national cultures) surrounding the organisation. There have been many occasions when really successful trainers did not manage to do well in another country. And this cannot be explained by one’s lack of professional skills. Early classical leadership theories failed to focus on individuals’ personalities. Only later did scholars attempt to list the characteristics (including external features) of a good leader. Figure 17 summarises what is described above.
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Figure 2: Is it enough for individuals to possess all the general personality traits attributed to good leaders? We can see that there was a need for new theories. These newly developed models typologised leaders on the basis of how they make decisions. Lewin identified the two wellknown but somewhat oversimplified leadership styles: autocratic and democratic (as a matter of fact, laissez-faire is not a leadership style but an experimental situation) styles. Then there were more scholars with new typologies, for instance, Likert and Tannenbaum (see Fig. 15), who further differentiated these styles, and that is how new versions of democratic and autocratic styles were created based on how much decision-making is shared. However, scholars did not find this new approach completely applicable. Therefore, Likert et al. established a new typology of leadership styles. They took into account whether leadership activities focus around the tasks to be carried out or personal relationships. The former style is called task-oriented leadership style, while the latter is known as relationship-oriented leadership style. The same typology was embedded later into the so-called contingency model. The two theories are based on the assumption that the success of a leader mainly depends on an appropriate match between a leader’s style and the demands of the situation. There have been an attempt to developed a taxonomy for describing leadership situations (the contingency model of Fiedler), the key components of which are the leader-subordinate relationship, the type of tasks and the formal power of the leader. In this framework, leaders should find the most appropriate leadership style matching the situation, which might be a task-oriented or relationship-oriented style. It has been investigated based on a large empirical database which leadership styles may work in which situations to achieve good results. The model, in most cases, is also applicable to the study of sports organisations; however there is a need for some fine-tuning. Furthermore, a new set of theories has also emerged in sports sciences focusing on coaches’ leadership styles such as the multidimensional model of leadership created by Chelladurai (see Figure 18). Using the Leadership Scale for Sport, there is an opportunity for coaches to characterise themselves, 41
as well as players can describe their coaches and the ideal coach of them on the basis of five factors (coaches’ behaviour during trainings, autocratic leadership styles, democratic leadership styles, positive feedback, social support). Then the results of the three surveys are compared (after statistical analysis) and contrasted in each category to find similarities and differences.
Figure 18: The multi-dimensional model of leadership created by Chelladurai The five leadership styles described by Murphy, see Figure 16, illustrate perfectly well how early leadership theories and new approaches might be adapted to the study of sports organisations. However, it should be noted that the impact of certain leadership styles on teams mainly depends on the type of organisation. Figure 19 represents the main components of leadership.
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Figure 19: The defining components of leadership styles We have referred to the notion of leadership a number of times so far without explaining what it means. Leadership is often used interchangeably with “management”. However, leadership means a lot more than management. As Bakacsi (1996:150) put it: “leadership is the ability of a leader to motivate the members of an organisation to achieve the goals set for them by their organisation.” It is also worth studying the figure below (Fig. 20) showing a comparison between the characteristics of effective and ineffective leadership styles on the basis of Likert’s description (Klein, 2007). As a matter of fact, it is crucial to differentiate between the notions of leadership and management. The former, as it has been described above, focuses on the activities of subordinates, changes, and the motivation of individuals, whereas the latter is about the coordination of an organisation, focusing on administrative tasks at an organisational level. Therefore we can deduce that being a leader or a manager differs too in terms of tasks, requiring different competences as well. Generally leadership is considered to include any possible abilities of a leader, including leadership psychological knowledge.17 We might have seen several experts, excellent Olympic champions, or members of national sports teams who have tried their hands at being trainers or club leaders but failed in their new positions. Although these individuals are professional athletes, being able to lead a team is a distinct profession, also known as leadership, which requires completely different skills.
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Bakacsi’s (1996, 2006) works further delineate the differences between the two concepts.
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Figure 20: The comparison of effective and ineffective leaders on the basis of Likert’s work (Klein, 2007) Review questions: 1) What do we mean by management and leadership? 2) What is the difference between a leader and a manager? 3) What are the defining components of leadership? 4) Does a good leader exist? If yes, what makes a good leader? 5) What is the difference between an effective and a less effective leader?
VI.4 Trust The expression trust is commonly used by trainers, players, and club leaders. In situations when a trainer is made redundant, results are declining or picking up, or a player is playing a lot or little, or the same athlete is doing badly or better, problems with/the improvement of trust within the team are often mentioned.18 Trust is a key factor in the lives of organisations, 18
The following sentences related to trust are taken from a Hungarian daily sport paper and are illustrative of how trust appears in communication in connection with performance: “I feel perfectly well here, and my trainer trusts me too, so I am planning to sign a contract for another two years.” “I am happy to be able to repay my trainer’s trust with scoring that goal.” “As my team’s members realised that their work pays off, they started to put trust in their joint efforts, and they were able to do anything they wanted.” “Unfortunately, due to continuous bad results, the trainer lost the trust of the managers; therefore we signed a contract terminating his employment with mutual consent on this day.”
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including sports teams. The members and leaders as well as the players and trainers of sports organisations and teams are in interdependent relationships; they need each other to be able to achieve good results or function in a proper way. According to Deutsch (1973), trust is an especially important factor in teams that require high levels of cooperation: members need to know whether they can trust those individuals with whom they have to work together to be able to take the risks of cooperation (Tarnai, 2003). Does trust affect performance directly or indirectly? It is a generally accepted fact that an increase in the levels of trust within groups can improve the efficiency of group processes and members’ performance (Tarnai, 2003). However, it is not sure whether a higher level of trust is what makes performance better, or it only indirectly affects performance trough better group processes (such as changes in cooperation, decision-making, and effort put into work by employees). The results of the research conducted by Dirk (1999) proved that a group with a high level of trust does not perform better than a group with a low level of trust, but members are motivated to make joint efforts in the former case, which might boost performance too (see Sass, 2005). In the case of sports organisations, this outcome might be especially important as group members are able to focus on the accomplishment of other goals than their personal ones. However, they might also reach their personal goals through the achievement of the shared goals of their organisations.19 Members of a team should always maintain the feeling of being able to count on each other if needs be. The healthy functioning of a team requires mutual trust between players as well as between athletes and their trainers both on and outside the field. This is based on the assumption and expectation that ensure individuals that others will not do anything that would adversely affect those having trust in them (Tarnai, 2003). As a matter of fact, trust functions as an indicator based on previous experience reassuring members that the organisation will work in a proper way. It is by no chance that we can hear about conflicts countless times that arise between players20, the firing of trainers proposed by a team, the loss of trust on the part of players or trainers, or crisis within the management during which leaders are unable to decide whose side they should take. We might state that either the loss of trust or the building of trust can cost organisations dear. If we consider members’ willingness to cooperate, we can see that with a decrease in the level of trust, individuals tend to avoid situations in which they might become vulnerable or being exploited. So members seem to be reluctant to cooperate as it would be required from them in these cases (Tarnai, 2003). In addition to this, the presence of trust may also make members put more effort into their work, as they are only willing to make an effort if they feel that others also take equal part in all activities, which does not undermine their individual
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An organisation is only able to perform at its best if the personal aims of its members are the same as the goals of the organisation, or if members are capable of identifying with the goals of the organisation (Csepeli, 2004). 20 Hans Lenk studied the behaviour of the members of Olympic men’s rowing teams and world champions and found out an interesting fact, i.e. that conflicts arising during competitions seemed to be necessary for rowers to perform at their best (Mérei, 2006:316). However, one should also note that team sports belong to the category of interactive sports where higher levels of cooperation are required than in the case of summative (additive) or coactive sports.
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performance. It is an especially important factor in organisations such as sports teams where only cooperation can lead to success. The impact of the existence of trust within sports organisations can be summarised in the following way:
it improves team members’ willingness and abilities to cooperate, thus improving cooperation itself
it improves the exchange of information and communication between individuals, increases the number of interactions, thus decreasing the cases when conflicts arise due to inappropriate communication, gossiping, communicational failures, and misunderstandings
it facilitates the socialisation of new members and players, the acceptance of them, the maintenance of tolerance, thus improving organisational socialisation
it improves group cohesion and identity
it facilitates the work of trainers and leaders in finding solutions to professional problems (the delegation of certain tasks to players, etc.)
Does an ideal level of trust exist? Research established that either an extreme degree of trust or the lack of it might cause problems at interpersonal and organisational levels (Sass, 2005). Should a leader put too much trust in a player, he might have a really vulnerable position as a result, not being capable of making decisions in an objective way. As we can see it, an optimal level of trust or, as Sass (2005) put it, a certain degree of „objective distrust” undoubtedly fulfils a useful function. According to Deutsch (1973), if individuals do not believe that other members possess all the necessary abilities and motivation to work together with them in a successful way, it might alone hinder their cooperation a lot (Tarnai, 2003). In other words, should any player or member of a team or organisation have doubts about how well-prepared or committed their teammates, trainers or club leaders are, they will encounter difficulties in fitting in the team, even if they possess all the abilities and expertise necessary for perfect performance. Shamir, Lapidot (2003) and Sass (2005) established four distinct levels of trust within organisations. (1) A general expectation of trust originates from individuals dispositional tendency to trust, while (2) interpersonal trust exists in equal and hierarchical relationships, while (3) category-based trust is typical of groups and teams, and finally (4) system trust refers to the type of trust existing related to the organisation as a whole and the impersonal structures thereof (based on roles and rules). General trust is built on individuals’ general expectations of trust based on the patterns of their early relationships (Stack, 1983), enabling them to understand complex social situations in impersonal relationships. It refers to our trust concerning other people being on equal terms with us and the reliability of institutions and their members (Sass, 2005).
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Interpersonal trust changes a lot with the passing of time spent in various relationships or with individuals’ knowledge about others in these relationships. Present conditions and future expectations related to their relationships are weighed and assessed by members on the basis of past experience. If the emergence of interpersonal trust is limited, category-based trust will develop instead. This makes it possible for trust within a group to be established at once and speeds up the development of trust. Finally, systemic trust refers to individuals’ belief in the reliability of an organisation or a system being comprised of various parts, which is based on the assumption that everyone fulfils the role most suitable for him within the system, as well as individuals also hold that such systems observe all the rules required for their operation. McAllister (1985) differentiated between cognition- and affect-based trust when studying interpersonal relationships between members of organisations (Sass, 2005).
Cognition-based trust: refers to the reliability of others, or it might also originate from the fact that individuals consider others to be competent and reliable.
Affect-based trust: is developed during interactions with others, after placing more emotional investment into organisational relationships. Individuals might also express care and concern for the well-being of their partners, or they might contribute to the operation of an organisation by undertaking tasks voluntarily. Such results highlighted that employee relationships can be important in terms of how they impact performance (Sass, 2005).
Cognition-based trust and affect-based trust cannot be so strictly differentiated from one another in real life as the former is required for the development of the latter. In other words, in order to exhibit helpful and cooperative behaviour based on emotions in interpersonal relationships, one needs to have relationships characterised by a certain degree of trust based on expertise. This is especially important in the case of player-trainer relationships. It almost goes without saying that players decide to put their trust in their trainer when they find out about the individual’s professional preparedness (for instance, a trainer works out winning tactics for a team, or holds high-quality trainings during which players are able to feel their own development, etc.). This is something that club leaders should also bear in mind. In hierarchical relationships, the development of interpersonal trust is affected by the fact that subordinates have limited opportunities to control the actions of their superiors, therefore when putting trust in other individuals, we might risk that they will take advantage of the situation. Placing trust in a superior depends on the person’s integrity, care, and goodwill. The feeling of risk-taking might be reduced by the perception of commitment, which is included in the psychological contract. Beccera and Huemer (2000) investigated the characteristics of trust shown by employees towards their employers. Based on their study, they concluded that the higher levels of interpersonal trust encourages more open communication with fewer emotional conflicts, and it also leads to higher risk-taking as well as faster decision-making. The main conclusion to be drawn is that trust facilitates the development of better work relationships at all levels, which might also improve performance in general.
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Whitener et al. (1998) studied the risks taken by superiors when putting their trust in subordinates in hierarchical relationships (see Sass, 2005). They established that the person who puts his trust in anyone first also runs the risk that it may not be reciprocated. The competences required to fulfil their roles and the cooperation of subordinates affect the risktaking behaviour in a positive way, whereas the possible costs incurred by someone’s taking advantage of an individual’s willingness to trust him affects the same negatively. According to Sass (2005), “there are two key factors affecting the way interpersonal trust changes: the cognitive and emotional components of trust and the social embeddedness of relationships and systems. As a result, through obtaining information and gaining experience, the levels of trust may rise or fall.” As we can see it, trust in relationships and the levels of trust are also dynamically changing factors in the lives of organisations and their parts, which should be strengthened again and again. Figure 21 represents the stages of the development of trust.
Figure 21: The dynamic process of the development of trust
VI.4.1 The development of trust “The building of trust is a slow and continuous process, whereas the consequences of taking advantage of one’s trust might be fast and dramatic. Trust is difficult to be restored, and the willingness and conviction of both parties are needed to do so.” (Mező, 2000:30) Trust normally becomes an issue when a new player or trainer joins a team. According to the theories on the emergence of trust, we can say that the process itself is made up of more stages, including certain presuppositions and calculative elements, being formed by several interacting factors affecting trust. We might expect that the levels of trust in newly formed interpersonal or individual-organisational relationships are rather low in most cases. However, research has proven the contrary (Tarnai, 2003): fresh relationships are 48
characterised by higher levels of trust (or we can also see it as an attitude of “suspended distrust”21), which can increase or „disappear” with time. According to McKnight et al. (1996), certain elements related to organisational factors and cognitive processes may also influence the levels of trust in the beginning. The levels of trust in the beginning can be increased in the case of sports teams when individuals believe that their team is controlled appropriately and situations are dealt with similarly (which means that members assume that everything will work smoothly in their new team). A similar rise occurs in trust levels when a new member puts himself in the same category as his teammates, which means that they share the same goals and values. Zucker (1986) put special emphasis on the importance of similarities (age, qualifications, sports, club, etc.) and the feeling of mutuality (through a process or experience) in the development of trust (see Tarnai, 2003). Research conducted by Johnson-George and Swap (1982) on the significant other and by Rempel et al. (1985) on domestic relationships also identified the same key factors mentioned above that facilitate the emergence of trust (Sass, 2005). Trust starts to develop when individuals interact for the first time on the basis of the consistency of the behaviour (predictability) exhibited by the partner. If no inconsistent information is received concerning someone’s reliability, trust continues to deepen. And as long as individuals’ experience harmonizes with their expectations, the emotional component of trust becomes of central importance, while the presence of the cognitive component may be suspended. Finally, once the relationship is set up, we have “faith in the other person”, which is manifested in the way we take care of others or return care and so on. The degree of existing trust can also increase if one’s previous assumptions are confirmed. Trust can also become unstable if the level of risk is high in the beginning, and expectations are not met. According to Siegel, Brockner and Tyler (1995) (see Mező, 2000), trust functions as an attributional framework that has an impact on the interpretation of anything that happens in an organisation. Trust at the same time is especially fragile, which means that if anyone takes advantage of it, one feels to be betrayed. In such cases, trust is destroyed, and distrust will take its place in the attributional framework. For that matter, transactional contracts are used to prevent such problems trough setting rules concerning anything that could be amiss so as to have an organisation which operates in a fair way. 22 It might be interesting to see how organisations differ in terms of how much freedom certain employees can enjoy: there are cases when trust is lost easily, and there are cases when trust is maintained for a really long time. It is also worth examining how players earn the trust of their trainers and how long trust exists between them. Whitener et al. (1998) studied the way leaders put their trust in employees and described how trust develops on the part of leaders in their theoretical framework known as Leader-Member Exchange (LMX) Theory23. According to them, there is 21
It is also worth comparing this point with the theory developed by Jones and George (1998): when relationships are fresh, the “suspension of distrust” is at work, which is followed by the stage known as conditional trust when experiencing that others have the same thoughts and feeling as we do. This generates positive feelings in individuals, who would like to maintain the relationship. Provided this condition remains, and it is not threatened by anything, unconditional trust might emerge (Sass, 2005). 22 See also Mező (2000): A szervezeti élet igazságossága [The fairness of organisational life], PhD dissertation, Debrecen. 23 Leader Member Exchange, in Robbins, Judge (2007): Organizational Behavior, Prentice Hall, p. 414.
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an inner circle of employees with whom a leader has a closer relationship. Leaders share more administrative duties with these individuals. Furthermore, they take part in decisionmaking; and due to their positions, higher levels of responsibility is also given to them. At the same time, there is an outer circle of employees, who have weaker relationships with trainers, and these individuals can be considered the ones who simply perform their tasks. Much lower levels of trust characterise them then those in the previous group. Those belonging to the in-group might be more satisfied with their positions and tend to remain members of the organisation for a long time. They are also capable of performing better (with greater effort). However, leaders might risk to be exploited in the beginning in these relationships, and chances are that their trust will not be reciprocated. This model can be applied to the study of sports teams where we can find in-groups, the members of which are closer to their trainers. These individuals are typically older and more experienced players (“a council of players”), who have already earned the trust of their trainers having proved their talent. And the rest of the team members are mainly responsible for performing tasks only. According to Sass (2015:15), systemic trust refers to “the belief shared by the members of an organisation, which is based on the interpretation of any experience that individuals have had or perceived since joining the organisation, including the positive expectations of individuals related to the reliability of the organisation that is made up of various parts as well as several cognitive and emotional elements.” Systemic trust can be categorised in the following way on the basis of its object which might be related to three distinct aspects in the case of organisations, including sports teams too: the operation of an organisation (department, club, or team), the direct leader (trainer), and the group of employees (a group of players, a team). Trust related to the operation of an organisation is not really relevant in the case of sports organisations. Even though a sports team “uses” the emblem or the name of a club, its operation is not tightly related to that of the club; the latter might be seen as an independent department or business entity. Therefore what we should mean by an organisation in this case is a department or a team. When examining the development of trust in sport, we should rather focus on the existence of interpersonal trust (1) between players within a team or the presence of trust between players and their trainers. What is more, I also find it important to take a look at the trust existing between players, trainers and their club (department), or, in other words, the trust related to an organisation (systemic trust) too (2). What I claim here has also been proven by the research I have conducted so far, focusing on the patterns of systemic trust in the case of sports teams. Figure 22 shows the consequences of the development of trust and distrust.
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Figure 22: The consequences of the development of trust and distrust in organisations
VI.4.2 Trust as a cohesive force within a group A strong basis of team cohesion is really important in sports teams, especially in the case of those groups where high levels of cooperation are required (see the section describing interactive sports teams). There are basically two interrelated factors that mainly influence group cohesion (Nagykáldi, 1998). One of them is known as social cohesion (meaning that teammates belong to the group because they enjoy themselves as members of the same company). The other one is called task cohesion (members are committed to reach a goal together). Both should exist ideally. If we only focused on the development of social cohesion, the accomplishment of tasks would be of second importance, which would affect the performance of the team adversely even if members enjoyed themselves together. However, due to their poor results, the emotional background of such teams would also be affected with time, which could lead to the weakening of relationships at the same time. If task cohesion were stronger within a team, there would not be any reason for members to stay together after achieving their goals. In addition to this, positive emotional ties might also encourage members to survive failures. Review questions: 1) What do we mean by trust? 2) What kind of levels of trust are there within an organisation? 3) How does organisational trust develop? 4) How are interpersonal and affect-based trust related? 51
5) How do the changes in the levels of trust affect the operation of a sports organisation? 6) How could trust be restored? 7) What kind of factors might lead to the strengthening of trust?
VI.5 Satisfaction A number of studies on trust (Feinstein, n.d., Moynihan, Boswell, Boudreau, 2000) indicated that it is closely related to satisfaction.24 This is also proven by everyday experience related to sports: players frequently claim that how they feel in a team mainly depends on their satisfaction with certain situations, conditions, etc. However, researchers propose that there are many other factors affecting satisfaction such as players’ opportunities to play, “working conditions” (training fields, locker rooms, equipment, teammates, pay, etc.), or the appropriateness of the role players fulfil in their team, that is all their well-functioning interpersonal relationships, etc. One might also be interested whether club leaders are aware of these factors when they bring their players to book for their poor performance. Which of the elements described above are the most important? First of all, it is also worth devoting a little attention to the notion of employee/job satisfaction and some theories related to the same, which might help us understand the development of satisfaction within sports organisations.
VI.5.1 Some interpretations of satisfaction According to Csepeli (2003), the basis of an individual’s ability to identify with an organisation is job satisfaction, which should be underpinned by ethical elements mainly. Csepeli mentions the following consequences of the existence of such satisfaction: increased levels of general satisfaction, identification with the organisation and commitment. Being dissatisfied, on the other hand, may lead to the occurrences of absenteeism, inaccuracy, high staff turnover, and deviant behaviour. Klein (2007) believes that job satisfaction is such a general attitude that is the root of specific attitudes originating from three distinct areas (specific work factors, personal characteristics and group relationships outside of work). Locke (1979) defined job satisfaction as a joyful emotional state that derives from the fact that employees believe that their responsibilities at their workplace are characterised by those work values which they find really important, and these values are the same as the needs of individuals (see Kiss B., 2003). Early studies by Taylor (1911) established that the higher salaries employees receive, the harder they will be willing to work; however, he did not pay any attention to the significance of other factors present at the workplace (such as working conditions, etc.). Later Elton Mayo’s Hawthorne Studies (conducted from 1924 to 1933) proved that employees are able to perform better if they are asked about questions concerning their lives, or if superiors are interested in their opinions. Researches claimed that the reasons for employees’ satisfaction 24
These are also known as attitudes towards organisations; and Staw (1977) was the first to realise that these are distinct elements, and their effects should be assessed and evaluated separately (János, 2005).
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could lie in their own life stories and their relationships with their colleagues. According to the Hoppock Study (1935), those workers are happier who are higher on the career ladder (which has also been confirmed by many so far) (Kiss B., 2003). Furthermore, Schaffer (1953), who studied the internal factors affecting job satisfaction instead of external ones, argued that if certain needs of individuals are not met, tension arises within them, which hinders the emergence of satisfaction. That is why many believe that the characteristics of motivation and the way certain needs appear and are satisfied speak volumes about how satisfied individuals are. There are two main types of motivation: drives and incentives. Drives (such as hunger or thirst) stem from the inner need-states of the human body. An incentive (such as a reward) is also related to need-states, but it is an external goal affecting individuals’ performance. Although work motivational theories differ in several aspects, they agree about one point: they do not approach work as sheer drudgery but rather as an activity containing positive incentives too (Kovács, 1996). Maslow's hierarchy of needs is a theory that is widely used in psychology as well as wellknown by the general public. According to Maslow (1954, 1970), motivation derives from various needs. These needs are arranged in a hierarchy with the physiological needs at the bottom, which are followed by the so-called safety ones. These are called basic needs. The third level of needs is known as social needs, which are followed by the needs for esteem (self-esteem), and the much-debated need for self-actualisation can be found at the top of Maslow’s “pyramid”. These are categorised as higher levels needs by the psychologist, who made the following three significant statements concerning the needs described in this section: 1) Needs that are not met affect how individuals behave. 2) Individuals systematically satisfy their needs; when basic needs are satisfied, higher ones take precedence. 3) The satisfaction of basic needs always come before the satisfaction of higher ones. This theory has been modified to be applicable to the study of employment a number of times so far. Provided that an employee receives low pay and feels insecure at his workplace, that individual will only focus on the fulfilment of his basic needs and will not be able to perform his tasks as required. However, if these conditions improve, the importance of relationships with one’s colleagues and leaders grows significantly. Finally, an employee might reach a state in which he is able to focus on his performance or his own actualisation. Through the satisfaction of needs, job satisfaction can also improve (Kovács, 1996). Addressing the deficiencies of Maslow’s model, Alderfer (1969, 1972) later established the so-called ERG motivation theory and condensed the five human needs into the following three categories: existence needs (all the material and physiological desires to survive), relatedness needs (all the relationships of individuals), and growth needs (all the desires related to the self-actualisation and the development of one’s skills). Unlike the hierarchical arrangement of needs in Maslow’s model, these needs are arranged along a continuum. Consequently, any type of need can take priority over the others. According Maslow, the less our needs, for example, one’s social needs, are satisfied, the more we long for their
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fulfilment. Alderfer claimed that the less an individual’s needs, for instance, relatedness needs, are fulfilled, the more such a person wishes to have his existence needs satisfied. While work motivation only indirectly encourages people to carry out their tasks, achievement motivation directly improves the results of one’s work in terms of quantity and quality (Klein, 2007). “McClelland and his associates proposed that achievement motivation improves one’s performance in activities in which the individual is likely to succeed or fail, or it enables the person to perform much better in such situations” (Klein, 2007:299). According to Deci’s self-determination theory (1975) (Kovács, 1996), an individual’s motivation to make an effort when carrying out certain activities stems from distinct intrinsic and extrinsic motives. People are extrinsically motivated when being rewarded for the accomplishment of tasks (e.g. receiving a sum). And individuals are intrinsically motivated if they do an activity that they enjoy at the same time. Deci held the accomplishment of tasks that is intrinsically motivated to be really successful, and employees are more willing to perform their tasks in this way. The researcher also claimed that intrinsic motivation declines as soon as one’s achievement is rewarded externally (Kovács, 1996). These results can also be detected in the case of young athletes starting their careers. As long as players are young and pursue sports for pure enjoyment (for instance, they like playing football), they do not mind doing what is required from them. However, as soon as they receive any external feedback or reward (such as money) for doing well or scoring a goal, they will not necessary play sports for its beauty, but they will be motivated to make more money. After a while, it may also become questionable in such cases whether these athletes still like the sport they are doing or consider this activity as a source of income only. Herzberg (1959) was the first to further develop Maslow’s theory to study job satisfaction and constructed a two-dimensional paradigm of factors affecting the same. This is one of the most well-known models today, but there has been much debate on the theory at the same time. It is a two-factor theory proposing that satisfaction and dissatisfaction are not on a continuum (which means that they are not direct opposites of one another) but exist on separate scales. Therefore, we can talk about a satisfaction scale with the two end points: satisfaction and lack of satisfaction, while the other scale is about dissatisfaction, the end points of which are dissatisfaction and lack of dissatisfaction. Satisfaction is based on the presence of the socalled motivators, which are similar to Maslow’s human-specific needs (e.g. promotion, recognition, fame, etc.). And dissatisfaction results from the absence of the so-called hygiene factors, which are similar to the non-human-specific needs (e.g. pay, physical working conditions, social environment, employer-employee relationship, etc.) on the basis of the Maslowian typology. If motivators are present, individuals are satisfied with their jobs. However, if motivators are missing, satisfaction will be missing too. Job satisfaction depends on the presence of hygiene factors; positive ones lead to lack of dissatisfaction but do not generate satisfaction. Motivators, on the other hand, improve employees’ performance, while hygiene factors can only eliminate dissatisfaction without creating satisfaction or any improvement in the way one works, see Figure 23.
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Figure 23: Herzberg’s two-factor theory Source: http://catalog.flatworldknowledge.com/bookhub/reader/7?e=collins-ch07_s03 Both need and motivation theories build on the assumption that human beings are encouraged to act by intrinsic motives, the satisfaction of their own needs, or the sheer enjoyment of what they are doing. The Goal Setting Theory, established by Locke (1986), approaches the same issue from a different aspect. This theory argues that the harder it is to accomplish a task, the better performance may become. “Locke believed that the degree of commitment towards a goal is proportionate to the difficulty of the accomplishment, that is to say tasks that are not easy to fulfil require higher levels of commitment” (Kovács, 1996:105). On the basis of this theory, individuals are not motivated by the satisfaction of their needs or the gaining of enjoyment, but human beings are rather motivated by setting realistic goals and making an effort to reach them (Kovács, 1996).
VI.5.2 Personal and organisational factors affecting satisfaction A number of factors affecting job satisfaction have been identified by researchers so far. It is worth highlighting those features that are present in almost each and every model. Apart from external factors, there are personal characteristics influencing employee satisfaction (Klein, 2007). Such factors are the following: the characteristics of the job: the more varied tasks are, the higher satisfaction becomes. The type of management/leadership: leaders that consider the opinions of employees, and those who delegate administrative tasks to workers generate higher levels of satisfaction too. Pay and chances of promotion: both are associated with satisfaction, affecting it predominantly but not exclusively. Colleagues: being a member of a good community is able to counterbalance the adverse effects of several negative factors.
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Researchers in the beginning only put emphasis on the study of the work itself, i.e. the tasks of employees. Only later did they realise that employees themselves are also significant “variables”. It is important because the same job may generate satisfaction in certain individuals and dissatisfaction in others. The following three personal factors are highlighted by most research (Klein, 2007): 1) Age: there is a positive link between age and job satisfaction until the age of retirement, where strong decline can be experienced. 2) Educational level: there is a negative/inverse relationship between educational level and job satisfaction, especially in terms of payment. 3) Gender: women are generally more satisfied compared with men when gender is the only variable in the research; however, results have not proved this statement obviously. According to Farrell (1983)25, satisfaction and dissatisfaction might have unique behavioural consequences too. The following types of employees are distinguished by him: outwardlooking, opinion leader, loyal, and negligent workers. I find the discussion of this topic relevant here because the characteristics of these types show themselves in the degree of individuals’ commitment, and such features can also describe the consequences of the breach of a psychological contract. These types of behaviours can be arranged along two dimensions: constructive-destructive and active-passive. An outward-looking employee: tends to leave the organisation as soon as possible as he prefers looking for new opportunities all the time. Typical behaviour: quitting (which is generally the last step following the breach of the psychological contract). An opinion leader: is an active and constructive employee. Such a worker takes part in the discussion of problems and makes suggestions concerning the improvement of working conditions and innovations at the workplace. Typical behaviour: initiative; through the framing of “the violation of a contract”, trust might be restored and possible losses can also be decreased. There are constant changes in the relationship between such members and the organisation, which makes it sustainable. A loyal employee: is a passive but optimistic individual who expects working conditions to improve and trusts the leadership of the organisation. The relationship between such members and the organisation as well as the psychological contract with them are sustainable but not without conflicts. A negligent employee: does not mind if things go wrong at the workplace. They are not interested in the future of the organisation. Such employees tend to make a lot of mistakes when they are in. They are notorious late-comers and slackers. This behaviour occurs when members do not have the opportunity to report the breach of the psychological contract and conflicts become deep-rooted.
25
Robbins, Judge (2007): Organizational Behavior, Prentice Hall, p. 89
56
Many have investigated whether satisfaction leads to better performance. According to the findings of the studies conducted by Judge, Thoresen, Bono, and Patton (2001)26, it can be claimed that there is a strong positive correlation between the two factors, which means that organisations with a lot of satisfied employees are much more efficient and successful than those having a number of dissatisfied workers. The presence of satisfaction, trust and commitment are crucial in every organisation from the viewpoint of employees to be able to put more effort into their work and identify with the goals and values of their organisation. Individuals who are satisfied with their job and work in a really trustful atmosphere might also become more committed to the organisation (János, 2005).
VI.5.3 Possible sources of satisfaction in sports organisations Job satisfaction has become an extremely popular research topic in the field of work and organisational psychology. Although job satisfaction used to be considered as a consequence of certain factors in the beginning, several studies have been published – mainly abroad – these days that approach the same as an independent variable, examining job satisfaction separately (Klein, 2007). However, Hungarian research on professional sport has only seldom analysed satisfaction as a factor enhancing performance. There are managers (in rare cases) and specialists focusing on this issue (often team psychologists are responsible for such examinations too) hired for this purpose in foreign teams. 27 Based on this brief literature review and practical experience, it might be claimed that players’ satisfaction in their club and team depends on a number of inter-related factors. It also goes without saying that the meeting of needs is as important in sport as the undertaking of tasks that match the abilities of athletes. An athlete’s relationship with his trainer, as well as the professional (a trainer’s wellpreparedness enables players to perform better) and emotional (how understanding, tolerant, etc. a trainer is, which does not require him to have an endearing attitude towards players) aspects of such a relationship are determining factors in the way satisfaction emerges. There are examples of pros and cons concerning the emotional significance of finances: there are players who find money the most important thing, while others do not mind earning less but would not be able to quit their team. Satisfaction may also stem from having good relationships with teammates, which does not only have emotional but also professional aspects, as a player can only be successful if other members of his team have appropriate skills. Of course, the chances of moving up the career ladder might also motivate certain players (healthy competitors most of all), mainly in personal respects, which can also improve the position of a team a whole.
26
Robbins, Judge (2007): Organizational Behavior, Prentice Hall, p. 89
27
Such experts are able to facilitate the socialisation of new players. They can also give them advice on the way they should handle certain situations within their club or might mediate between players and leaders/trainers; or they could prevent certain conflicts within the team, etc.
57
Review questions: 1) What does satisfaction mean, and what kind of factors might affect it in sports organisation? 2) What kind of organisational behaviour might be generated by an individual’s satisfaction or dissatisfaction? 3) What other organisational factors is satisfaction related to? 4) How does leadership style influence individuals’ satisfaction? 5) How do finances (payments or bonuses) influence the satisfaction and motivation of a member of an organisation? 6) How does satisfaction affect an individual’s commitment towards an organisation?
VI.6 Justice28 „Sport is an abstract notion most of all. A sports team is the miniature picture of society, and a contest is the symbol of the grand struggle for life. Here, during the contest, sport teaches the most important civil virtues within a short time: cooperation, self-sacrifice, the subordination of individual needs, endurance, the readiness to act, the way quick decisions are made, personal judgement, absolute respectability, and, above all, the rules of fair play, i.e., the rules of the grand game.”(Albert Szent-Györgyi, 1930)29 International experience shows that although Hungarian sports teams still have leading positions in certain sports and internationally recognised results in some sports (such as water polo or handball), there is an urgent need for the application of new and exact findings of the studies in sports science in order to maintain such positions and catch up with other sports teams (for example, in basketball, football, or volleyball). Furthermore, one should also bear in mind that there have been several alternative techniques these days, thus sports experts should weigh in each case which one is the most suitable for practical use. The aim of this chapter is to discuss players’ perception of ethical (or unethical/unfair) decisions within an organisation that is not frequently manifest but rather latent. To this end, the results of questionnaires partly validated by others and some validated by us have been used as a new method. The notion of fairness does not only appear in ethics, law, or politics, but it is also present in the case of sport. Justice/fairness provides a normative description for individuals to be able to decide whether certain situations concerning them and their actions are considered “ethical” or “unethical” according to certain rules and values.
28
On the basis of the work written by László Balogh and Andrea Rédli (2010) The complete speech can be downloaded from the following link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pTtOEUwjjEs 29
58
George C. Homans (1961) described to notion of justice in his book entitled Social Behavior: Its Elementary Forms. He studied the perceived fairness of how rewards and costs are shared by groups and group members. He was the first to introduce the rules of distributive justice, and illustrated the application of the same in various social contexts (Deutsch, 1982). Homans also stated the following concerning distributive justice:
The distribution of rewards is unjust if one individual receives a bigger share than expected compared with the share received by another.
It might be expected by employees to have such shares of rewards and costs that are proportionate to the ratio of their gains and losses.
Individuals who feel to be treated in an unjust way and are filled with anger and try to express their feelings to make those who are responsible know about it.
Those who are unfair to others tend to feel guilty and normally make attempts to compensate for one’s loss.
We tend to compare ourselves to the people around us when trying to decide about the fairness of the distribution of rewards.
J. Stacy Adams (1965) used the notions of inputs and outcomes in his theory, which is built on Festinger’s Cognitive Dissonance Theory. According to this model, individuals tend to compare themselves to others around them all the time. Unjust treatment occurs if one’s input/outcome ratio is less/more than that of another individual’s, i.e., there is inequality between one’s own and another person’s input/output ratios. Adams also suggested that it is not only the absolute amount of rewards that counts, but it is the relative amount that is critical when equity is estimated. This approach is based on the assumption that people are motivated to maintain meaningful relationships with others (in which they feel to be treated justly), and they make attempts to change any relationship that lacks such qualities (in which they feel to be treated in an unjust way). There are three main types of justice: 1) Distributive justice 2) Procedural justice 3) Interactional justice (interpersonal and informational) 1) Distributive justice: outcomes and the results of distribution are of key significance (for instance, pay, bonus, money paid after matches) Are resources distributed equally according to the principles shared by all the members of a group? Do members receive the amounts they expect? There are several principles and factors that might influence decision-making in such cases. Principles of distribution: I.
Proportionate to performance: the more one performs, the more he will receive. 59
II. Equality of distribution: everyone receives an equal share of rewards, regardless of how much input they have in the accomplishment of a goal. III. Distribution according to needs: those members may obtain bigger shares of resources who are in greatest needs, regardless of how much input they have in the accomplishment of a goal. According to Deutsch (1982), the principles of distribution are generally applied on the basis of the relationships between parties: the distribution of rewards is proportionate to performance/inputs in competitive relationships, whereas rewards are distributed equally in cooperative relationships. In addition to this, relationships based on emotions are characterised by the distribution according to the needs of individuals. There are disadvantages of each type of distribution too. Distribution proportionate to performance generates too much competition, envy and enmity in sports or in individuals’ private lives. Equal distribution creates the possibility of stowaway behaviour, which means that certain individuals might invest a smaller amount of input into the accomplishment of a task, and it is impossible to differentiate between their performance and that of others. The last principle, i.e., the distribution according to the needs of employees might offend one’s sense of justice. The fairness of distribution might be classified into the following 4 categories on the basis of whom it concerns (Eckel-Grossman, 1997, see Faragó, 2003): 1. Fairness to oneself: one weighs whether rewards and costs are allocated fairly, which includes the comparison of one's own outcomes to others' outcomes. (Adams, 1965) 2. Fairness to others (altruism): an individual also focuses on others when the allocation of rewards and costs takes place at his expense (giving something away). 3. Fairness to ourselves: parties expect others to return their kindness. 4. Fairness to everyone: at the expense of individuals, everyone receives equal amounts of shares when rewards and costs are distributed according to social norms (or those of the team). Fairness usually comes under scrutiny when any unfavourable situation takes place. Parties who are concerned might be influenced by egocentric bias, and they tend to favour circumstances that are beneficial to themselves and consider unfavourable ones to be unjust. The occurrence of such biases might give rise to a number of conflicts. If an individual is treated in an unjust way, he will react to that somehow (Sass, Bodnár, 2008). How do we normally respond when treated unfairly?
We tend to modify our inputs.
We tend to convince others to punish those who work less or invest a smaller amount of input.
We tend to lower performance.
We tend to encourage others to invest a larger amount of input.
60
We tend to decrease the amount of shares that others receive from the total amount of rewards.
We tend to join another group, leaving the problems behind.
We tend to look for more suitable employees/colleagues.
2) Procedural justice: refers to the fairness of the processes by which decisions are made (for instance, how certain tasks are allocated, or on the basis of what players are chosen for a starting lineup, whom are called upon to play as substitutes during a game, etc.). Trust, the development of which has been described in a previous section, mainly appears in the case of the evaluation of this type of justice. The fairness of a leader or a trainer is judged on the basis of how honest and believable the intentions of such individuals seem to be. Apart from trust, decision-making based on integrity and objectivity is of key importance. Procedural justice might apply to the following:
Values – what kind of values determine how decisions are made (abilities, effort)
Rules – the construction of rules according to a group’s shared principles (the number of references to other cases or their importance when evaluating a situation)
The observation of rules – how much rules are followed by members
The unfairness of decision-making processes – although individuals or players agree with the principles and rules and the observation of the same, they think they are responsible for the creation of all the rules and principles
The perception of the fairness of certain procedures also depends on the so-called structural factors, for example:
the publicity and traceability of judgement/evaluation
the impartiality of those who evaluate (unbiased individuals) it
democratic decision-making processes
unbiased (based on precise information)
ethical (the maintenance of moral norms)
the chances of correction (possibility of modification)
consistency (no conflicting features, reliability)
attention is paid to the interests of every concerned party (Lenethal, 1976, in Mező, Kovács, 1999)
Other important aspects:
reasons are given, choices are justified
correct treatment 61
regular feedback (Folger-Bies 1989, see Mező, Kovács, 1999)
People find it especially important to be treated in an appropriate way when issues that concern their lives are discussed, and they also expect others to respect human rights and dignity at the same time. These social-interactional elements are related to relationships. Procedural justice is one of the primary conditions for the emergence of trust towards an organisation, club or management. According to the findings of a study (Mező-Zala, 2000), procedural justice has proven to be more important for individuals than distributive justice. 3) Interactional justice: It refers to the quality of communication experienced by individuals (team members, trainers, club leaders). Interpersonal justice reflects the degree to which people are treated with respect during any procedure. The clarity of communication: individuals avoid the use of inappropriate language and remarks. Informational justice ensures honest and open communication while reasons and justification are given and players receive adequate information when listening to explanations (for example, trainers pay attention to any suggestion of a player). Appropriate explanations should be given prior to and during any procedure too. Annex 1 summarises the results of a study conducted among national sports teams. This research was carried out in two phases. First of all, attempts were made to identify and categorise those unjust situations that the most frequently occur in sports organisations having interactive sports teams. Then a questionnaire was compiled on the basis of the received answers. The theoretical background of the Questionnaire on Organisational Justice enables us to analyse this key component of psychological contracts. It is advisable for sports leaders and trainers to study the factors listed in the questionnaire carefully in order to see a number of hidden components which are present in the daily workings of organisations affecting organisational behaviour. Justice and organisational fairness are two factors that should receive much more attention; however, research into these issues has only been conducted for some decades now in Hungary, which also proves how relevant our findings are. Review questions:
1) When do individual feel to be treated in an unjust or unfair way? 2) What precedes and follows such treatment? 3) What are the main types of such treatment, and how do they appear in the case of sports organisations?
4) What can sports leaders learn from the findings of the research mentioned above?
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VI.7 Commitment VI.7.1 Organisational commitment30 What kind of principles and factors determine one’s commitment to an organisation? How does such commitment emerge? What consequences are there? Is it possible to develop or strengthen an individual’s organisational commitment? There are questions of such kind which researchers have been interested to answer. It is also worth watching the video under the link below which shows how the new player Gareth Bale, the most expensive transfer for the club, was presented to Real Madrid supporters. The way he was introduced to his fans also included several gestures, elements, movements reflecting how the club supports him, which strengthened the new footballer’s emotional commitment to his new club too. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5mMKxU98fWA Forgas (1994) proposed a strong correlation between group cohesion and commitment: the members of a group neither have the same interests in the team nor they are equally committed to the same. The degree of group cohesion depends on how committed members are towards the norms and goals shared by a team, and what kind of positive feelings they have towards each other and the community. Such positive feelings have a strong impact on the performance of a group according to Forgas (1994). Research conducted by Aronson and Mills (1981) demonstrated that mental effort is also an important factor in the emergence of commitment: the more challenging it is for individuals to become members of a group, the more committed they become. Forgas illustrated the same effect in the following way: “interestingly, we really respect as well as are committed to those groups which we manage to join by making sacrifices or special effort.” (Forgas, 1994:325) Strict training and the shared experience of combat bind members of military groups together, and these individuals are more satisfied with and attracted to these groups than to other groups in their private lives. The players of sports teams might feel similarly: they have to face physically demanding trainings and fight trough matches again and again just like soldiers do. On the basis of this, it can be assumed that the members of sports teams are attracted to their group much more than to other groups in their private lives. Kiestler (1971) and Kanter (1972) had the same conclusions in their studies (see János, 2005) which focused on the commitment of the members of distinct sects. They established that the often painful and demanding secret initiation rituals for new members generate extremely strong commitment in people (which, in certain cases, might lead to mass suicide). Members seem to be motivated to become committed in order to reduce their cognitive dissonance (which means that they make stronger attempts to like something they suffered a 30
There are some words with similar meanings in Hungarian, referring to certain types of commitment. These are “elkötelezettség”, “elköteleződés”, and “kötődés”; however, the word „elkötelezettség” should be used in this context. Similar differences can be found in the meaning of the words „commitment”, „engagement”, and „attachment” in English, but it is “commitment” which should be used here too. (Nevertheless, it is also interesting that the French use the word “engagement” for the same phenomenon.)
63
lot for). Initiation rituals are not unknown to athletes, who have to undertake a wide variety of tasks when joining a new team. The studies conducted by Stouffer et al. (1949) on the battlefield showed that soldier do not fight and risk their lives because they believe in their final success, but they do so as they are committed to the unit they fight in and identify with it (Forgas, 1994). Being a member of a group helps an individual to survive life-threatening situations by ensuring emotional security and strengthening one’s commitment. Siebold (2007) also studied how military forces work and found that commitment within such units is based on social factors such as trust and cooperation.
VI.7.2 The concept of organisational commitment Organisational commitment has been defined in several distinct ways over the last couple of years (e.g. Meyer & Allen, 1991; J. P. Meyer, D. J. Stanley, L. Herscovitch, L. Topolnytsky, 2002, I. R. Gellatly, J. P. Meyer, A. A. Luchak, 2006, Mowday et al., 1979). Although a number of researchers have turned their attention to the examination of commitment, several contradictory findings are present even today. Different approaches, therefore, assume the significance of lots of different factors concerning the emergence of commitment, and the correlations between commitment and behaviour at the workplace are also described in many different ways. According to March and Simon (1958), the main predictors of organisational commitment are individuals’ active participation and good performance (see János, 2005). They put special emphasis on the significance of the following two dimensions of commitment: continuance commitment (which refers to an individual’s demands regarding the maintenance of his membership) and value-based commitment, which refers to one’s identification with the values held by an organisation, encouraging an employee to exert considerable effort into the accomplishment of certain goals on behalf of an organisation. Other researchers prefer one-dimensional approaches to two-dimensional views when studying organisational commitment. The definitions advanced by Mowday, Steers, & Porter (1979) are to be introduced here, as these are generally accepted by the scientific community. In their perspective, organisational commitment refers to two things: the individual’s identification with the organisation and the degree of employee involvement. Organisational commitment is thus made up of the following three components: 1) one’s strong belief in and acceptance of the organisation’s goals and values, 2) one’s willingness to make considerable effort on behalf of the organisation, 3) one’s strong desire to maintain membership in the organisation. The same components are mentioned by other experts too under different names. Table 2 summarises the components of commitment identified by other researchers. The main three dimensions are included in other models too, sometimes together as interrelated factors (for instance, Mowday et al.) and sometimes independently (for instance, Meyer, Allen).
64
Table 2: The types (and components) of organisational commitment identified by researchers on the basis of Meyer and Herscovitch (2001) Becker
Mowday
(1960)
al. (1979)
et Angle, Perry O’Reilly, (1981)
Penley,
Meyer, Allen Mayer,
Jaros et al. Meyer,
Chatman
Gould
(1991)
(1993)
(1986)
(1988)
Side-bet
“Global
theory
commitment Commitment Compliance ”
Value
Identification Moral Calculative
Schoorman (1992)
Emotional
Value
Herscovitch (2001)
Emotional
Commitmen
Continuance t profile
Continuance
to stay Internalisatio
Normative
Continuance Moral
n Alienating
VI.7.3 Antecedents of organisational commitment and its relation to other factors Factors affecting the emergence of organisational commitment have also been widely studied. The following factors were identified by Meyer et al. (1997) related to the development of organisational commitment31:
the matching of one’s scope of work and interests (1),
the harmony of values held by employees and leaders (2),
the consistency between employees’ presuppositions related to organisational culture and the actual characteristics of organisational culture (3),
the fulfilment of expectations concerning one’s workplace (4),
positive work experience (5),
the effect of attribution: the causes of the fulfilment of one’s expectations and positive experience are attributed to the organisation itself (6),
The perception of the commitment of the organisation: fair treatment of employees might indicate that an organisation is also committed to its workers (7).
Individuals’ freedom of choice: those who are able to decide which workplace to choose, seem to be much more committed (8), reduction of dissonance.
Folger and Konovsky (1989) did research into the relationship between organisational justice and commitment. They wanted to see how a pay rise modifies commitment (see Mező, 2000). In fact, they studied the effects of procedural justice. Finally, they found no correlation between the amount of pay rise and the degree of commitment. They rather concluded that respect towards workers and recognition matter more to employees. If employees’ goals 31
For further details see Mező (2000): A szervezeti élet igazságossága [The fairness of organisational life], PhD dissertation, Debrecen.
65
harmonise with those of an organisation, individuals become much more committed and are able to identify better with the organisation. An organisation will be more committed to its employees for a longer period of time in return. Mueller and others (1992) concluded that the degree of commitment mainly depends on one’s career, work, relationships with colleagues, working conditions, and the organisation employing the individual (Perry, 2004). Perry (2004) carried out research into how the trust between line managers and employees influence commitment. His findings suggested that the amount of time spent at one’s workplace, the amount of time spent with one’s manager, leadership justice, the fairness of superiors, the perceived fairness of cases when dismissal and reorganisation take place all affect the emergence of commitment. Interestingly, a number of researchers have identified similar variables when examining the development of commitment and trust (Perry, 2004). The following table gives a short summary of the results of the studies mentioned in the present section (see Table 3). Table 3: Other factors affecting organisational commitment identified by experts on the basis of Mező (2000) and Perry (2004) Researchers
Factors preceding the emergence of commitment and other factors correlating with the same
Mathieués
1. employee-employer relationship
+
Zajac, 1990
2. features of one’s job
+
Meyer, 1997
1. matching of personal features and the scope of activities
+
2. fulfilment of one’s expectations of the workplace
+/-
3. causal attribution few results and
+
4. organisational justice and support
+
5. retrospective rationalisation
+
1. perception of procedural justice
+
1. time spent with work
+
2. time spent with one’s superior
+
3. perception of leadership justice and fairness
+
4. perception of dismissal and reorganisation
-
Mueller et al.,
1. career
+
1992
2. work
+
3. personal relationships with co-workers
+
4. working conditions
+
5. organisation one is hired by
+
Nyhan, 1998
1. trust in one’s superior
+
Bashaw, Grant,
1. delegation of (administrative) tasks
+
1994
2. participation in decision-making
+
3. feedback from superiors
+
Folger
and
Konovsky, 1989 Perry, 2004
Lee
and
Olshofski, 2002
66
Katz and Kahn (1960)32 studied the relationship between group performance and the behaviour of leaders. Their findings can be summarised as follows: (a) a better leader tends to delegate a larger degree of authority, (b) subordinates of a better leader are under less strict supervision, (c) the leaders of groups that perform better are able to generate more cohesion at the group level, and (d) the leaders of successful groups are able to meet a number of responsibilities. The comparison of these findings to the results of the studies focusing on the processes during which commitment and trust emerge might also shed light on some interesting facts. We might draw a parallel between statement “a” and the importance of the delegation of tasks and employees’ participation in decision-making. Statement “b” may prove the significance of the existence of control and trust, i.e. low levels of control/supervision generate higher levels of trust and vice versa. Finally, there is a parallel between statement “c” and the fact that higher levels of group cohesion lead to higher levels of organisational commitment, which can also influence performance in a positive way.
VI.7.4 The three-component model of organisational commitment Meyer and Allen (1981) analysed a number of one-dimensional models of organisational commitment in order to detect different factors related to the emergence of this phenomenon in distinct theories. The following three types of commitment appeared in most of the studies they looked at: commitment based on emotions, commitment based on the calculation of costs, and commitment based on obligations. According to Meyer and Allen, these three types are present at the same time when organisational commitment develops; however, each component is based on different experience and does not affect behaviour in the same way. The three dimensions are defined in the following way: 1. Affective commitment: refers to the employee's positive emotional attachment to the organisation. Such an individual also strongly identifies with the goals of the organisation and desires to maintain his membership. Individuals are committed to an organisation because they “want to”. This dimension is based on Mowday et al.’s (1979) theory of commitment. to an employee’s commitment to an organisation due to the fact that he calculates how high the costs of losing one’s organisational membership are. Such considerations might include economic costs (for instance, pension accruals) and social costs (relationships/friendships with colleagues might cease to exist) too. Individuals feel that they “have to” commit to the organisation.
2. Continuance
commitment:
refers
3. Normative commitment: refers to an individual’s commitment an organisation because of feelings of obligation. Such feelings might derive from the fact, for example, that the organisation invested a certain amount of resources when employing the person (trainings, courses, etc.), which makes the employee feeling obliged to put considerable effort into the job and stay with the organisation until “repaying the debt”. Furthermore, such feelings can also stem from personal reasons, triggered by 32
Cartwright, Zander (1968): A vezetés és a csoportfunkciók ellátása, in Csoportlélektan, ed. F. Pataki, Gondolat, 1980.
67
some socialisation processes, or one wishes to remain loyal to his family or any other person. Therefore, the employee stays with the organisation because he "ought to" do so. These feelings arise out of a sense of duty or obligation. This particular component is affected largely by one’s personal experience, cultural background, and socialisation. There are cultures, for example, that of the Japanese, which are characterised by normative commitment, whereas affective commitment is typical of the Americans (János, 2005). Figure 24 represents different types of commitment in various models and the concept of the same.
Figure 24: A summary of how organisational commitment is defined by different scholars Meyer and Allen (1991) also studied how distinct commitment types affect employees’ behaviour at the workplace and the well-being of workers. The effects of affective commitment:
It correlates negatively with employees’ intention to quit
It correlates positively with work attendance, performance, organisational citizenship behaviour (OCB)33, and the health and well-being of employees
33
Organizational Citizenship Behaviour: can be defined as a certain type of behaviour that goes beyond the basic requirements of the job. The concept includes all the behaviours that are not explicitly recognized by the formal reward system of the organisation, but depend on the judgement of the individual and promote the effective and successful functioning of the organisation. Behaviours such as altruism, conscientiousness, courtesy, fair-mindedness, etc. all belong to this category. For further details, see Dennis Organ (1988) or the article under the following link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Organizational_citizenship_behavior.
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The effects of continuance commitment:
It correlates negatively with employees’ intention to quit
It correlates negatively or neutrally with attendance, performance, organisational citizenship behaviour (OCB), and the health and well-being of employees
The effects of normative commitment:
It correlates negatively with employees’ intention to quit
It correlates positively with attendance, performance, organisational citizenship behaviour (OCB), and the health and well-being of employees
Factors leading to/generating organisational commitment and the possible consequences of the same are represented by Figure 25 below.
Figure 25: The three-component model of organisational commitment on the basis of Meyer and Allen’s (1991, 1997) work Meyer and Allen (1991) assumed that the affective, continuance and normative commitment are clearly distinguishable components of commitment (see also Field, 2000). Later results of factor analysis mostly supported it (Dunham, Grube, Castenada 1994, Hackett Bycio, Hausdorf 1994, Meyer, Allen, Gellatly, 1990) 34. Further research has found that the correlation between affective and normative commitment is so strong that some people have
34
In Meyer, Stanley, Herscovitch, Topolniytsky (2002): Affective, Continuance, and Normative Commitment to the Organization: A Meta-analysis of Antecedents, Correlates, and Consequences, Journal of Vocational Behavior 61., 20-52.
69
raised the question whether there is a need for a separate measure to evaluate the normative commitment. Meyer et al (2002) have tested the validity of the three-dimensional model on broad empirical database. A questionnaire developed by Meyer and Allen (1991) was applied in this study, which allows the identification of the three previously mentioned components of commitment. The data obtained from the questionnaire was compared to the Organizational Commitment Questionnaire (referred to as OCQ). In doing so, the components and factors of commitment were compared on the basis of previous publications, by doing a meta-analysis. Those results are going to be highlighted below which are relevant to this book. OCQ35 highly correlated with the affective commitment (.88), showed medium correlation with normative commitment (.50) and negatively correlated with continuity (.-02). This confirms that the OCQ is actually closest to measuring affective commitment and high OCQ score can mean high affective and low continuance commitment. Researchers examined how job satisfaction and satisfaction with supervisors are related to the previously mentioned three components of commitment. Taking job satisfaction into consideration: it shows significant correlation with affective commitment (.65), moderate correlation with normative commitment (.31), and negative correlation with continuance (-.07). The relationship between satisfaction with supervisors and the three components can be interesting: it shows moderate correlation with affective component (.42), insignificant correlation with normative component (.13), and negative correlation with continuance (-.04). As it was also expected, job performance is positively, but not significantly correlated with affective (.16) and normative (.06) components, while it is negatively related to the continuance component (-.07). The above mentioned relationships can be seen in Table 436. Table 4. The relationship between the three components and other variables, based on Meyer et al (2001) OCQ
Job satisfaction
Satisfaction
with
supervisors Affective component
.88
.65
.42
Continuance component
.-02
.-07
.-04
Normative component
.50
.31
.13
35
Organizational Commitment Questionnaire, measuring organizational commitment, which captures the affective factor of the three components (Allen, Meyer, 1991). 36 Dunham, Gruber, Castaneda (1994) found that affective commitment can be the predictor of attitudes towards the organization by 72%, such as career-satisfaction, while normative commitment explains 36% and the continuance commitment explains 7% of the variance (In Robbins, Judge, 2007).
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Meyer and Herscovitch’s (2001) results make it possible to outline the commitment profile of the subjects. According to it, each employee at any time can be characterised by different values and levels of these three components which affect their workplace behaviour (work performance, truancy, absenteeism, resignation, terminating or leaving job). Consequently, it is possible to distinguish for example pure emotional (high AC37, low CC, low NC), clear continuance (low AC, high CC, low NC), and pure normative (low C, low CC, high NC) "commitment profiles" and their various combinations as well.
VI.7.5 6. Possibilities of measuring organizational commitment38 Below in the form of a non-exhaustive list I would like to introduce some questionnaires measuring the levels and types of commitment. As I described in the theoretical review, some researchers study so-called global commitment (also separating several areas of it), while others differentiate several dimensions. The different dimensions are very similar to the areas of the global commitment questionnaires. 1. OCQ (Mowday, Steers, Porter, 1979) The questionnaire consists of 15 items and measures global commitment based on how an individual identifies with the values and norms of the organization, whether (s)he is ready for the big effort to achieve the goals, and how strong is his/her desire to maintain membership in the organization. With regard to validity, commitment is positively correlated with satisfaction, perception of fairness in the workplace, and with LMX (leader-member exchange) 39. A shorter version of this questionnaire with 9 items is also known. 2. Measuring affective, normative and continuance commitment (Allen, Meyer, 1990) The questionnaire helps to measure the three-dimensional model created by the authors. In the original questionnaire, each component consists of eight items, while in the modified version (1997), there are only six items per component. 3. Measuring psychological attachment O'Reilly and Chatman’s (1986) 12 item questionnaire, which measures the above mentioned 3 dimensions (interest, identification, internalization). There are eight items in the identification-internalization dimension and four items in the interest dimension. 4. Organizational commitment Cook & Wall’s (1980) 9 item questionnaire measures a total amount of commitment through 3 dimensions: identification, involvement and loyalty, each dimensions consists of three-three items. 5. Organizational commitment scale (OCS)
37
AC: affective commitment, CC: continuance commitment, NC: normative commitment. Fields, D.L. (2002): Taking the meausure of work, Sage Publication, INC, 130-149. 39 For further details: http://changingminds.org/explanations/theories/leader_member_exchange.htm 38
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Balfour and Wechsler’s (1996) questionnaire consists of nine items, measuring three dimensions of commitment (identification, belonging and switching). The emergence and importance of organizational commitment in sports organisations As we referred to at the beginning of this chapter, players (and also coaches) often mention commitment when their performance is being evaluated. For example, when Ivan Helguera left his club, Real Madrid thanked in a message his excellent performance for many years, highlighting "the players' high level of commitment to the club". However, at the same time, their great opponent F.C. Barcelona (which lost the championship at the last minute against Real Madrid in the 2006/2007 season) issued that one reason behind their failure is that some players were not sufficiently committed to their club. That is why a council of coaches and five players is planned to be operated to avoid similar cases in the future. It is also often heard that commitment towards the goals (leauge championship, international cups) is important for players when selecting a new team (maybe the best example for this is the French Thierry Henry, the biggest star of the international football transfers in 200740). This term is used very often, but what is behind it? It can be certainly said: a club or team which wanted to achieve good results with purchased stars could rarely be successful. If they do not take time to introduce the club, the customs, its history, traditions and objectives41 etc. to the player before contracting (as this is actually an essential part of the organisational socialization), or they do not make an effort on developing affective commitment to his club and team then they will start with a drawback in the race which characterize professional sports. To develop commitment is not only important for the new and senior team members, but also for the junior ones. There are some clubs where it is considered important when selecting kids as well. Here is a story which tells the recruitment of Liverpool F.C. 10-12-year-olds were playing against each other, both teams wore the club's official football kit (red and white). The whites were defeated 5-1 and one boy (otherwise not awkward player) began to cry. The coach walked to boy and asked why he was crying so much. The child wiped his eyes and said it was because he disgraced his uniform. The coach took the child and said: "We need you." Additionally to this story, the child was Steven Gerrard, Liverpool idol today, Champions League winner, a captain, and despite being persistently asked by many other clubs (offering a lot of money to him), he stayed in his club.
VI.7.6 Relationship between satisfaction and organisational commitment Several research took a number of hypotheses so far to demonstrate the relationship between satisfaction and commitment (Vandenberg, 1992). (1.) Satisfaction causes commitment. (2.) Commitment causes satisfaction. (3.) Satisfaction and commitment interact each other, they are in reciprocity.
40 41
Another point is that the player is no longer at this club. Basically, the organisational culture of the club.
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(4.) There is no relationship between these two organisational attitudes. For hypothesis (1) it was found that satisfaction is a very important component, and also antecedent of commitment. Because satisfaction can trigger immediate emotional reactions, therefore it can play a central role in the development of commitment. However, many other factors can influence the effect of satisfaction, such as organisational goals, values, performance expectations, and organisational attitudes towards the individual (Vandenberg, 1992). Consequently, it appears that satisfaction shapes and stabilizes organisational commitment, and it is one of the important components of commitment. Others (e.g. Bateman, Strasser, 1984) say that commitment can be a trigger of satisfaction – see hypothesis 2. (Vandenberg, 1992). This is based on the assumption that stronger commitment could lead to a positive emotional state, which can increase member satisfaction. Another explanation is when the individual thinks he is already committed to the organisation, it is probably or even certainly suitable for him, therefore his satisfaction will be higher. It can be interpreted as kind of cognitive dissonance reduction. All in all, it can be said that organisational commitment is the basis of any other organisational attitudes, therefore it can cause satisfaction as well. Examining the 3rd hypothesis, some results emerged which show interaction between the two factors (e.g. . Farkas, Tetrick, 1989, Lance, 1991). However, there are only a few studies which can confirm it, and their methodology is often questionable (see Vandenberg, 1992). Testing the 4th hypothesis (e.g. Lance, 1991, Brief et al., 1988), it was found that commitment and satisfaction are almost identical attitudes with different names and can be influenced by several factors, therefore the analysis of their relationship is incomprehensible (see Vandenberg, 1992). Vandenberg (1992) examined each of the four hypotheses, and in the case of the first hypothesis he found some evidence, according to which satisfaction can cause commitment. Moynihan, Boswell and Boudreau (2000) have found similar results. They were trying to answer the question of the impact of job satisfaction and organisational commitment on the members’ desire of leaving work, searching for new jobs and their performance. In addition, they were also curious about the relationship between satisfaction and commitment. Table 5. below shows the main results of their examination. Table 5. Correlations between variables in the study of Moynihan et al. (2000) 1 1. Satisfaction
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
1.00
2.Affective commitment .61
1.00
3.Normative
.11
.19
1.00
.08
.24
-.00
commitment 4.Continuance
1.00
commitment
73
5.Intent of abandonment -.70
-.56
-.11
-.18
1.00
6.Looking for a job
-.39
-.35
-.07
-.05
.45
1.00
7.Performance
.20
.16
.06
-.07
-.11
-.10
1.00
8.Leadership
.12
.08
.08
-.12
.00
-.03
.62
1.00
Review questions: 1. Define the concept of commitment. 2. How do we conceive about the one- or multi-dimensional commitment theory? 3. What are the antecedents and reasons of commitment? 4. What are the consequences of low and high commitment? 5. Which type of commitment do you consider the most important in case of the members of a sports organisation? 6. How to form, develop and maintain high affective commitment in sports organisations? 7. What reasons are behind the aspiration of leaving the organisation? 8. What is the relationship between leadership and organisational commitment? 9. How could you describe and measure commitment of the members of your sport organisation? How often would you do that?
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VII. Organisation development and its possibilities at sports organisations, through the presentation of an organisation diagnostic study. The operation of professional sports clubs in Hungary often contains incongruent elements. There are some pros and cons whether there were systemic changes in sport, apart from these it is clear that clubs are willing to operate by themselves (independently from the government), and they are emphasizing their autonomy. If they cannot achieve their "privacy", they often expect help from the government – in the absence of capital intensive sponsors who are willing to support sports. Taking Western European and North American examples into consideration, this situation cannot be maintained for long. It becomes necessary for clubs to redefine themselves and use applied sciences, such as organisational commitment research which is based on organisation psychology and management, if they want to improve their results or to survive. There are the same critical-sensitive periods in organisational life as in human life. However, the necessary changes raise several questions. For example, when they should be started? In order to answer this question, Handy (2008) applies a well-known "geometric shape", the sigmoid (S) curve: he says there are ups and downs in organisational life. However, it is too late if we start thinking about changes when the organisational performance is decreasing; it is a must to negotiate changes when the organisation is operating well. An excellent example to understand it if we think about Formula 1, where a team can only be successful in a year if there are major improvements during the whole season. See Fig. 26. We can also think of those great and successful clubs (eg. MU, FC Barcelona) which win championships or trophies, but they make a lot of changes by the next year (they even change their strategy). It should be mentioned here that there are two types of organisational changes: circumstances are changing over time (for example political, economic), and these changes almost automatically induce the development of the organisation (1), while in the other case there is intentional intervene in the organisation's life in order to improve its effectiveness. The latter is considered to be the classical sense of organisation development (Kovács, 2005).
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Figure 26. The organisational intervention is too late in the downturn phase. It is essential to think about renewal when the organisation is operating well. In addition to changing, besides time factor the other central problem is resistance towards change. There are those who get into trouble after the changes (or they believe that). First, the organisational members, then certain organisational units can be interested in maintaining the status quo. Organisation development is practically as old as the history of organisational psychology, as it is based on organisational psychology research. The starting point is marked by Kurt Lewin's work, his group research opened a new direction for management and behavioural researchers (Kovács, 2005). The following assumptions support the strengthening of organization development (OD):
In an effective organisation both the individual and the organisation can grow and develop, that is called a healthy organisation
OD is the key to achieve high quality
OD needs responsible, careful and reliable man not only as a resource
The aim of OD is a healthy organisation, supporting, encouraging and open atmosphere, trust, reliability, clear and transparent power structure
Open and honest communication which helps to reveal and solve problems
Taking into account the individual needs, creating high level of commitment to the organisation (Kovács, 2005)
Based on Beckhard (1969, see Kovács 2005) organisation development is led and supported by the senior management (1), it is a long-term effort for developing the employees’ 76
capability of goal achievement, adaptation and renewal (2), it is for the development of organisational culture (3), which is an advisory and facilitation activity (4), using behavioral science knowledge (4). According to Bennis (see Kovács, 2005), the organisation development is an educational strategy. According to Harvey and Brown (1996), it is a longterm developmental intervention which aims at increasing the organisation’s problem-solving, adaptation and renewal abilities, by reshaping the organisational culture. The diagnostic activity is primarily – as it can be clearly seen from the above mentioned definitions – focuses on the analysis of the organisational culture. When we talk about sports organisations and their organisational culture, it should be noted that the more fragmented and more diverse the sports club is, the more complex the organisational culture diagnostics are. Ideally, the club itself has a dominant culture, but each division (other organisational units, e.g. PR, marketing, finance) is characterised by a socalled specific subculture. Furthermore, in an ideal situation, these are the same and everyone shares the values, norms and expectations of the club. In this study, we searched for those sport organisations which practically have only one division, in which a first-class sport team compete. Previous studies on sport teams and organisations were conducted due to a common goal: to learn how they operate and optimize their operation in order to achieve the best possible performance42. Performance in sport can be described in a sequence: Performance = ability to perform (the presence of the necessary physical and motor skills, technical and tactical knowledge, and the application of sport-specific knowledge for a certain task) X performing skills (the presence of the necessary psychological skills, especially motivation and willingness for the implementation of a task). If either is incomplete or missing, the performance is falling, getting worse or it is zero. Parallel to Hersey and Blanchard’s (1982) theory, which is about the prefered forms of leadership, they define leadership whether the members have the essential skills (performance) and the right motivation and willingness (performing skills) for that task. They defined it by the concept of maturity (and distinguished four types of it), and if both conditions are fulfilled by the employees then they talk about a weak task- and relation-oriented, socalled delegating leadership. Here we should also mention the previously referred so-called Steiner model (1972), which shows the level of the actual team productivity. It originates from the potential, totally detectable productivity, for which the team would be able to. However, this performance is undermined by those losses which are caused by the incorrect group dynamics, for example the lack of trust or deficit from the loss of confidence. During our research, we followed the undermentioned methodological methods: 42
Whether it is about leisure (recreational) or competitive sports (quality), the aim is to achieve better performance. However, it can be game-specific and can be varied by each sports team. The aim can be the championship, winning the cup, staying in or training and installing young players into the senior team, or producing as much profit as possible for the club in the season. From this varied definition of its aims, the graph of the organisational culture and the trust can differ sharply by sports teams.
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The following methods draw up the organisational culture and organisational trust patterns of sports teams on the basis of published studies by Kovács, Perjés, Sass (2005) and Sass (2005). Since these questionnaires were not primarily designed for the field of sport, there was a preliminary overview first, when we tried to reconstruct the items to be easily interpreted for athletes (supplemented by sport terminology and examples), but of course, obtaining their original meaning at the same time. The questionnaires, which seemed to be suitable for sports organizations were the following: I.
Quinn's organisation-diagnostic questionnaire,
II. Kovács’s organisational culture questionnaire The preliminary assumption is based on the fact that sports teams as performance-oriented, professional sports organisations are mainly characterised by:
Performance-orientation. It is important to achieve the goals, whether it is about championship or expressed differently (e.g. the development of indiviudal skills).
As it is a joint activity, therefore team spirit is important, also the atmosphere, furthermore, the ability to work in a team (team-working) and willingness to cooperate.
Good team climate mostly supposes good personal realtionships, even if successes sometimes overwrite these (this feature and the previous one have been actually examined by sociometry from a different perspective – measuring social relationships).
In order to maintain the right level, it is needed to move on and to apply new training methods and new scientific results. From this point of view, an entrepreneurial and innovative spirit is also needed (I believe there is a "happy medium", a right balance, when good practices should not be changed).
Since there is one (maybe more, but typically not more than two) leader, the coach, his role is crucial and not only from sport professional point of view, but it is exremely important what kind of support he gets from the senior executives. In the absence of their support he will not be successful.
Depending on the team, his role can be a father, a mentor, a coordinator, although I believe it is also essential to bear with supportive and helping features (even in hardcore professional sports) which does not exclude strong and performance-oriented features of leadership.
Not only performance can be a cohesive factor, but also mutual trust or confidence, and the strength of relationships between the players, that is social cohesion.
Sports teams are bound to clubs, so it is essential to have a sense of group identity, strong ties to the club on one hand, and on the other hand, they should also be loyal to the team (nowadays, loyalty to the club is weakening, because financial considerations overwrite it). 78
All in all, on the basis of Quinn’s competing values model, sports teams can be described as dominant supportive clans or cultures, which can be ad hoc or hierarchical – partly characterised by performance-orientation and the need to adapt to the external changes, furthermore, they can be described by quality of the coach-player (moreover, the other roles within the team) and the leader-employee relationship. For the organisational values we expected specific changes in the following dimensions of the 11 values:
The coach is rather task-oriented (in order to achieve the specified performance, certain tasks need to be done), but his good relationship with the team members is also important.
I rather expect strong control in the sense of the level of regulation of the players.
Reward is primarily attached to performance. Then certain behaviour and action done for the team can also be aspects for rewarding.
If the leader has a good conflict management strategy and he is willing to cooperate with the members in order to achieve higher performance, then sports teams are more likely to tolerate conflicts.
As the teams are not operating ad hoc, they are rather characterised by long-term time orientation, therefore the basis of their sport performance is the conscious, carefully and methodically structured work.
Quinn and Rohrbaugh (1983) 43 competing values model was also used for the diagnostics of the organisation. According to Quinn, the values of a community can be arranged in a hierarchy and can be displayed in major value dimensions. Each organisation culture can be described and compared by these lists or value maps. The authors have described a three-dimensional theoretical framework of the effective organisation based on a multidimensional scaling method: 1. The focus of the organisation is internal, person-oriented and / or external, organisation-oriented. 2. The organisational structure can be: stability prefered by control and / or supporting flexibility and change. 3. Regarding the organisational goals: it can focus on the process of reaching the goals or the tools and / or it can be result and goal-oriented. Based on this classification, four major types of cultures can be distinguished: the supportive, innovation-oriented, rules-oriented, and the goal-oriented. Cameron and Freeman (1991) described the typical organisational characteristics of the certain types, such as: clan, adhocracy, hierarchy, market.
43
Read more details in the chapter of the organisational culture.
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The method of the organisational culture analysis based on the value dimensions was the following: It was primarily based on the member’s feelings towards the organisation and we also applied Robbins’s (1993) and Bakacsi’s complementary 11 value dimensions. The questionnaire for examining organisational culture of schools was compiled by Kovács (2002). This questionnaire has also been slightly modified after a pilot study, especially the terminology of it, in order to be better understood by the athletes, although we have paid attention to ensure that each dimension has the original interpretation. 1. identification with the position or with the organisation Identification with the club, with the division, with the team or with his position in the team. 2. individual or team orientation The management supports individual initiatives and independence in the team or focuses on goals of the team. 3. relationship or task orientation The coach emphasizes the help and support of the players or the priority of the tasks. 4. internal dependence or independence Support for team unity or autonomy. 5. strong-weak control Level of regulations and the control of the players. 6. taking or avoiding risks How the team tolerates uncertainty, undertake or avoid risks (searcher, innovative, etc.). 7. performance-orientation Rewards are tied to performance criteria or not, whether they depend on performance or not, but something else, such as loyalty or the help of teammates. 8. tolerating or avoiding conflicts How the coach and the team tolerate conflicts, whether they support or prohibit them (such as professional conflicts: the player interfere the tactics). 9. goal or instrument orientation The leadership (coach) is characterized by enhancing the process of reaching the goals or emphasizing the team’s results (such as junior team training). 10. open or closed system The team's willingness to react to changes (new training methods, new transfers, trainings, etc.). 80
11. short-term or long-term time orientation Whether the team has a future perspective. The above mentioned dimensions are closely related to the various operating mechanisms of sports organisations, so they can be easily described by them. After a brief summary of the results we can conclude that these models of operation can be easily identified and described in the case of sports organisations. This provides reason for further investigations. Furthermore, particularly Kovács’s (2002) model provides the possibility of a detailed analysis, and as a result of it the major directions of organisational changes can be outlined. It was found during the examination that the analyzed first- and second-class sports teams (six out of ten) can be described by the features of the clan culture according to the Quinn’s model, while one of them is hierarchical and three of them can be described as market culture. In the case of the hierarchical team we cannot draw up an accurate picture due to the small sample size. This definitely requires similar tests in the future. The clan types:
In the case of the head of the unit the players can detect typical aspects of cultural leadership (direct, performance-oriented), but the perceived leadership is also supportive and facilitating. It is in line with the characteristics of the Robbins culture, where the leader is rather task-oriented. It can also be difficult for the team leader: he has to be successful, while creating a friendly, supportive atmosphere. o About trust: trust in the leader involves high reliability, fair leadership and this leader also focuses on individual goals.
Hierarchical and adhocratic characteristics often describe the organisational climate, however this does not exclude the overall familiar atmosphere either. o It is also indicated by the value of the organisational integrity and task control, and means high level of organisational trust in these teams.
As a criteria of success specific patterns of hierarchical culture is often observed by the members (reliability for the system itself, or the players trust each other and the coach, and the team as well, also trust to keep their promises, and this can be the basis of their common success).
The cohesive force in the organisation is described by the loyalty to the team and the traditions, but achieving or not the pursued performance can affect the team atmosphere in positive and negative ways too. o The existence of mutual trust (both in relationships and organisational levels), and the monitoring of teammates also appears as "I can be successful with the team, if my teammates also carry out their duties."
Identification with the organisation or the team is more typical, and it correlates with the cohesion within the organisation.
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Each sports team has long-term plans, which confirms the existence of well-built planning and the continuity of work in sport organisations as well. o All in all, there is a high level of organisational integrity, which shows a trustful atmosphere. There is also a high level of predictability (especially in the case of hierarchical sports teams, although we found only one of them), and somehow in contradiction to these, the need of controling teammates also appear (this should not necessarily be interpreted as a low level of trust, but rather as a form of social motivation to achieve the common goals).
The organisational change takes time. It assumes a carefully designed strategy, as opposition towards change should be dissolved primarily. The members of the organisation – as people by nature – prefer the average, normal state. It provides the sense of security and peace, even if it is not so good, but at least it is sure. The new organisational model can bring new roles. Some will lose their positions, but there are those who get new tasks and become much more motivated and do more effort. Kotter (1995) defined 8 steps as elements of a successful organisational change44. 1. Develop the need for organisational change, be sensitive for the change and development. 2. Develop strong allies within the organisation who can argue convincingly for the development. 3. After the initial brainstorming and careful organisational diagnostics, define a clear, easily understandable and clear future perspective. 4. This future perspective should be clearly communicated to everyone at each levels of the organisation. 5. Carry out an analysis and remove obstacles standing in the way of development. Examine the organisational structure, the units and human resources. 6. Achieve small successes and victories with the new organisation. These can be very strong motivations to maintain the organisation's development. Everyone can see that the new direction is good. 7. Small successes do not mean reaching the goal. Results and processes need to be consolidated. 8. Finally, changes should be integrated into the organisational culture. By the end of the organisational development process, a more effective, better functional and more flexible organisational culture can be achieved. The sport organisation as an example, can only be successful if it is flexible and able to react in time to the internal and external changes. 44
For those who are interested in this topic, I also recommend the following link: http://www.mindtools.com/pages/article/newPPM_94.htm
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Appendix 1. Examination of interactive sports teams’ organisational justice and the results of the research. Research questions and hypotheses Research question 1: What kind of unfair situations can be identified by the perception of the players, and to who are these situations linked? Hypothesis 1: Players self-proclaimed (free recall method) that they experience unfair situations in connection with their teammates, their coach, their managers and during a match, e. g. possibilities to play, distribution of the salary, evaluation of their performance and communication with each other and the coach. 1. These unfair situations in case of the interactive sports teams can primarily be related to the coach. 2. Interpersonal injustices occur in the greatest number in the responses of the subjects. Research question 2: Who or what causes injustice? Hypothesis 2: The coach is the main cause of injustice. Research question 3: If they set up an order, which unfair situations are put in the first place? Hypothesis 3: Getting into the initial team will be mentioned in the first place most of the time. The following sport players were interviewed: handball, basketball, football and volleyball, as an interactive sport. For the respondents, we tried to collect almost professional players, if they are not completely professional, who take sports seriously as a part of their life. This allowed us to work with a bigger sample size, so the number of participants were over 200. 223 people (N = 223) participated in our study. The sex ratio is not known exactly, since the questionnaire was filled out anonymously and it was not our intention to examine the difference between the sexes. For the age groups, young adults (especially 21-27 years) made up a significant part of the respondents, the subjects were adult players. In the pilot study, we applied a free recall method in which we asked the players to recall some unfair, inequitable situations which they have encountered so far during their career. After arranging their answers, we created a questionnaire, which generates more tasks for the respondents. Some situations should be placed on a 5-point Likert scale, where 1 means that the player has never or rarely encountered with the situations, and 5 means that (s)he has often experienced that situation during his/her career. In addition, we also asked them to create an order of the given situations on the basis of which they feel the most unfair situation.
83
Results
45
The grouping of the unfair situations from the point of the perpetrators of the injustice is shown in Table 6. Table 1. The grouping of the unfair situations from the point of the perpetrators of the injustice. Players, teammates:
Favoritism with a teammate
Intimidation and suppression of talented young players by the older players
Achieving to dismiss a player because of an argument/row
Causeless conspiracies
The excessive dominance of the captain
Selfishness against a teammate
Style of communication and reactions
Coach:
Favoritism
Arranging substitutions
Arranging the initial team
Distribution of bonuses and extra money after a match
Style of communication
Not enough play time (no chance to prove)
Unequal consideration of the players
Chasing off a player
Club: The extent of punishment Non-compliance to the contract Delayed payment or non-payment
45
The individual’s perceived injustice towards his club is highlighted in red.
84
Problem with the contracts (non-personalized) Promises and flattery
Parent:
Putting a children into the team (eg. with financial support, developing a good relationship with the coach)
Dissatisfaction with the child’ s performance
Referee:
Promoting teams impressively (impartiality)
Influence matches
Selecting a player randomly
- The players often mentioned the forms of treatment and communication as problems or sources of conflicts. If communication is not appropriate it can also create the feeling of injustice. - Apart from coaches, referees and judicial decisions were also mentioned by many of them, and what is more interesting is that the role of parents have occured in different forms. - The management of the club was also mentioned in connection with contracts, salaries, and possible penalties. So each of the three types of justice has occurred in the answers of the respondents. The grouping of the types of justice is shown in Table 7. Table 2. The grouping of the three types of justice Distributive
Distribution of salary, bonuses and extra money after a match
Procedural
Imposing penalties
Arranging substitutions
Interactive
of
communication (especially
Arranging the initial team Favoritism
Style
of
the
coach)
The
relationship
of
85
Not enough play time
Unequal consideration of the
the players
Decisions
without
explanations
players
The unfair situations in connection with the club was the 3rd most common answer. It must be an interesting remark for the leaders of the clubs. See Fig. 27
Figure 3. The distribution of the members of unfair situations. We also analysed the types of injustice which gave the following results, see. Figure 28. It is clear that unfair situations of the procedures and their relating processes were the most common. This draws attention to the regulations of various procedures in organisations to avoid confusion!
86
Figure 4. The distribution of the three types of justice. 5 situations can be linked to the coach, 3 to the teammates and other 6 to the club. Athletes classified unfair situations on a Likert scale. The mean and standard deviation of the three groups were calculated and plotted separately, see Figure 29.
Figure 5. The mean and standard deviation of the three groups (n=102, µ+SD) The classification of the statements of one part from the questionnaire also confirms that the coach's actions can affect the players most negatively. When comparing the means of these situations, four situations stand out. Interestingly, they are all realted to the coach. The situations are the following, See Figure 30.
87
Figure 6. The means of the four outstanding situations. The average score of these situations were between 3.25 and 2.67 on a scale of five, while the average of the other situations were between 2.57 and 1.6. This hypothesis is therefore confirmed because: Result 2: The personality, behavior, decisions and actions of the coach trigger the most unfair situations. Research question 3: If they set up an order, which unfair situations are put in the first place? Hypothesis 3: Getting into the initial team will be mentioned in the first place most of the time. In that part of the questionnaire, where we asked the respondents to create a sequence of certain situations on the basis of which are the most unfair situations, we examined the top three cases, See Figure 31.
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Figure 7. The most commonly mentioned situations It is obvious that those answers which have outstanding values (19, 9, 9) show the unfairness of decision-making within the team, and the human and teammate relationships. This illustrates that the interpersonal and procedural injustices precede the third type of examined injustice, that is the distributive injustice. When hierarchical roles within the team scramble (eg. there is an excessive dominance of the captain), it brings dissatisfaction and the players perceive it as unjustice. In most cases, the often mentioned "favoritism" also belongs to the group of procedural injustices. However, if we look back at the previous results, it also confirms that the coach generates most of the injustices, because favoritism can only be induced by the leader.
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Conclusion This book gives a brief insight to the hidden factors of organisational performance for those who work in the field of sport. The clubs, associations, the division, and even the team itself as different forms of organisations have great impact on the outcome. None of the sports organisations can be successful which does not have a strong organisational culture, in particular rules, norms, values, and examples to follow, history. Where these are missing, the primary task is to create them. This is the basis of everything. Then the members of the organisation must be chosen carefully, and it is important to help their integration with applying consciously the fundamental principles of organisational psychology. It should not be ignored that in addition to the written contract an unwritten is also created, that is the psychological contract. It influences unconsciously, but "more effectively" the individual’s satisfaction with the club. The latter one, as mentioned, can be the antecedent or the consequence of the commitment to the organisation, which as a kind of a mediator can help the achievement of a better organisational performance, whether it is on the field or in the club's office. The team will be a real team, that is a cooperating group, when everyone is at his right place, and doing a task which fits his capabilities. The globalization of sport can sometimes lead to a situation where individuals from different cultures work together. Openness, inclusion and supporting integration, sometimes with the help of a professional, are required for effective cooperation. Organisational psychology and organisational behavior science have a number of valuable and applicable theories and practices. It is also available for sports science for a few decades. It would be a shame not to use it.
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