A Continuation of Sport Teams From an Organizational Perspective

Abstract

Previous research suggests athletes’ leader–member exchanges (LMX) with coaches are associated with subsequent communication and relationships with coaches and teammates, as athletes with in-group relationships experience more prosocial outcomes than athletes without these relationships. Thus, the formation of in-group relationships is desirable, but extant literature has provided little insight into how coaches can foster these relationships. This study addressed this gap in literature by examining contextual and relational factors (i.e., coach enacted social support) as predictors of athletes’ perceptions of LMX with head coaches. A sample of 216 former high school athletes produced results that indicate both contextual factors and coach-enacted social support can be used to predict athletes’ perceptions of LMX—with starting status, emotional support, and esteem support being uniquely predictive. Overall, the model utilized in this study accounted for 65% of athletes’ perceptions with coach enacted social support accounting for 52% of these perceptions. The practical and theoretical implications are discussed within this article.

Establishing a Protocol to Observe Leadership Behaviors Within Engineering Design Teams

“…Table 3 below demonstrates a summary of the leadership theories presented in this section. [40,52,63] Relationship between a leader and followers or members Transformational and Transactional [53,55,64] Charismatic and contingent-reward leadership Table 4 presents studies that discuss leadership of engineering design teams.…”

An Application of Socialization Resources Theory

“…For nearly two decades, leader–member exchange (LMX; Dansereau, Graen, & Haga, 1975) has been utilized to assess athlete–coach relationships and the exchange of resources within those relationships (Case, 1998; Cranmer, 2016; Cranmer & Buckner, 2017; Cranmer & Myers, 2015). The concept of LMX recognizes that leaders form differentiated and dyadic relationships with their followers (G.…”

“…The suggested mechanism for these differentiated relationships is that coaches have a finite number of resources (e.g., time, energy, and attention) and must strategically invest in student-athletes whom are best positioned to help the team accomplish its goals (i.e., winning; Cranmer & Myers, 2015). This suggested mechanism has received considerable empirical support given that starters consistently report higher quality LMX with coaches (Case, 1998; Cranmer, 2016; Cranmer & Myers, 2015). Within LMX, this disparate investment leads to a continuum of athlete–coach relationships that range from high-quality (i.e., in-group relationships ) to low-quality exchanges (i.e., out-group relationships ).…”

“…Organizational socialization is one potential framework that can supplement extant sport socialization literature and help address this void in scholarship. The extension of this organizational framework to sport is natural, as previous research has firmly established that sport teams are by definition organizations (Quarterman, 2003), athlete–coach relationships are similar to supervisor–subordinate relationships (Cranmer, 2016; Cranmer & Myers, 2015), and organizational processes (e.g., dissent) are central to the functioning of sport teams (Cranmer & Buckner, 2017; Kassing & Anderson, 2014; Kassing et al, 2004).…”

“I Disagree”

“…Dissent begins when individuals experience a specific set of circumstances or events that make them feel disassociated with their organization. Triggering events are context-specific in that they capture the unique and sometimes exclusive policies, practices, and procedures attributed to a given situation—emphasizing the need to continue to recognize sport as a unique context of organizational communication (Cranmer, 2016; Cranmer & Myers, 2015). Scholars have identified triggering events in a number of contexts, including workplaces, churches, and classrooms.…”