Better Managers for More Sustainability Sports Organizations: Validation of Sports Managers Competency Scale (COSM) in Chile

Abstract

The aim of this study is to analyze the validity and reliability of the scale of competences of sports managers (COSM) in the Chilean context. The adaptation of the COSM to Spanish was carried out in accordance with the international methodological standards. A Spanish pilot version of the instrument was then administered to 33 municipal sports managers, whose comments on the instructions and the way the articles were written resulted in minor changes. Finally, this last version was empirically applied to 212 municipal sports managers (82.5% men and 17.5% women) from 129 city councils in 16 regions of Chile who participated. The original instrument consisted of 31 items grouped in six dimensions. The analyses carried out to check the psychometric properties of the scale determined the grouping of the indicators in three dimensions, retaining 22 items from the original proposal. The new factors were: Sports and Facilities Use Regulation (12 items), Budget Management (five items), and Communication Skills (five items). The scale presented adequate goodness-of-fit indices according to the parameters recommended by the literature, as well as optimal values of the different reliability measures. The use of this instrument will contribute to the process of diagnosis of competences in sport managers, with the purpose of planning relevant and contextualized training strategies that aim at improving skills and knowledge related to professional work. Likewise, the instrument can be used by the Chilean academic community in research processes involving sport managers’ competences.

Sports Management Knowledge, Competencies, and Skills: Focus Groups and Women Sports Managers’ Perceptions

“…In line with the literature [18,19,24,26,27,[51][52][53][54][55], in this study, the strong link between theoretical knowledge, practical know-how, and actual task implementation emerged, with the sports managers highlighting the need for practical, innovative, creative, and efficient performances in different tasks and activities in relation to specific environments of sports organizations, sports media, sports commercial, or policy sectors [22]. Formal and non-formal education should prepare sports managers for the contingent labor market demands [56], incorporating relevant and updated theoretical aspects [1,2,4] and stimulating students and trainees to acquire the necessary competencies and skills through different types of learning and teaching methodologies [23,25,[51][52][53][54] according to the European strategies on education and learning [30,55]. Internationalization of curricula and internship opportunities from inter-institutional cooperation between the sports industry and educational providers can ensure trainees the acquisition of the necessary know-how, which could enhance the employability of managers in the globalized sports context [17,[25][26][27]53,[57][58][59].…”

“…Employees are asked to be theoretically prepared but also flexible and dynamic in identifying problems, effectively interacting with the environment and entourage, and activating their knowledge to formulate adequate solutions for problem-solving [18,19,51]. In line with the literature [18,19,24,26,27,[51][52][53][54][55], in this study, the strong link between theoretical knowledge, practical know-how, and actual task implementation emerged, with the sports managers highlighting the need for practical, innovative, creative, and efficient performances in different tasks and activities in relation to specific environments of sports organizations, sports media, sports commercial, or policy sectors [22]. Formal and non-formal education should prepare sports managers for the contingent labor market demands [56], incorporating relevant and updated theoretical aspects [1,2,4] and stimulating students and trainees to acquire the necessary competencies and skills through different types of learning and teaching methodologies [23,25,[51][52][53][54] according to the European strategies on education and learning [30,55].…”

Multidisciplinary perspectives on equality and diversity in sports 2022

“…Nowadays, issues such as brand and event management, customer relationship management, comarketing, heritage marketing and other aspects become increasingly part of a true professionalism of sports management. There are international studies (Barcelona, 2004;Duclos-Bastías et al, 2021;Goodarzi et al, 2012;Jamieson, 1987;Ko et al, 2011), that agree on some characteristics, competencies and skills that sport managers must acquire to perform their functions as effectively as possible.…”

Development and Preliminary Validation of Social Media as an Educational and Professional Tool Student Perceptions Scale (SMEPT-SPS)

“…Second, the scale was administered on convenience nonprobabilistic sampling limited to the sports-management course where the authors had direct access. Furthermore, concerning gender, the sample was unbalanced, composed mostly of male students, although this gender distribution is frequent in sportsmanagement scale-validation studies [69][70][71]. In addition, the sample was not distributed through the different parts of the country.…”