Coaches on Fire or Firing the Coach? Evidence of the Impact of Coach Changes on Team Performance from Italian Serie A

Abstract

In this paper, football data from the 2007/2008 to 2016/2017 seasons of the Italian Serie A were used to identify the effects of replacing a coach mid-season due to poor team performance. We used an instrumental variable approach to correlate coach turnover within a season with player productivity and found a very low positive impact of the coach change in the short term but a significant negative impact in the long term. Our findings are also relevant to the literature on management replacement in small-size firms.

Effects of changing the head coach on soccer team’s performance: A systematic review

“…The results demonstrated that post-dismissal team performance was superior to pre-dismissal team performance. Argentieri, Canova and Manera [ 41 ] analysed a combination of points won, average score of teams during a season and players ratings given by specialized newspapers. The results showed a small but positive impact of the HC change on short term success, but a significant negative impact longer term.…”

Leadership and Organizations

“…Finally, the impact of coach/dean changes is 42 For NFL, business schools and law schools respectively, estimated coefficients (p-values) are -0.06 (0.00), -0.04 (0.64) and -0.08 (0.061). 43 Several papers that seek to test for the impact of coach changes have noted the existence of the Ashenfelter dip in sport team management (Paola and Scoppa, 2012;Bryson et al, 2021;Argentieri, Canova and Manera, 2019).…”