Interns in Professional Sport: An Investigation of Gender Parity on the Job

2009 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
pp. 92-109 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jacquelyn Cuneen ◽  
M. Joy Sidwell
Keyword(s):  
Sport Management ◽  
Work Conditions ◽  
Professional Sport ◽  
Sport Organizations ◽  
Male And Female ◽  
Sport Industry ◽  
Job Benefits ◽  
One Year ◽  
Management Students ◽  
Big Four

Internships permit sport management students to link classroom learning to the professional environment. Since internships provide students with opportunities to learn on-the-job and test their skills in the marketplace, the experiences should be uniformly beneficial to all students regardless of gender. This study was conducted to describe internship work conditions (i.e., opportunities to perform in essential marketplace functions) for male and female sport management interns assigned to ‘Big Four’ professional sport organizations. Participants were 74 sport industry professionals who supervised a total of 103 interns over a one-year period. A X2 Test of Independence found that male and female interns working in professional sport had comparable opportunities to perform and learn on the job. Differences in opportunity, hiring practices, and on-the-job benefits emerged primarily as a function of job specialization (e.g., operations, marketing, venue management), league/association, or gender of the internship supervisor rather than gender of the interns.

Creating Ethical Decision Makers: The Influence of Education on Perceptions of Sexual Harassment and Sexual Assault

2019 ◽  
Vol 13 (2) ◽  
pp. 73-82
Author(s):  
Elizabeth A. Taylor ◽  
Gareth J. Jones ◽  
Kristy McCray ◽  
Robin Hardin
Keyword(s):  
Sexual Harassment ◽  
Ethical Decision ◽  
Sport Management ◽  
Rape Myths ◽  
Decision Makers ◽  
Sport Organizations ◽  
Power Differential ◽  
Sport Industry ◽  
Management Students ◽  
The Relationship

The sport industry is ripe for issues of sexual harassment/assault due to the high value placed on masculine characteristics and the power differential between male leaders/coaches and female subordinates/athletes. This culture permeates sport organizations, as issues of sexual harassment/assault committed by athletes and coaches/administrators are commonplace and have recently been mishandled, raising questions about effective education. This study examined the relationship between education on sexual harassment/assault and the endorsement of rape myths by sport management students. Results indicate that training on sexual harassment/assault in sport management classrooms is low and is potentially ineffective at curbing rape myth acceptance, suggesting current curricula are insufficient. These findings have both theoretical and practical contributions related to how sport management departments can prepare future professionals to change the culture of sport.

scholarly journals Experience-Based Leadership Development and Professional Sport Organizations

2018 ◽  
Vol 32 (2) ◽  
pp. 123-134 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stephen Frawley ◽  
Daniel Favaloro ◽  
Nico Schulenkorf
Keyword(s):  
Leadership Development ◽  
Sport Management ◽  
Leadership Education ◽  
Professional Sport ◽  
Competitive Sport ◽  
Sport Organizations ◽  
Study Approach ◽  
Development Framework ◽  
Sport Industry ◽  
Formal Leadership

In recent years, there has been a significant interest around leadership development practices within the field of management. Leadership development is particularly important within the highly competitive sport industry, where leadership performance is under constant and ever-increasing scrutiny. For sport organizations, strong leadership can be a source of significant competitive advantage, and hence, increased focus on leadership and investment into the development of talent has occurred. However, there has been a surprising lack of scholarly research into leadership and the associated processes within the sport management field, particularly from an Australian perspective. This paper addresses this gap as it examines the nature of experience-based leadership development practices within three of Australia’s leading professional sport organizations. Following a qualitative multicase study approach, the thematic analysis of 15 in-depth semistructured interviews with members of the senior executive of each case organization suggested that the national sport organizations placed significant emphasis on experience-based opportunities as a way of developing their workforce. Via the adoption of McCall’s experience-based leadership development framework, four main themes emerged: the importance of experience-based opportunities for leadership development; leadership development through involvement and exposure to experiences; networking opportunities gained from experienced-based exposure; and the relationship between on-the-job experience and formal leadership education. These findings extend our knowledge of current leadership development and practices implemented in national sport organizations and highlight the importance of effective leadership within highly competitive sport markets. Based on these findings, implications are provided for current practice illustrating the benefits that an experience-based approach to leadership development within sport organizations can have.

scholarly journals Linked(In)g Sport Management Education with the Sport Industry: A Preliminary Study

2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (4) ◽  
pp. 2275
Author(s):  
Samuel López-Carril ◽  
Miguel Villamón ◽  
María Huertas González-Serrano
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
Sport Management ◽  
Management Education ◽  
Educational Innovation ◽  
Two Dimensions ◽  
Management Tools ◽  
Sport Industry ◽  
Post Test ◽  
Management Students ◽  
The Impact

Social media are one of the most valuable management tools used by sport managers in the fulfilment of their daily tasks. However, the studies that share and analyse the impact of educational experiences that incorporate social media into sport management education for professional purposes are scarce to date. Thus, this study presents an educational innovation piloted in a sport management course where LinkedIn—the social media most associated with the professional sphere—is introduced through an experiential learning methodology, as a driver of students’ career development and as a tool to keep up to date and interact with the sport industry. To assess the learning outcomes, a new scale was developed and tested. A total of 90 Spanish undergraduate sport management students (M = 22.71; SD = 3.84) participated in the study, partaking in a pre-test and a post-test. Regarding the results linked to the testing of the scale, the statistical analysis reflects the scale’s two-dimensional nature, explaining 68.78% of the variance, presenting good psychometric properties (α = 0.95). On the other hand, significant increases in all the scale items between the two measures were obtained, with large effects size in the two dimensions (Cohen’s d ≥ 0.80). Therefore, it is concluded that LinkedIn can help to develop the professional profile of sport management students, Linked(In)g what is taught in the classroom with what the sport industry demands.

Cruel Optimism in Sport Management: Fans, Affective Labor, and the Political Economy of Internships in the Sport Industry

2018 ◽  
Vol 42 (3) ◽  
pp. 184-204 ◽  
Author(s):  
Matthew G. Hawzen ◽  
Christopher M. McLeod ◽  
John T. Holden ◽  
Joshua I. Newman
Keyword(s):  
Political Economy ◽  
University Students ◽  
Sport Management ◽  
The Political ◽  
Work Experiences ◽  
Affective Labor ◽  
Sports Industry ◽  
Subjective Perceptions ◽  
Sport Industry ◽  
Management Students

For university students in sport management programs, working in sports is often the end goal, and internships have become the most common curricular component for achieving this end. Sport management students bring to these internships various backgrounds and active fan attachments with sports that structure their work experiences and create certain conditions of exploitation. We thus conducted interviews with current and soon-to-be interns to understand their subjective perceptions and experiences of working in sports as fans. Drawing upon Lauren Berlant’s concept of cruel optimism as well as neo-Marxist theories of affective labor, we reveal the structuring contradictions of interns’ work in the contemporary sports industry.

A Foot in the Door: An Examination of Professional Sport Internship Job Announcements

2020 ◽  
pp. 1-9
Author(s):  
Liz Sattler ◽  
Rebecca Achen
Keyword(s):  
Student Perceptions ◽  
Sport Management ◽  
The United States ◽  
Academic Preparation ◽  
Professional Sport ◽  
Full Time ◽  
Student Preparedness ◽  
Key Skills ◽  
Sport Industry ◽  
Job Postings

The sport management internship has been deemed a critical component of students’ academic preparation, as well as a foot in the door for many students seeking full-time employment after graduation. The number of sport management programs has grown in recent years, and the field itself remains highly competitive. Thus, it is increasingly important for sport management programs to help prepare their students for the internship hiring process. Scholarship in this area has largely focused on student perceptions of their internship experience and employer perceptions of student preparedness. But to prepare students for internship experiences in the sport industry, it is essential for faculty to understand the key skills that are sought by industry practitioners making hiring decisions, as well as the administrative requirements included. Therefore, the purpose of this study was to examine the nature of professional sport industry internship job postings in the United States by examining the content of online announcements during a 6-month period. The results indicated that digital content, sales, and operations internships were the most highly sought positions, while basic computer skills, communication skills (both oral and written), and the ability to withstand long hours were the most commonly desired skills.

Bridging the Gap: U.S. Sport Managers on Barriers to Industry–Academia Research Collaboration

2016 ◽  
Vol 30 (3) ◽  
pp. 248-264 ◽  
Author(s):  
Noni Zaharia ◽  
Anastasios Kaburakis
Keyword(s):  
Sport Management ◽  
Research Collaboration ◽  
The United States ◽  
Education Level ◽  
Sport Organizations ◽  
Management Research ◽  
Research Collaborations ◽  
Research Involvement ◽  
Sport Industry ◽  
The U.S

Collaboration between industry and academia is a subject of great interest to sport management academics and sport industry leaders in the United States. However, there is a lack of research regarding barriers to sport industry–academia collaborations and bridging the gap between sport management research and practitioners. The aim of the study was to explore trends in collaboration barriers among various research involvement levels of U.S. sport firms with sport management academia. Data were gathered from 303 sport managers working for U.S. sport companies. Results indicated several barriers for research collaborations between the U.S. sport industry and academia. Such barriers include transactional barriers, sport industry subsectors, sport organizations’ location, and age and education level of respondents.

Professional Sport League Assessment of Sport Management Curriculum

2009 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
pp. 110-124 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jeffrey Petersen ◽  
David Pierce
Keyword(s):  
Sport Management ◽  
Rank Order ◽  
Legal Aspects ◽  
Professional Sport ◽  
Sport Organizations ◽  
Sport Sociology ◽  
Cultural Aspects ◽  
Market Shares ◽  
Sport League ◽  
Management Curriculum

Undergraduate sport management curriculum continues to be debated amongst this discipline’s educators. Curricular content impacts professional sport organizations as program graduates become employees. This study gathered the input of human resource professionals from NFL, MLB, and NBA franchises regarding curricular topics via an existing, modified questionnaire. The questionnaire included a five-point scale assessment of 61 curricular topics. A 34.8% response rate was proportionally distributed between the leagues. An ANOVA of means for ten curricular areas revealed significant differences with the following rank order: Field Experience 4.38; Communication 4.23; Legal Aspects 4.02; Ethics 3.98; Management and Leadership 3.97; Marketing 3.96; Economics 3.68; Budget and Finance 3.59; Governance 3.25; and Socio-Cultural Aspects 3.25. An ANOVA of topics revealed seven significant between-league differences including: Sport Sociology, Ethics, Market Shares/Ratings, Business Writing, Labor Relations, Stadium/Arena Economics, and Risk Management/Liability. These results can inform the development or modification of curricula to better prepare students for professional sport needs.

scholarly journals The Complexity of Leading in Sport: Examining the Role of Domain Expertise in Assessing Leader Credibility and Prototypicality

2014 ◽  
Vol 28 (1) ◽  
pp. 81-93 ◽  
Author(s):  
Steve Swanson ◽  
Aubrey Kent
Keyword(s):  
Domain Knowledge ◽  
Sport Management ◽  
Implicit Theories ◽  
Global Perspective ◽  
Sport Organizations ◽  
Knowledge Domains ◽  
Domain Specific ◽  
Confirmatory Factor ◽  
Domain Expertise ◽  
Management Students

The way in which leaders in sport organizations are evaluated by their employees is dependent upon perceived levels of credibility and implicit theories of leadership. Leader knowledge and expertise play significant roles in this process, yet both have been treated as comprehensive constructs irrespective of specific knowledge domains. Drawing from the education literature, this research looks to disentangle the global perspective used by the credibility and prototypicality literatures. It is proposed that employees in sport organizations expect managers to possess domain-specific expertise which is separate from the functional area requirement. Two different samples including professional sport employees and sport management students were used, with confirmatory factor and conjoint analyses used to test the research hypotheses. The results support the notion that distinct psychological processes exist within sport organizations, and that sport domain knowledge and expertise are distinct constructs which play important roles in the perception of leaders within this context.

Dead Spaces: Sport Venues and Police Stops in a Major League, Upper Midwestern City in the United States

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-14
Author(s):  
Gidon S. Jakar ◽  
Kiernan O. Gordon
Keyword(s):  
Urban Areas ◽  
Sport Management ◽  
Criminal Activity ◽  
The United States ◽  
Professional Sport ◽  
Sport Organizations ◽  
Related Activity ◽  
Management Literature ◽  
Sport Venues ◽  
Midwestern City

Attention by sport management researchers and practitioners toward the societal externalities of professional sport franchises and venues has increased recently. This study asserts that while sport organizations are very active in this regard, there remain several issues that have not received much attention in the sport management literature nor by sport organizations themselves. Criminal activity, or the perception of criminal activity, at and near sport venues is one of these issues. The negative binominal regression analysis of police stops in Minneapolis revealed that police stops were greater within a quarter and half a mile of Minneapolis professional sport venues on event days. Furthermore, during nonevent days, the venues can be urban “dead spaces” and the design of venues in urban areas should address the internal and external amenities of the sport venues and the potential increase in crime and police-related activity on days with and without events.

scholarly journals Aligning competence-oriented qualifications in sport management higher education with industry requirements: An importance–performance analysis

2021 ◽  
pp. 095042222110162
Author(s):  
Olivia Wohlfart ◽  
Sandy Adam ◽  
Gregor Hovemann
Keyword(s):  
Higher Education ◽  
Performance Analysis ◽  
Curriculum Design ◽  
Critical Reflection ◽  
Sport Management ◽  
Management Tool ◽  
Generic Competencies ◽  
Perceived Performance ◽  
Sport Industry ◽  
Management Students

This article examines the fit (or lack thereof) between the competencies needed by the sport industry and the proficiency of sport management students. The authors apply importance–performance analysis as a strategic management tool to analyze the results of two competence-oriented datasets in a German context. They find that students’ self-identified proficiency is lower than the importance attributed to proficiency by industry experts. The authors critically discuss the absence of differences between the perceived performance of Bachelor’s and Master’s degree students and provide strategic recommendations for sport management higher education. The article highlights the development and communication of generic competencies as a unique selling proposition and reflect on the need to improve subject-specific competencies to further professionalize the field of sport management. Based on these results, a critical reflection of curriculum design in sport management higher education is needed.

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