Perceived organizational support, internal motivation, and work–family conflict among soccer referees

ABSTRACT

This study explores the perceived organizational support, internal motivation, and work–family conflict of amateur soccer referees of South Korea. The aim is to inform effective strategies for the retention of referees, which is necessary for the sport to function. Past research has addressed perceived organizational support, internal motivation, and work–family conflict, but does not integrate these three domains. We collected data from 260 referees and used structural equation modeling to test hypotheses. The findings of this study are as follows: First, perceived organizational support had a positive effect on internal motivation. Second, internal motivation reduced work–family conflict. Third, internal motivation fully mediated the relationship between perceived organizational support and work–family conflict. The practical implications for more effective human resource management are discussed in depth and include providing network opportunities for referees, and also constructive feedback from interactions between referees and their coaches.

KEYWORDS:

• Perceived organizational support
• internal motivation
• work–family conflict
• soccer Referees
• South Korea

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1 As no scale was found to measure referees’ motivation, we searched for an alternative one. We noted Clary et al.’s (1998) study in which volunteers are defined to be people who actively look for chances to help others and spend substantial amounts of time and energy on the activity. Also, in Cuskelly’s (2004) study, volunteers were defined as those who participated in “roles undertaken to support, and/or run organized sport and physical activity” (Australian Bureau of Statistics, 2002, p. 39) and clarified that referees are included as volunteers.