![Sample our Economics, Finance,Business & Industry journals, sign in here to start your access, latest two full volumes FREE to you for 14 days]({"type":"image" , "src" : "/sda/5931/TOC-Subject-Sample-2021-Economics-Finance-Business-Industry.jpg"})
Highlights
► Examines stress, commitment and organisational support amongst early career sports officials. ► Tests the efficacy of an organisational support programme in relation to intention to continue. ► Using quasi-experimental design finds that stressors and commitment explain intention to continue. ► Perceived organisational support does not explain any additional or unique variance in intention to continue.
Abstract
With governments in many western countries implementing sport policy programmes directed at increasing levels of participation, stress is being placed on the capacity of sport systems to provide sufficient numbers of appropriately accredited officials. However, with declining numbers of officials, particularly early career officials, sport organisations are also facing management problems in relation to the retention of existing officials. Using a quasi-experimental 2 × 2 field-based research design this study explored the efficacy of organisational support aimed at increasing retention of early career sports officials. The research addressed two questions: (1) Do stressors of officiating, commitment and organisational support predict the intention of early career officials to continue officiating? and (2) What is the efficacy of organisational support in increasing the intention of early career officials to continue officiating? The results support previous research that stressors and commitment explain intention to continue. Intention to continue was found to be a stable construct that was not influenced by an organisational support programme. Despite significant zero-order relationships between organisational support and intentions to continue, organisational support explained no additional or unique variance above that explained by commitment and stressors of officiating. The results provide the basis for further research as well as insights for developing organisational support and retention strategies for sports officials.
Notes
The authors acknowledge the financial support of the Australian Rugby Union and the Australian Research Council (linkage Grant# LP0561505).
1 For the purpose of this study a sports official was operationally defined as “any person who controls the actual play of a competition by using the rules and laws of the sport to make judgments on rule infringement, performance, time and score. Officials play a key role in ensuring the spirit of the game and/or event is observed by all” (CitationSPARC, 2012). The term sports official is often used interchangeably with terms such as referee, umpire or judge, for example. Sports official is used as a broad and inclusive term in this study. For accuracy when quoting published research or when referring to a particular sport in which the term sports official is not widely used it is substituted by a more precise or culturally appropriate term such as referee or umpire.