Measuring Managerial Efficiency in South African Soccer

Abstract

Direct measurement of managerial performance in firms is often problematic and is compounded by the problem of unobservable action in organisations. However, in the South African football association, unobservable action is unlikely to be a significantly important problem because the manager’s performance is observed by the owner of the club each time the team plays (at least once per week during the on-season period). In this situation, the production frontier analysis lends itself to being used to measure managerial performance (efficiency) and analyse the variation in efficiency across managers in terms of manager human capital. The results suggest that having some kind of prior affiliation with the club and achieving international recognition as a player is especially important. Overall, it is initial experience that counts more than specific and general managerial experience.