Developing flourishing among employees in the college sport workplace
Sport, Business and Management
ISSN: 2042-678X
Article publication date: 17 August 2021
Issue publication date: 6 October 2021
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to explore how flourishing is achieved among sport employees working at intercollegiate sport organizations in the USA. To do so, a model is constructed that examines the impact of pride and path-goal leadership on job engagement and then flourishing. The model is grounded in the Human Resource Development (HRD) paradigm to extend the literature on positive performance outcomes in sport organizations.
Design/methodology/approach
Quantitative methods were used to analyze the data. Altogether, 282 useable surveys were completed by sport employees working in intercollegiate athletics departments. The hypotheses were examined with structural equation modeling to provide robust calculations of the relationships within the model.
Findings
The findings of this study demonstrated that both path-goal leadership and pride enabled job engagement, which in turn supported flourishing among intercollegiate athletics employees (e.g. equipment, marketing or facility/event positions). Job engagement is positioned as an important variable as it linked path-goal leadership and pride with flourishing.
Originality/value
This study examined mechanisms (i.e. path-goal leadership, pride) to enhance intercollegiate athletics employees' personal resources (i.e. job engagement, flourishing) through the HRD paradigm. The HRD framework posits that improved employee functioning leads to a superior organizational performance and has yet to be assessed within intercollegiate athletics. The findings add to the HRD literature by focusing on employees' workplace experiences and generating pathways to improved job engagement and the subsequent influence on intercollegiate athletics employees' ability to flourish, which is also understudied.
Keywords
Citation
Schuetz, L., Paek, B., Oja, B.D. and Kim, M. (2021), "Developing flourishing among employees in the college sport workplace", Sport, Business and Management, Vol. 11 No. 5, pp. 647-665. https://doi.org/10.1108/SBM-09-2020-0096
Publisher
:Emerald Publishing Limited
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