HARD JOB: DEFINING JOB DESCRIPTIONS AND RESPONSIBILITIES OF BASKETBALL MANAGERS (A CASE STUDY OF TURKEY)

Year 2019, Volume: 2019 Issue: 1, 1 - 16, 15.01.2019

Arif Yüce , Hakan Katırcı , Veli Onur Çelik , Sevda Gökce Yüce , Rıdvan Ekmekçi Coşkun Teziç

Abstract

Sport clubs consist of simple or complex organizational structures that have typical properties of social organizations. For a sport club to continue its existence and to be managed effectively, the club needs specialised human resources and personnel with necessary training. Additionally, it can easily be stated that current sports do not allow an improvisational management style due to the complex structure of them and demands of professionals and that there are different duty and responsibility distribution within unique hierarchical structures of each sport club. It is possible express that general managers, working for basketball clubs or in basketball departments of sport clubs, have important roles at managerial level. However, there are no written scientific materials in Europe regarding job definition, scope of responsibility/authority, and competence of basketball managers.  Well-defined job description should meet the priorities and needs of an organisation. Therefore, in basketball clubs, it is important to develop job description for general managers. Within this scope, the purpose of this study was to determine occupational definitions, duty-responsibility fields, and competences of basketball general managers working in teams competing in Turkish Men’s Basketball Super League and Turkish Men’s Basketball League. For this purpose, semi-structured interviews were conducted with total of 10 general managers. Obtained data were coded compliant with content analysis methods and divided into themes.  In this context, total of 41 codes were created under 7 themes. Based on these codes and themes, it was found that general managers are individuals who have different roles to act as a bridge to provide happiness of team and organisation, who act in almost all stages of various management process within the club, who put efforts for all work and operation solutions, who have various personal competence in addition to certain level of sportive, education, management history, and who are generally responsible towards president and board of directors.

Keywords

General Manager, Basketball, Basketball Management

References

• Acimovic, D., Spirtovic, O., Jonic, Z., Projevic, A. (2013). Organizational structure of management in sport and its significance for achieving sport results. Activities in Physical Education and Sport, 3(2), 251-253.
• Andersen, A.,J. (2011). A New Sports Manager Does Not Make a Better Team International Journal of Sports Science & Coaching 6(1), 167-178
• Aschburner A. (2009). Growing role of GM makes good front office leaders hard to find. http://www.si.com/more-sports/2009/05/15/general-managers. Erişim Tarihi: 10.09.2015
• Babbie, E. (2000). The Practice of Social Research (9th ed.). Belmont: Wadsworth Publishing.
• Baloğlu, B. ve Davutoğlu, A. (2009). Sporun değişen yüzü. İstanbul: Derin Yayınları.
• Baum, R.J., Lock, E.A., & Smith, K.G. (2001). A multidimensional model of venture growth, Academy of Management Journal, 44, 292-303.
• Beech, J., Chadwick, S. (2004). The Business of Sport Management. Edinburgh: Pearson Education.
• Benar, N., Ramezani Nejad, R., Suranı, M., Gohar Rostamı, H., Yeganehfar, N. (2014). Designing A Managerial Skills Model For Chief Executive Officers (Ceos) Of Professional Sports Clubs In Isfahan Province. Sport Science Review, 23(1-2), 59 – 77.
• Browne, C. (2010). Role of General Manager in the NBA. http://work.chron.com/role-general-manager-nba-9874.html Erişim Tarihi: 10.09.2015
• Cohen, D, & Prusak, L (2001). In Good Company: How Social Capital Makes Organizations Work. Harvard Business Press.
• Covell, D., Walker, S., Siciliano, J., Hess, W.P. (2007). Managing sports organizations: responsibility for performance (2nd ed.). Oxford: Elsevier
• Deubert, C., Wong, G.M., Hatman D. (2013). Natıonal Football League General Managers: An Analysis Of The Responsibilities, Qualifications, And Characteristics. Jeffrey S. Moorad Sports Law Journal, 20, 427-493
• Field, J. (2006). Sosyal Sermaye, (Çeviren: Bahar Bilgen, Bayram Sen). İstanbul Bilgi Üniversitesi Yayınları, İstanbul.
• Funk, D. C. (2009). Consumer Behaviour in Sport And Events Marketing.
• Girginov, V. (Ed.). (2008). Management of sports development. Routledge.
• Glaser, B. G., & Strauss, A. L. (2017). Discovery of grounded theory: Strategies for qualitative research. Routledge.
• Gupta, R., K., Awasthy, R. (2015). Qualitative Research in Management Methods and Experiments. New Delhi: Sage Publications.
• Horch, H. & Schutte, N. (2003). Competencies of sport managers in German sport clubs and sport federations. Managing Leisure, 8(2), 70-84.
• Kaser, K., & Oelkers, D. B. (2015). Sports and entertainment marketing. Nelson Education.
• Kolpe, R., Burnett, M., A. (1991). Content Analysis Research: An examination of applications with directives for improving research reliability and objectivity. Journal of Consumer Research, 18, 243-250
• Masteralexis, L.P., Barr, C.A., Hums, M.A. (2005). Principles and practice of sport management. Sudbury Massachusetts: Jones and Bartlett Publishers.
• Masterman, G. (2014). Strategic sports event management. Routledge.
• McPherson, S. (2015). What NBA General Managers Actually Do https://sports.vice.com/en_us/article/what-nba-general-managers-actually-do Access Date: 11.03.2017
• Michaela, I.T., Veronica, M., Dana, B. (2014). Importance of human resources ın sports clubs and ın sports performance management. Scientific Journal of Education, Sports, and Health, 15(2), 269-278.
• Miles, M, B., & Huberman, A. M. (1994). Qualitative data analysis: An expanded Sourcebook. (2nd ed). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
• Neuendorf, K. (2002). The Content Analysis Guidebook, Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications.
• Parks, J. B., Zanger, B. R. K., Quarterman, J. (1998). Contemporary sport management. United States: Human Kinetics.
• Patton, M.Q. (2002). Qualitative research and evaluation methods (3rd Ed.). London: Sage Publications, Inc.
• Robinson, M. J. (2010). Sport club management. United States: Human Kinetics.
• Shank, M. D., & Lyberger, M. R. (2014). Sports marketing: A strategic perspective. Routledge.
• Simeva, V. J. (2015). the connectıon between top managers educatıon and their successful sport clubs management. Research in Kinesiology. 43(1), 11-15.
• Taylor, S. J., Bogdan, R., & Devault, M. L. (2016). Introduction to Qualitative Research Methods A Guidebook And Resource. New Jersey: John Wiley & Sons.
• Türkiye Basketbol Federasyonu (TBF), (2015). Başkan Erdenay’dan Yeni Sezon Mesajı. http://www.tbf.org.tr/detay/2015/10/09/ba%C5%9Fkan-erdenay-dan-yeni-sezon-mesaj%C4%B1. Erişim Tarihi: 15 Ekim 2015
• Wakefield, K. L. (2007). Team sports marketing. Elsevier.
• Watt, D. C. (2003). Sports management and administration. Psychology Press.
• Westerbeek, H. (2010). Sport management and sport business: Two sides of the same coin? Sport in Society, 13(9), 1293-1299.
• Whitmore, J. (2010). Coaching for performance: Growing human potential and purpose-the principles and practice of coaching and leadership. Nicholas Brealey.
• Wong, G.M., Deubert, C. (2010). Major League Baseball General Managers: An Analysis of Their Responsibilities, Qualifications and Characteristics. A Journal of Baseball History and Culture, 18, 74.
• Wong, G.M., Deubert, C. (2011). National Basketball Association General Managers: An Analysis of the Responsibilities, Qualifications and Characteristics, Jeffrey S. Moorad Sports Law Journal,18(1), 213-262