Organizational politics in team sports

In this research, it is aimed to examine the organizational politics theory and political behaviors in sport teams. In the study, in which the exploratory sequential mixed methods research design was chosen from the mixed method research designs, first of all, qualitative research was carried out to understand the subject in depth. Then, quantitative research was carried out in order to examine the situation of the findings obtained through qualitative research in a larger sample group. In this context, 16 athletes, two women and two men, from the basketball, football, handball and volleyball branches, and a total of 8 trainers, one for each women's team and one men's team coach from all branches which have the highest number of athletes, participated in the qualitative part of the research. In this framework, after the completion of the qualitative research conducted with 24 participants, in the second stage, firstly, the "Perceived Organizational Politics in Sport Teams" (TSOP) scale was developed, and the related scale was applied to 772 athletes, and analyzes were applied to the obtained data on various variables. Finally, the findings collected through the studies carried out in two separate stages were combined in the discussion section of the study and discussed together on the basis of the literature. As a result of the analyzes applied to the research data It can be said that; the political behavior levels of the athletes are affected by their individual, organizational and coach/manager characteristics, the organizational politics has some positive effects on the sport teams but the negative consequences are dominant, the political atmosphere in the sports teams should be managed correctly by the coaches and managers, and while there are significant differences in the variables of branch, gender, age, league, number of teams they play and career change, but there is no significant difference in the captain role variable. As a result, It can be said that political behaviors and organizational politics are common and effective in all sports teams, as in all organizations, and that the political struggles in the teams should be understood and managed correctly in order toı sports teams achieve their formal goals successfully.