Examining the effect of resistance to change levels of managers, coaches and athletes in amateur football clubs on their success

This research was conducted to examine the effect of resistance to change levels of managers, coaches and athletes in amateur football clubs on their success. The research was conducted using quantitative method and descriptive survey model was adopted. The study group of the research consists of 289 people reached among the managers, coaches and athletes of the amateur football clubs in Denizli province, who were provided to participate on a voluntary basis by using the convenience sampling method. Personal Information Form and Resistance to Change Scale developed by Oreg (2003) were used as data collection tools. The scale consists of 17 items and four sub-dimensions (1. Routine seeking, 2. Emotional reaction, 3. Short-term focus, 4. Cognitive rigidity). The data were collected between December 2024 and February 2025 and the introduction and general information section of the study was started to be written. In March 2025, the statistical analysis of the collected data was made and the findings of the research were written in April. The scale was applied to the managers, coaches and athletes of the clubs in Denizli Super Amateur Football League (SAL). 16 teams were included in the study. SPSS 25.0 package program was used to analyze the data obtained in the study, and arithmetic averages, standard deviations, standard errors, minimum and maximum values were calculated. Skewness and kurtosis values were taken into consideration while evaluating whether the data showed a normal distribution or not, and it was seen that the values were in the range of -1.5 to +1.5 and it was thought that the normality assumption was met and parametric tests were used in the analysis of the data. One-way Analysis of Variance (ANOVA) was used to evaluate the participants' age, education level and job type, Pearson Correlation analysis was used to evaluate the income status, and Tukey post-hoc test was applied to determine the source of the difference in the results showing a significant difference in the ANOVA test results. In the results of the research, significant differences were found in the emotional reaction dimension of the Resistance to Change Scale according to age, in the emotional reaction and cognitive rigidity dimensions according to job position type, in the emotional reaction dimension according to educational status and in the emotional reaction dimension according to income status. KEYWORDS: Change, resistance, soccer, sports management.