Organizational culture - match-fixing relationship: A study on the sports clubs in Turkey

Organizations are the products of the cultural paradigm of the society in which they live. In the meantime; every organization generates a culture depending on its special environment, various inputs and processes. In the studies on the organizational culture, it is emphasized that there is a strong relation between the cultural features and the success of the organizations. Activities performed are based on an intense interaction between the organization members, and the organizational culture is formed in such interaction. Developments in the special environments of the sports clubs operating in the football branch also affect the structure of the organizational culture. Having been commercialized and industrialized after 1990s, the football world has also led to some structural transformations in Turkish football. This has naturally brough along some problems. The process of professionalism has caused the sports activities to lose their game characteristics, and has transformed them into a commercially-running field. The culture of winning and the will to have success have moved ahead of the sportive values of any kind. As a result of creation of the brutal competition environment, match-fixing cases have become an important problem for sports clubs. This is a quantitative survey study aimed at determining the relation between match-fixing and the organizational culture of the Turkish sports clubs operating in the football branch. 500 people; who have been working in the sports clubs Beşiktaş, Galatasaray, Fenerbahçe and Trabzonspor; have formed the sample group of the present study. Data were collected through the "Organizational-Culture Scale" developed by Danışman and Özgen (2003), and a "Match-Fixing Survey" prepared by the researchers. Pearson Correlation Test, Kruskal-Wallis Test, and regression analysis have been used as statistics. Findings of our study have shown that the clan-tendency and professionalism-tendency dimensions of the organizational culture predicts the internal-effect and external-effect dimensions of match-fixing significantly in the sports clubs. We have also found that the hierarchy-tendency and the supportiveness-tendency dimensions of the organizational culture predicts the external-effect dimension of match-fixing significantly. In conclusion; we can state that the organizational-culture dimensions such as the clan, professionalism, hierarchy and supportiveness tendencies exist in the sports clubs, and they affect the internal-effect and external-effect dimensions of match-fixing.