The effects of the success needs of sports administrators and developmental assignments in predicting managerial competencies

SUMMARY The aim of this study is to investigate the effects of the needs for achievement and managerial developmental assignments of sports administratorson on their development of managerial competencies. The data was collected from the president, vice president, members of management working at the central organization of the Turkish Sport Federation and sport directors who are in charge of dependent and subsidiary organisations (middle and upper level managers) –middle and upper leveled provincial directors and district directors. At the data collection stage, web based on line form and the filling of the questionnaire by the researcher face to face methods were used. The data were collected from 189 sport managers by the use of questionnaire. The scale used to assess sport directors' managerial competencies was adapted from Ko and her colleques (2011). The scale formed from 11 and included 70 items with 7 point Likert type rating scale options. To assess managerial developments of sport administrators "Development Challenge Profile" of McCauley (1994) has been used. The scale is formed from 50 questions and 10 subscales. Five subscales of the scale including, developing new directions, unfamiliar responsibilities, deciding high stakes environment, job overload and working across cultures have been used. The scale is formed from 25 items and used seven point Likert type rating options. Heckert and his colleques' (1999) the needs for achievement scale for the identification of the sport directors' needs was used that includes five items with 5 point Likert type rating scale options. Findings: In the analysis, SPSS Version 22.00 and LISREL Version 8.15 were used to assess reliability and validity of the scales. Confirmatory factor analysis revealed that Managerial Competencies consists of five dimensions with 31 items and Managerial Developmental Assignments formed of 5 dimensions with 16 items. The needs for achievement construct made up by 5 items. The analysis further indicate that the subscales of the managerial developmental assignments which are unfamiliar responsibilities (negatively), job overload and working across cultures were influencial on the managerial competencies of sport managers through needs for achievement. Conclusion: The study findings revealed that the suggested model was valid and reliable in explaining the effects on sport managers' competencies. The model can be interpreted as the following: when sport managers face unfamiliar responsibilities, their needs for achievement was negatively influenced. Sport managers' development assignments of job overload and working across cultures have positive impact on their needs for achievement. Keywords: Sport management, Needs for Achievement, Managerial Developmental Assignments, Managerial Competencies.