Does the organizational climate in a sports clubs matter? Management implications and intervention proposals

Abstract

The organizational climate is one of the most important factors in an organization to take into account since it has a direct and positive relationship with the final performance of employees. This construct has been widely studied in different fields; however, despite the economic, social, and sporting importance of non-professional sports clubs in Spanish society, practically no studies have focused on the organizational climate of nonprofessional Spanish sports clubs. This study analyzed 382 Spanish non-professional sports clubs, 63.6% of which are at a national–international competition level, and 70.2% are mainly privately funded. The instrument used has been previously validated and presented good psychometric properties in this study. To determine whether there are differences in the organizational climate of sports clubs according to the competition level and the type of funding, comparative analyses of averages were performed for independent samples. According to the results obtained, there were no differences in the organizational climate according to the type of funding, but the national–international sports clubs showed significantly higher levels of training, motivation, and overall organizational climate than in the regional–local sports clubs. This may have different causes and consequences that were determined in this article compared with those in the existing literature in organizational and sports fields. Thus, this study presented various management implications and proposals for useful interventions for management teams of sports clubs. However, the study has limitations, and future areas of research are discussed.