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Leader prototypicality in sport: The implicit leadership theories of people entering sport management careers

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journal contribution
posted on 2019-09-20, 08:21 authored by Steve Swanson, Jon Billsberry, Aubrey Kent, James Skinner, Jacqueline Mueller
© 2019 Sport Management Association of Australia and New Zealand Implicit leadership theories (ILTs) matter because they are used as the benchmark against which people determine who is a leader and who is not. This assessment informs their behavioral responses. People are thought to have a superordinate-level ILT representing their prototypical mental model of leadership and a series of basic-level ILTs. Each of these represents how people conceptualize leadership in particular domains (e.g., sport, politics, and popular culture). In this study, the authors generate the structures of basic-level sport management ILTs for women and men who are about to enter this industry. These form the baseline from which socialization to work, organizational cultures, and the sport management industry begins. The ILTs of women entering sport management careers have a 35-item, 6-factor structure (Sensitivity, Knowledgeable, Physical Attractiveness, Inspirational, Dedication, and Focused), whereas men entering the industry have a 32-item, 7-factor structure (Sensitivity, Dedication, Physical Attractiveness, Focused, Creativity, Inspirational, Courageous). The resulting sport management ILT profiles differ from superordinate ones by emphasizing physical and vitality attributes, incorporating emotional elements, and by eschewing antiprototypical elements. The paper ends with a discussion of the implications for leadership research in sport management.

History

School

  • Loughborough University London

Published in

Sport Management Review

Volume

23

Issue

4

Pages

640-656

Publisher

Elsevier

Version

  • AM (Accepted Manuscript)

Rights holder

©2019 Sport Management Association of Australia and New Zealand

Publisher statement

This paper was accepted for publication in the journal Sport Management Review and the definitive published version is available at https://doi.org/10.1016/j.smr.2019.08.002

Acceptance date

2019-08-07

Publication date

2019-08-22

Copyright date

2020

ISSN

1441-3523

Language

  • en

Depositor

Dr Steve Swanson

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