Determinants of labour migration of elite sport coaches

(Un)Sustainable Human Resource Management in Brazilian Football? Empirical Evidence on Coaching Recruitment and Dismissal

A superficial attitude in football insists on blaming head coaches when games are lost. Controversially, however, whereas decision-makers in professional football clubs claim to seek successful outcomes on the pitch, they often favor questionable judgements that affect their organizational sustainability by recycling coaches without substantial analyses. Albeit scholars have stressed potential causes and consequences of coaching turnovers, specific knowledge is needed around the recruitment and dismissal steps faced by professional coaches, and to what extent their experiences mirror the theoretical background of human resource management in sport. This study poses the following research question: how do football clubs actually handle coaching recruitment and dismissal processes? Qualitative, semi-structured interviews were conducted with 26 elite coaches from Brazil, who had collectively been employed by all 43 clubs that participated in the Brasileirão from 2003 to 2020. Based on a deductive-inductive approach, the content analysis framed two categories (recruitment and dismissal stages) with three main themes (methods, decision-makers, and decision-making), which were sustained by specific subthemes. The results suggest how the recruitment, assessment, and replacement of head coaches neglect both a strategic and a sustainable rationale towards human resource management in Brazil’s elite football.

Cultural intelligence in sport: An examination of football coaches’ cross-cultural training needs

Cultural intelligence is the capability of a person to adapt effectively to different cultures. This capability has been investigated in areas such as management, military, and education. However, there are no studies in sport referring to this capability. It is important to study cultural intelligence in sport because of the increased globalisation resulting from coaches’ and athletes’ migration across countries and clubs. This study aimed to develop the Cultural Intelligence in Sport (CQsport) and examine its factorial structure and psychometric properties; and examine coaches’ cultural intelligence and their perceived cross-cultural training needs. Participants were 209 football coaches either with or without international experience. Participants completed an online survey consisting of CQsport and a cross-cultural training needs questionnaire. We used a multigroup analysis, within the structural equation model (SEM) approach, to test group differences in the CQsport and performed a one-way analysis of variance (ANOVA) for comparisons across groups concerning cross-cultural training needs. Coaches with international experience rated themselves with more cultural intelligence in the sports context than coaches with no international experience on the metacognitive, cognitive, motivational and behavioural dimensions. Coaches with international experience also self-rated fewer training needs than coaches without international experience. This study represents the first attempt to examine football coaches’ cultural intelligence and their cross-cultural training needs.