To date, the hiring process has taken many forms in an athletic department. Athletic directors have utilized different hiring processes when hiring new coaches to head athletic programs at their universities. It is vital to note that the current hiring processes used by many athletic directors are not adequate and are inconsistent. Athletic directors and athletic departments need to instill the Person-Organization Fit into their hiring process. Person-Organization Fit is the “compatibility between people and the organizations in which they work” (Kristof, 1996, p. 1). Instilling PO Fit in the athletic department’s hiring process will ensure a more complete hire that will build a more lasting relationship between the employee (coach) and the organization (athletic department). This presentation will examine the current hiring process within athletic departments and whether hiring based on Person-Organization fit will create an overall better hire than the previous coach hired.
Method:
We randomly-selected coaches from NCAA Div. I, II, III institutions. We examined the mean Differences (ANCOVA) between coaches of male and female teams in order to see who valued what differently and for any differences in connection to university (e.g. identification, affective commitment, job intention, etc.). In all, 800 coaches were sampled with 260 coaches responding. Of those, 223 usable responses were collected. The respondents levels of affective commitment to the university, university identification, job intention, financial value to coach, entertainment value to coach, athlete value to coach, university prestige value to coach, excellence value to coach, and coach value were measured.
Analysis/Results:
The main differences we observed were based on the gender of the teams that were being coached. We observed gender differences in terms of job intention. We also found coaches of males teams valuing financial impact, entertainment value, the amount their teams bring to university prestige, and overall excellence more than coaches of female teams.
Conclusions:
It is imperative athletic directors use PO Fit in the hiring process because of the high rates of coaches getting fired the past few years. PO Fit will help the athletic department focus more time on the importance of the student athlete and not as much time on hiring a coach every other year. The results from this study suggest that administrators should consider different aspects of the coaches personality based on the sport that the coach will be leading.