Marketing Concept in Elite Team Sports Clubs in Serbia: Impact of Leadership Styles, Organizational Learning Culture, and Climate for Innovation

Abstract

This research tested the interactions among organizational learning culture, leadership styles, climate for innovation, and marketing concept of sports clubs in team sports. The study included elite sport managers (N=118), from four team sports (football, basketball, handball, and volleyball), who participated in the highest rank of national competition in Serbia. The organizational learning culture was measured with attitudes of respondents about the organizational learning culture at individual, team or group level, and organization as dichotomous variables, while leadership styles used the MLQ self-assessment questionnaire. The climate for innovation scale was measured with scales for assessing organizational support for creativity, maladaptation, support for innovation, and resource supply. The presence/absence of components of the different marketing mix aspects was measured as a four-dimensional variable for evaluation marketing concept. The results supported the mediation and path models. Direct effect to variable marketing concept is noticed only in the organizational learning culture, while climate for innovations and leadership style did not have a direct effect on the marketing concept. Indirect effects revealed that the status of the sports branch, the market position of each club in its sport competitive results, and the education background of managers' impact marketing concept in team sports in Serbia. The theoretical and practical contributions of obtaining results are discussed.