“Hero to zero to hero” : exploring the experiences of football managers as they socialise into a new football management job role

Organisation socialisation is a dynamic, complex process that takes place when an individual transitions into a new job role. Often there are a wide range of factors that an individual faces as they adapt to a new organisation culture. Some individuals may be overwhelmed by a constellation of factors; for example, the socialisation content to be learned, the tactics that an organisation uses, people already in situ and political aspects that are already in play within the organisation (and workgroup). This thesis contributes to the organisation socialisation literature by providing the Hiplex-D model that represents the relationship dynamics that occur when a new manager is employed. The model is based on 43 semi-structured interviews with managers (men’s and women’s football) to discover their transition experiences during their career. The longest career in men’s non-league football was over 30 years, with several managers having relatively stable periods of between 5-8 years at one club. The majority of the managers have won promotion to a higher level e.g. the national league south (level 5) to national league, with some being promoted into the English League Division 2. The majority have had a successful career in football management, where movement from organisation to organisation is the norm rather than the exception. The ability to improve the performance of a team within a short period of time, and to keep winning, is the only guarantee of job role tenure. The key findings were twofold. Firstly, it was discovered that there were many elements to the dynamic complexity of the socialisation process that made socialisation challenging in a short timeframe (5-6 weeks). The socialisation process is multi-level; from day 1, a variety of stakeholders engage simultaneously with the new manager. Socialisation is a competitive process wherein a new manager has to motivate a winning team. Creating and maintaining high quality working relationships requires the manager to apply a range of strategies and actions to create mutual benefits for themselves and a range of stakeholders. The Hiplex-D model identifies that socialisation is multi-levelled, including an extra-organisational level which can be particularly potent. Customers, regulators, journalists (part of the media) and talent agents all compete with the new manager to socialise the new manager from outside the organisation and vice versa. The agency of the new manager during transition (socialisation) is found to be contingent upon three factors: the job role responsibilities, the job role position within the organisation structure, and the individual’s ability to read the political landscape and modify their actions accordingly. Secondly, the football manager has to demonstrate an ability to read the political landscape and choose political strategies and actions that show political astuteness in action. The ability to understand the football management role in terms of relative power relations/objective configuration enables the new manager to become a social chameleon. Key facets of political astuteness are the evaluation of the political strategies and actions available and the choice of one that enables the maintenance or improvement in a relationship. Many times this comes in the form of a compromise where the football manager flexes their objective as far as they can to align with the stakeholder concerned. The choice of the manager to work collaboratively or adversarially is explored during the socialisation period. The transition made by internal appointees was more difficult than that of external appointees. Assistant managers (internal appointees) who had little or no experience of dealing with the organisation level, e.g. chair and board, and the extra-organisational level had not developed appropriate political strategies to deal with these stakeholders. The internal appointee transitions from a single level of socialisation, i.e. workgroup, where the manager enjoys significant relative power relations over the workgroup. However, at the organisation and extra-organisational level, stakeholders have relative parity or relative power superiority. This means that the new manager has to be more nuanced in their choice of political strategies and actions to protect the quality of each particular stakeholder relationship. For example, having a conflict with the chairperson may indeed end in a manager’s immediate dismissal, whilst a conflict with a key workgroup colleague could lead to an emotional contagion that eats away at the fabric of the team.

Grantor dc:publisher

Oxford Brookes University

Year dc:date

2023

Author dc:creator

• Taylor, Steven

Contributors dc:contributor

• Gannon, Judie
• Ciuk, Sylwia

Statement dc:rights

• All rights reserved

Language dc:language

en

DOI dc:identifier

https://doi.org/10.24384/1kzx-3427

OAI identifier oai:identifier

tle:2ced8939-7cf0-40e0-ba52-0a5b079c0952:d6bd9758-527a-46cd-bfe2-c433766e8fca:1