Sports Management

Question: Write a report on "Sports Management". Answer: Introduction Responding to mess and getting favorable outcomes is always the clear focus of administrators, but often if forms to be a problem due to the emergence of significant hurdles within the system. Responding to certain issues becomes a managers first responsibility and it clearly reflects on the prowess that he or she possesses as a manager. Often it is seen that administrative mess is very tough to be eliminated and an organisation suffers the administrative mess created by a certain individual or a group of people. It is important to mention that responding to administrative mess involves different movements that ensures that the mess created is effective addressed and responded in order to go ahead with the operations of a particular organisation. Administrative shortfalls that affect the operations of a particular organisation have to be handled effectively or else it might affect the long term plans of a company (Jackson, 2014). The present case of Administrative mess highlights the problem of Montana State High School Athletic Association (MSHSAA) where the organisation has serious implications for poor sports management and its related aspects. The case study will highlight the different aspects of management that is relevant to administrative shortcomings of the organisation. The study will involve the discussions of several issues which pertain to the subject of strategic management in a company. The study takes into account strategic management issues, organisational behavior, human resource management and game officiating aspects. The case especially emphasises on the numerous administrative processes a sport administrator would face. The case clearly reveals the possible potential barriers an administrator is likely to face while trying to settle down in this industry. There are several issues that have been enlisted in this study clearly hinting at the potential threats that they could have on the su ccessful administration of a sports body (Pedersen Thibault, 2014). The present study will take an opportunity to effectively discuss the key issues involved with the case and effectively provide solutions to them in order to complete the study successfully. At the same time it will also try to delve deep into the aspects of organisational behavior and strategic management issues that will help to clear up the administrative mess and run the operations of the organisation smoothly. The key challenges and responsibilities of a sports administrator would be highlighted giving an opportunity to effectively analyse the validity and the reliability of the findings achieved from this present study. Presently the sports industry has a coordinators position and it is important for the students to realise the common issues and challenges that a coordinator faces. The coordinator requires certain skills sets to fulfill the administrative responsibilities and it is important for students stud ying management to be aware of the given administrative responsibilities and skill sets. The present study will be effective in engaging other sports management students as it discusses the administrative responsibilities that go with all the different sports administration positions. The present case of Montana State High School Athletic Association would help us to address the key objective of the study to effectively respond to administrative mess (Atalay et al., 2013). Challenges and Issues Faced in redesigning Basketball Referee Program at MSHSAA There are various challenges and issues which have gradually crept up and slowed down the development of the Referee program redesigning at Montana State High School Athletic Association. As given in the case study the organisation has not been handled well over the years by the previous administrator at the office and this has given rise to different issues and challenges that Mr. Davis Tripp has to address to develop the operation of the MSHSAA. There is a lot of information available for Tripp to utilise to make amends in the movement and strategic decisions made for the smooth operation of the organisation. There are numerous key challenges that the last administrator Mr. Jack Mason created for him to come and succeed. As a sports coordinator it is extremely important for Davis Tripp to identify the challenges and issues that are there to be solved. The present case of sport administration is multi faceted and has several issues related to administration (Horine Stotlar, 2013). The case has reflected that it has different issues and challenges in different sections of the organisation for instance strategic management issues, organisational behavior issues, and human resource management challenges, leaderships shortcomings et cetera. Secondly there are also lack of administrative policies and procedures pertinent to the officiating and organising basketball games. Apart from this it is also important to take care of the relevant issues to promote the interest of other sports like Baseball and Rugby et cetera. The challenges and issues are given below according to their importance and potential implications on the organisation: Strategic Management Issues: With Jack Mason leaving the office with a lot of setbacks behind him, it put MSHSAA in deep trouble (Houlihan, 2014). The former administrator did not have a great tenure at MSHSAA and had a lot of trouble regarding management issues. The organisation really failed to put up proper strategic management policies, it failed to develop mission, vision and objectives which is extremely important for the effective operation of the organisation. Strategic management issues are important and should be given paramount importance as this forms to be the pillar of an organisation. For a company framing mission, vision and objectives would help to achieve long term plans of the organisation. As there was no strategic management policy in the organisation it could be said that the MSHSAA would fall prey to different management loopholes that are likely to affect the operation of the organisation. It was quite visible during the tenure of Jack Mason that Montana State High School Athletic Associa tion reached new low which could be termed as the ramification of poor strategic management decisions. Hence it is quite important that during the tenure of Davis Tripp the MSHSAA successfully frames strategic management policies like effective mission, vision and short term and long term objectives which would help Mr. Tripp to bring the derailed back on track effectively (Rtten et al., 2009). In this case having the stakeholders on the same page is very important as poor strategic management policies have highly affected the stakeholders. The school basketball teams havent had a great season and on the other hand there were some severe issues which came up during the tenure of the former administrator which affected the relationship of MSHSAA with its stakeholders. The referees werent given proper appraisals and school teams werent provided with infrastructure to perform well. Basketball officiating issues: Basketball officiating issues reached a new low during the tenure of the former administrator. It is important to mention that Montana State High School Athletic Association emphasises on Basketball which has not undergone gradual development in the school which has become a real problem. This is what Davis Tripp will have to take into account when revamping the system for the development of the overall system. The basketball officiating system in MSHSAA has been affected as referees have given up working for this organisation due to its ill-treatment of the referees. The officiating system of the games has been affected and due to this the trust over the organisation has been affected (Gillentine et al., 2009). This issue was created as number of referees working for the organisation slowly and steadily decreased. It could be seen in the graph given below. Fig 1: Referees by number over the years The above graph shows that the number of referees officiating has decreased to a significant level in the past. When MSHSAA had around more than 900 registered officials officiating basketball games for the organisation in 1980 it gradually declined over the years and came up to almost half of what was there in the 80s to 500. This is one of the key reasons that MSHSAA has faced games officiating issues. It could be said that the poor relationship management by the former coordinator is one of the key reasons that so many referees have declined offers from Montana State High School Athletic Association. In the year 1980 when female officials were taking an opportunity to break into officiating basketball matches the MSHSAA was the best place to be which is clearly showed in the graph. During that time a total count of female officials was 200 which gradually increased up to 450 in between 1985 and 1990 but started experiencing a gradual decline from early 90s and now the count till 2 010 was the lowest o just around 100 may be even less than 100 female officials willing to officiating basketball matches. This is another major issue for Mr. Tripp as bringing more referees into action will help the organisation to revive its past glory and will have more choices in allocating officials in basket games (Sam, 2009). This is in fact a key movement as this will increase placements and will allow employment opportunities for people. Overall it is important to mention that most of the officiating issues will have to be eliminated as this could affect the performance of the organisation and will also deny the organisation to achieve organisational goals. Discrimination Issues: Tripp had a very informative discussion about the problems of officials especially discrimination issues with one of his long time acquaintances Amy Summit about the problems with the female referees. Amy had been a professional official for a long time and has faced significant problems as a female official. It has been seen from the above graph that the number of female officials has reduced drastically due to problems of discrimination. During the tenure of the former coordinator Mr. Mason there was no significant steps taken to reduce the problems of discrimination. Amy described the agony of her officiating career which came to an end due to certain discrimination issues. The discussion with Amy clearly showed that female officials were not given ample support and provisions which would help the female community to come ahead in sports officiating (Bravo et al., 2012). The discrimination against female was very clear from the words of Amy. She clearly stat ed that female referees were showed unwelcome gestures and even got affected by sexual innuendos which made them feel immensely insecured and also there was action taken to increase the employment of female referees. It is important to mention that issues with female referees were there for a long time and slowly and steadily increased giving a clear indication that were was no strong strategic policy about handling female referee employment. The female referees were judged only by their gender. The differentiation done based on the gender is clearly an issue and it could be said that the discrimination issue has to be eliminated from the game otherwise it could pose to be a problem for the game as well as for the long term plans of MSHSAA. The MSHSAA will have to analyse the situation and identify the discrimination issues in order to eliminate them effectively (Houlihan Green, 2009). Human resource issues: Under the coordinatorship of Jack Mason it was very clear that the human resource management wasnt done effectively. This created a lot of problem and naturally the performance of the employees has gone down. The key human resource problems that have already affected the performance of MSHSAA are recruitment and selection of officials, the problem of flexibility, mitigation of disputes and appraisals and evaluation of the coaches and referees. Human resource management is an extremely important aspect of an organisation. Especially in sports management human resource plays a very key role. In most of the cases at Montana State High School Athletic Association human resource issues have affected the performance of the organisation. The human resource management hasnt been that effective in MSHSAA. The recruitment and selection of the officials has not been done well and was highly biased. Since the pervious coordinator was not friendly enough and had poor employ ee relations it affected the operations. On the other hand biasness of the recruitment and selection process did not result to effective recruitment as the former coordinator was not able to recruit the efficient officials that have reflected later poorly on the basketball games (Hums McLean, 2013). The human resource policies of MSHSAA has not been able to help the officials in terms of work-life balance and has also failed to provide flexibility in their jobs which is directly related to the less number of officials working for the organisation. Work and personal life balance is very important for officials as it will help them to stay consistent and focus on their job effectively but in sports providing flexibility is very tough. As a coordinator it is important to fix schedules which would provide the officials the required flexibility so that they can balance the work life and personal life. If the human resource management is not handled properly it would have serious implica tions on the operations of the organisation. Finally the appraisals done on the officials under Jack Mason were not good and this clearly reflected from the information and the binders that Jack left before he left the office. It is important to mention that Tripp assessed the different information left by Mason and it was clear that most of officials were not retained by MSHSAA. It showed that poor appraisals are one of the major reasons that forced the experienced officials like Amy Summit to leave the profession (Harris Parker, 2009). At the same time hiring young people with lack of experience created real problems as they were not competent enough to officiating matches. This in turn gave real taint on the operations of MSHSAA. Hence it could be said that the human resource issues are another major problem for the association. Work Culture and ambience: As discussed earlier work culture and ambience is very important in every industry and especially the sports industry. Ambience is the environment where an individual works and it is important for every organisation to provide employees with effective work ambience. In sports especially for referees and umpires and other officials is always very tough and in this case the work culture and ambience at MSHSAA wasnt good under Mr. Mason which forced a lot of referees to quit the job. One of the examples is Amy Summit walking away from the officiating matches. It has to be said that the work culture at MSHSAA has to be revamped since under the former coordinator was not good and it reflected on the substantial section of the officials have walked away from officiating matches. Female officials had to face trepidations that gradually reduced the number of female officials working to officiate basketball matches. Tripp has a huge role to play in improving the wor k culture and ambience so that officials could be called back to work (Greenhalgh et al., 2011). Public relations and communications: Public relations and communication is extremely important aspect in every organisation. Public relations and communications is the best way to effectively keep connected with the media as well as the common mass. It is important to mention that public relation is key for MSHSAA as it provides the best possible platform to keep the people updated and also have an effective view of the constant work done by an organisation. Public relation is not effectively done in Montana State High School Athletic Association as Jack Mason the former Coordinator was not a good administrator and under him the organisation experienced different scandals which has pushed the company back to wall (Masteralexis et al., 2011). It could be said that since after the scandal in the Raptors and Columbia Fall Tigers match the coordinator Mason was not found to comment which was a he gap between the media that represented common and the organisation MSHSAA. The communication was not proper which could not justify the decision of deploying inexperienced referees chosen for such a high pressure state final match. Since the communication was not that effective and justifications were not provided the organisation had to face criticisms which was imminent in this scenario. Hence it could be said that public relations and communication stands to be a key issue for Tripp to take care. As seen in the case the wrong decisions made by the referees created unrest and wasnt communicated well by the organisation MSHSAA. Overall it could be said that these issues and challenges are important to be addressed as it will ensure that MSHSAA comes back to the track successfully (Ronalds Rapers, 2012). Training and development of the Referees: From the case of Raptors vs. Columbia Falls Tigers it is clear that the inexperienced referees are not able to handle pressure matches and tend to make mistakes. It is already discussed that to become an expert referee it needs at least 10000 hours of training and hence it could be said that lack of training and development was a major setback for MSHSAA. During Masons leadership training and development was not gives paramount importance that led to scandalous Montana State Championship final match. Out of this it is visible that lack of training and development will constantly affect the capabilities of the referees. Overall it could be said that training and development is a key issue which Davis Tripp the present Coordinator of Montana State High School Athletic Association will have to take care of (Grix, 2010). Referee Program rebuilding at MSHSAA For Davis Tripp to bring back the past glory of MSHSAA is the first objective and for that he has to take some key decisions which would help to implement certain ideas and plans that will visibly develop the position of the organisation in terms of sports officiating. For effective rebuilding of the referee programs at MSHSAA it is important to identify and assess the impact of different issues that affect the operation of the organisation. The above column has effectively identified challenges and issues which are key for the development of the organisation. The above section has helped to assess all the different challenges and based on their merits it has also helped to identify the three different issues which have to be prioritised. All the challenges are important to be eliminated for the smooth operation of the organisation but Strategic management issues, human resource issues and officiating issues are more important to be addressed first (Barroso et al., 2010). The human r esource management issue is chosen as a key priority as this involves the aspect of culture in it which becomes extremely important for a healthy environment at the workplace as well as provides a perfect platform to effectively develop ideas and plans for the development of the operations in MSHSAA. For the effective rebuilding of the Referee program the chosen three issues will have to be handled effectively. The human resource issues, strategic management issues and officiating issues are key issues for Montana State High School Athletics Association. For eliminating these issues and challenges successfully the organisation needs to frame strategies and goals and objectives which would help the company to mitigate these risks and challenges effectively. These objectives will strive to cover up the strategic management issues that become the pillar of the organisation, the human resource issues which will address the aspects of culture and other human resource related problems and finally the officiating issues that the organisation has faced in the recent past during the coordinatorship of Jack Mason (Ferkins et al., 2010). Goals and Objectives to eliminate challenges and issues It is important to frame goals and objectives (short term and long term) to effectively eliminate the issues and challenges faced by Montana State High School Athletics Association. Most of the time organisations fail to address issues and challenges due to lack of effectual agenda and hence in it becomes important that as a coordinator Davis Tripp takes small steps to be able to eliminate key challenges and issues faced by the organisation in organising referee rebuilding program. The different objectives framed are discussed below: Develop mission and vision for the organisation: Every organisation has a specific focus which acts to be the destination that an organisation wants to reach. Framing a mission statement will give MSHSAA an opportunity to set a perfect platform to go ahead with its agenda. It is a long term objective which the organisation has to frame and work accordingly. This is one of key movement made to eliminate the strategic management issues. Since the organisation doesnt have effective vision it has not been able to perform consistently enough in terms of creating expert referees and officials who will become most sought candidates for officiating basketball games. On the other hand vision will help the organisation to create minds that like to contemplate and develop the game by profound thinking and are likely to take sports to the next level. This objective will ensure that the company is making amendments for the development of the game, for the development of the career of referees and finally for the organisation (Burton et al., 2009). Stakeholder engagement: This is another key objective to develop strategic management at MSHSAA. The stakeholders are a very important part of every organisation and hence it is important for MSHSAA to involve them in the operation of the organisation. The involvement of stakeholders like media will help the organisation communicate in a better way which would improve the public relations of the organisations, and will help to realise what sports loving people want. Referees another key stakeholder is very important as well. They should be positively communicated and keep updated about the changes and implementations made which will help to be on the same page as the stakeholders and will provide the required support from them (Anderson Birrer, 2009). Forming Effective selection and recruitment panel: This objective will help to address the human resource issues to a large extent. Effective and qualified selection panel will be able to understand the true potential of the officials to be recruited. On the other hand this will also ensure that the selection and recruitment of the officials are done in an unbiased manner based only on merit. The officials are now recruited only by giving written tests but it will also help the panel of judges to see how equipped a referee is with their knowledge. This will help to recruit officials irrespective of the gender and will make the recruitment and selection procedure much more justified reducing any kind of error made during the entire procedure of selection (Knoppers McDonald, 2010). Framing better human resource policy: Framing better human resource policies is a long term objective that will help MSHSAA to make their human resource management stable. It will help to improve the practice of human resource management at MSHSAA and will also ensure that all the contracted officials are provided with all kinds of facilities that they deserve to get and did not receive during the tenure of Jack Mason the former coordinator at MSHSAA. Better human resource policy will take into account the different aspects of HRM like effective game allocation for the officials, increase in pay, flexibility and proper official treatment. This will help to improve the employee culture at MSHSAA and will also help to reduce the errors taking place in judgement by officials during games (Li et al., 2009). Enforcement of policies to reducing discrimination and quick recruitment: The officiating of basketball games have experienced worst days as there has been all sorts of discrimination especially with female officials which has reduced the number of female referees officiating basketball matches. On the other hand quick recruitment will help to increase the total number of officials gradually which will help to allocate officials for matches effectively and also will open an avenue to provide officials with flexibility in work which will help them to allocate time to their work life and personal life. This objective will help to emphasise on better work culture and opportunities to the officials and help them to establish their careers as referees. This will not only increase their confidence but will also provide moral boost to these officials (Hoye et al., 2015). Overall these objectives will be effective in meeting the key challenges and issues identified and will also help to eliminate them from MSHSAA so that the organisation to operate smoothly and devise plans to move forward. Action Plan Objective Action/Activity Target dates Status 1. Develop and support action groups for each of 3 priority areas. These action groups would then. Began effort at May 21, 2016 mtg. April 2017 Ongoing 2. Recruitment and selection Already framed a panel of experts and recruitment will be done shortly. Within six months of the initiative Starting soon. 3. Development of human resource policies Human resource department is sketched and key policies have started. Within six months from starting date. Ongoing 4. Develop assessment to measure effectiveness impact off the agenda document. Coordinator is personally taking care of the program. Assessment and monitoring is done on the extensive scale. Within 3 months. Ongoing 5. Develop a supportive environment for exchange of ideas, partnering, and involvement of stakeholders. Meetings have been done and stakeholders have been approached. Within end of September Ongoing In order to devise an effective plan it is important for Davis Tripp to have strong human and financial resources. It is important for every plan to have effective financial support as it wouldnt experience proper implementation. For the development of agendas and execution of the plans it is important to utilise resources which wouldnt be accessed if financial resources are not there. Apart from this it is important to mention that the above objectives would be achieved if there is available financial support from the organisation. In order to execute these objectives effectively it is important for the Tripp to get efficient people with him so that all the objectives are effectively implemented (Kenney et al., 2015). Reflective Account Personally undergoing this managerial assignment it could be said that I understood the core aspects of sports administration. Sports administration is an emerging field and hence it is extremely important that key aspects of management are effectual and implemented effectively for the successful completion of a management project. The present study comprises of different aspects like human resource management, officiating issues, strategic management issues et cetera. This case is multi faceted and hence it has helped me to understand the key concepts of sports administration. I have got a clear view of these different concepts and their use in sports administration. The study asked to enlist all the key issues and challenges which if not eliminated will affect the operations of the Montana State High School Athletic Association. It is important to mention that concepts of strategic management and human resource management play a very crucial role in this case and has helped me to d evelop cognitive intelligence in relation to strategic management. The change management is the biggest hurdle for me and it can be only overcome by effective discussion with all the layers of the organisation and through assurance that a change management will ensure success to the company. On the other hand it will also be promised that only based on performance employees will be retained and under no other circumstances. The case has helped me to develop strategic mission, vision and effective objectives for the company that would help me to develop potential ideas and plans for the development of effective strategy. On the other hand as a coordinator it is also important for me to develop ideas to mitigate discrimination issues especially for females. The case of administrative mess has helped me to realise the potential threats to management of an organisation especially in the sports administration it is very important to have gender equality and hence having effective strategic management policies would help to provide equality in all respect. As a sports coordinator it is very important to have effective communication skills and public relation ideas which will help the organisation to be on the same page with their stakeholders. In this case there are multiple issues of communication which has helped me to plan and implement different ideas which has helped me to develop my public relationship skills. Sport management involves handling different aspects of sports especially arbitration, and officiating challenges. It has helped me to understand the issues of different officials and address them effectively to help them be in a position of peace. The study has help me to comprehend the impact of effective human resource policies as it was very visible from the case that poor human resource management could have negative impact on the administration. Hence it is now clear for me that strategic management issues and human resource issues are not merely theoretically important but it is also important practically. Finally the study has also helped me to understand to provide flexibility, work-life balance to officials and proper training and development which will help me in the long run. For officials keeping up with the pace of the game is very important and hence having a physically fit body is extremely important. I have realised that for referees it is important that proper training and development is important and as a coordinator I will emphasise on it in case I get the responsibilities of a coordinator. Overall to conclude it is important to mention that this study has helped me to realise the different concepts of sport s administration and their importance of implementation for growth and development. Conclusion and Recommendation It is important to implement certain tools and techniques which will help to comprehend that objectives are executed well. Mere framing of objectives are not effective and they have to be implemented effectively in order to ensure success of the overall action plan. To monitor objectives are executed well the coordinator could implement actions which will help to deal with objectives. For instance Tripp in this case can frame a team who will constantly take care of the operations of the organisation. 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