Relationship between Social Contract, Anxiety, Performance, Workload and Intention to Quit Among Professional Sport Coaches

Abstract

Within the relationships in modern sport, coaches hold a degree of authority over their athletes and, by implication, operate to some degree as supervisors. Athletes are in the subordinate roles as employees are to employers. As in most employment relationships, there are times when athletes, like employees, find themselves at odds with their respective coaches and vice versa. Understanding the social contract in the context of sport coaching may provide an explanation regarding the role and function of athlete dissent, particularly as it changes or evolves to the level of sport participation and the expectations and demands of coaches. The purpose of this study was, therefore, to examine the relationship between sport coaches’ social contract, performance, workload, anxiety and their influence on sport coaches’ intention to quit. A non-experimental survey design was used to collect data from sport coaches. A research instrument which included a section requesting demographic information, and the Social Contract Scale, Perceived Performance Scale, Workload Scale, Anxiety Scale, and Intention to Quit Scale was administered to the coaches. Means, standard deviations, skewness and kurtosis were used to describe the empirical data. Reliability and validity were established using factor analysis and Cronbach alpha coefficients. Structural equation modelling (SEM) using AMOS was employed to test the hypotheses. The results revealed that a positive relationship does not exist between sport coaches social contract and perceived performance. Furthermore sport coaches’ anxiety indirectly mediates the relationship between perceived performance and intention to quit. Increased workload and anxiety have the potential to influence coaches’ performance levels and intention to quit. Therefore, it is of great importance that sport organisations consider these factors when determining the expected outputs of sport coaches.

Keywords: Sport Coach, Social Contract, Employment Relationship, Perceived Performance, Workload, Anxiety and Intention to Quit