Leadership styles and organizational learning in UK for-profit and non-profit sports organizations

Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this study is to investigate the transformational and transactional leadership styles and organizational learning at for-profit and non-profit sports organizations, and the impact of these leadership styles on enhancing organizational learning in these sports organizations.

Design/methodology/approach

A quantitative questionnaire survey method was adopted. The data were collected from for-profit and non-profit sports organizations in the UK.

Findings

Management by exception-active in transactional leadership and idealized leadership in transformational leadership seem to be equally important for facilitating organizational learning. The results also revealed significant differences between for-profit and non-profit sports organizations in leadership styles and organizational learning.

Research limitations/implications

The generalizability of the results for different sports settings or different countries must be examined, given that only some sports organizations under the umbrellas of non-profit and for-profit sectors were used as the target population. The research is limited to the use of moderating variables, such as motivation, organizational structure, culture and innovation, that might attenuate this effect. This study contributes to the field by investigating the direct relationship between leadership styles and organizational learning in a sports setting.

Originality/value

The originality of this study is its advances of sports leadership research that is linking leadership styles and organizational learning in for-profit and non-profit sports organizations.

Citation

Megheirkouni, M. (2017), "Leadership styles and organizational learning in UK for-profit and non-profit sports organizations", International Journal of Organizational Analysis, Vol. 25 No. 4, pp. 596-612. https://doi.org/10.1108/IJOA-07-2016-1042