Sport Leadership in Finland Case: Mestis Ice Hockey League
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Sport leadership in Finland Case: Mestis ice hockey league Juuso Mörsky Bachelor’s thesis November 2016 Degree programme in international business School of business Description Author(s) Type of publication Date Mörsky, Juuso Bachelor’s thesis 24.11.2016 Language of publica- tion: English Number of pages PermissionEnglish for web 39 publication: x Title of publication Sport leadership in Finland Case: Mestis ice hockey league Degree programme Degree Programme in International Business Supervisor Ahonen, Aila Assigned by KeuPa Hockey Team The aim of this thesis was to study Mestis ice hockey league’s general managers’ percep- tions of leadership. Mestis is the second highest league in Finland and is professionalizing rapidly and therefore interesting topic to study. General managers were chosen since they are in the leading positions in their organizations. The study was implemented during the year 2016 with a qualitative approach by using half-structured interviews. The qualitative approach was chosen since the aim was to gain understanding of the interviewed Mestis general managers’ leadership perceptions, and not to generalize the findings. Four general managers from different Mestis Ice Hockey clubs were selected to be interviewed. The theoretical framework of this study consists general definition of leadership in elite sport and a description of the distinction between management and leadership. The analy- sis is based on the previous discussion of sport leadership, and especially on five high-or- der leadership themes in elite sport developed by Arnold et al. (2012). The findings indicated that the interviewed general managers saw leadership in Mestis as an ongoing process. Their stressed the importance of building relationships and creating an environment where working was enjoyable. Results indicated that company resources had an important impact on how leadership was practised. Keywords/tags Sport leadership, sport management, Mestis, ice hockey, sport business Miscellaneous 3 Kuvailulehti Tekijä(t) Julkaisun laji Päivämäärä Mörsky, Juuso Matias Opinnäytetyö, AMK 24.11.2016 Sivumäärä Julkaisun kieli 39 Englanti Verkkojulkaisulupa myönnetty:x Työn nimi Urheilujohtaminen Suomessa Case: Mestis jääkiekkoliiga Tutkinto-ohjelma Degree programme in international business Työn ohjaaja(t) Aila Ahonen Toimeksiantaja(t) KeuPa Hockey Team Opinnäytetyön tavoitteena on tutkia jääkiekkoliiga Mestiksen toimitusjohtajien käsityksiä johtajuudesta (leadership). Mestis on Suomen toiseksi korkein jääkiekkoliiga, missä toi- minta kehittyy ammattimaisemmaksi vuosi vuodelta ja tästä syystä mielenkiintoinen aihe tutkia. Tutkimuksen kohteeksi valittiin toimitusjohtajat, sillä juuri he ovat johtavassa ase- massa organisaatiossa. Tutkimusprosessi toteutettiin vuonna 2016 laadullisena tutkimuksena ja aineisto kerättiin puolistrukturoiduilla haastatteluilla. Laadullinen tutkimusmenetelmä valittiin, koska tavoite oli saada ymmärrystä haastateltavien toimitusjohtajien näkemyksistä johtajuudesta, eikä yleistää tutkimustuloksia. Neljä toimitusjohtajaa neljästä eri Mestis-organisaatiosta valittiin haastateltaviksi. Teoreettisessa viitekehyksessä määritellään useita johtamisen ja urheilujohtamisen näkö- kulmia, minkä lisäksi tehdään ero management-johtamisen sekä leadership-johtamisen vä- lillä. Analysointi perustuu aikaisempiin urheilujohtamisen tutkimuksiin, erityisesti viiteen johtamisen teemaan, minkä kehitti Arnold, Fletcher ja Molyneux. (2012). Tulokset osoittavat, että johtaminen Mestiksessä on jatkuva prosessi. Erityisen tärkeänä haastateltavat pitävät suhteiden rakentamista sekä myönteisen työilmapiirin luomista. Voi- daan sanoa, että myös resursseilla on vaikutusta johtamisen toteutuksessa. Avainsanat (asiasanat) Urheilujohtaminen (leadership), urheilujohtaminen (management), Mestis, jääkiekko, Ur- heiluliiketoiminta Muut tiedot 1 Contents 1 Introduction ............................................................................................................ 3 1.1 Purpose and goal of the thesis .................................................................... 4 1.2 Structure of the thesis ................................................................................. 5 2 Theoretical framework ........................................................................................... 6 2.1 Leadership ................................................................................................... 6 2.1.1 Leadership as a process .......................................................................... 7 2.1.2 Self-leadership ........................................................................................ 7 2.1.3 Leadership versus management ............................................................. 7 2.2 Leadership in elite sport .............................................................................. 9 3 Methodology ........................................................................................................ 13 3.1 Research method ...................................................................................... 13 3.2 Interview process ...................................................................................... 14 3.3 Analysing the data ..................................................................................... 15 4 Findings ................................................................................................................ 18 4.1 The work description of a general manager in Mestis .............................. 18 4.1.1 Controlling the entirety ........................................................................ 18 4.1.2 Importance of relationships ................................................................. 20 4.1.3 Financial responsibilities ....................................................................... 21 4.2 Perceptions of leadership .......................................................................... 21 4.2.1 Leadership as relationship building and cooperating .......................... 22 4.2.2 Leadership is creating motivational working culture ........................... 23 4.2.3 Leadership as an ongoing process ........................................................ 25 4.2.4 Visioning in leadership .......................................................................... 26 5 Conclusions ........................................................................................................... 27 5.1 General Managers’ daily work .................................................................. 27 2 5.2 Leadership in Mestis organization ............................................................ 28 6 Discussion ............................................................................................................. 32 6.1 Contributions ............................................................................................. 32 6.2 Future research suggestions ..................................................................... 33 6.3 Evaluation .................................................................................................. 33 References .................................................................................................................... 36 Appendices ................................................................................................................... 38 Figures Figure 1. Example of data analysis process .................................................................. 17 Tables Table 1. Comparison of management and leadership process differences................... 8 3 1 Introduction The thesis studied the work of the general managers in the second highest ice hockey league in Finland, Mestis, and their perceptions of leadership. Leader- ship in sports has attracted only a little attention, especially in Finland as a field of research, although it has increasingly been a topic in public discus- sions. Leadership has been studied internationally for decades, especially in the United States of America, but in Finland academic research on the subject has been rare (Mönkkönen 2011, 7). There have been surveys focusing on the management of sport organizations, and they have been increasing in the field of science from the 1980’s (Laakso 2016, 25). However, specific studies on the leadership of the general managers in ice hockey are still missing. Ice hockey is the biggest sport in Finland in terms of spectator numbers and me- dia coverage (Sponsorinsight, 2015). Sport industry has grown enormously in the 21th century, and nowadays there are plenty of employment opportunities in the different sectors of that industry from marketing to leading a sport organization. Trenberth and Hassan (2012) state that because of this growth, managers have to be more qualified and better educated. They need to have an understanding of the various factors of management. This includes understanding functions such as governance, strategy, financial management, marketing and sponsorship, facility and event management, human resource management and public relations manage- ment (Trenberth & Hassan 2012, xxi). It can be assumed that due to these factors, leadership in sport organizations should receive more attention. In Mestis, the organizations are limited companies, and nowadays sport organi- zations are managed more or less like any other limited companies (Smith & Stewart 2010). Mestis is a league of the Finnish Ice Hockey Association, and it is the second highest ice hockey league in Finland.