Perceived organizational support, passion reflected on the field: A quantitative research on coaches working in football academies

Abstract

One of the most important roles in the development of children into professional football players belongs to the coaches working in football academies. Therefore, it is thought that the organizational support that coaches, who work under intense performance pressure, perceive from their clubs can have a significant impact on their passion for their work. However, it is anticipated that psychological and motivational factors may also play a significant role in explaining this relationship. The aim of this research is to examine the relationships between perceived organizational support, psychological resilience, job motivation, and job passion among coaches working in the academies of clubs in the Turkish professional football leagues, within the framework of a structural model. The study included 259 volunteer coaches (n = 259; Xage = 41.27; SDage = 11.91). The research model was tested for direct and indirect effects using SPSS PROCESS Macro with a 5000 bootstrap sample. Initially, perceived organizational support was significantly associated with job passion ((3 = 0.143, p = .021). However, after psychological resilience and job motivation were included as mediators, the direct relationship between perceived organizational support and job passion became non-significant ((3 = -0.069, 95% CI [-0.132, 0.031]). Furthermore, psychological resilience and job motivation jointly showed a significant sequential mediating role in the relationship between perceived organizational support and job passion (B = 0.016, 95% bootstrap CI [0.005, 0.032]). In conclusion, providing organizational support alone does not seem sufficient to increase the passion of academy coaches for their job. Accordingly, it is recommended that practices aimed at strengthening psychological resilience and job motivation be supported to increase coaches' passion for their jobs.