Sport coaches' perception of job autonomy, perceived organisational support and perceived support by supervisor

Abstract

One of the most important human needs, which is often overlooked, is to develop autonomy. In the context of sport coaching, fulfilling this need requires sport coaches to have control over their jobs and determine their course of behaviour. It is a need to have ownership of a situation so that a feeling of wanting to participate and contribute to an organisation is developed. The purpose of this study was to investigate the relationship between sport coaches' perception of job autonomy, perceived organisational support and perceived support by supervisors. A sample of 152 sport coaches was used for this study. A standardised questionnaire comprising the Job Autonomy scale, Perceived Organisational Support scale and Perceived Support by Supervisor scale was used to measure autonomy, perceived organisational support and perceived support by supervisors. It was found that a positive statistically significant relationship exists between autonomy, perceived organisational support and perceived support by supervisors. A practically significant large effect was found between perceived organisational support and perceived support by supervisors. The study makes an important contribution to research on job autonomy, perceived organisational support and perceived support by supervisors in the context of sport coaching. It is unique in the sense that no previous study focussed on sport coaches' autonomy and as seen in this study perceived organisational and supervisors' support is important for sport coaches and how they experience job autonomy.