Patterns of Bureaucracy in Intercollegiate Athletic Departments

Citation

Rocha CM & Chelladurai P (2013) Patterns of Bureaucracy in Intercollegiate Athletic Departments. Journal of Sport Management, 27 (2), pp. 114-129. https://doi.org/10.1123/jsm.27.2.114

Abstract
The objective of the current research was to verify the extent to which Gouldner’s (1954) three patterns of bureaucracy were prevalent in intercollegiate athletic departments. Single and multiple-group confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) and structural equation modeling (SEM) of the data provided by 907 coaches from all three NCAA divisions (ndivI= 322; ndivII= 277; ndivIII= 308) showed that structural relationships among goals, processes, and patterns of bureaucracy were invariant among all three groups of coaches. Substantively, the factor of developmental goals through developmental processes (Trail & Chelladurai, 2000) predicted positively the presence ofrepresentative bureaucracyandpunishment-centered bureaucracyand negatively the existence ofmock bureaucracy. This means that the more athletic departments emphasize academic values, the less the coaches perceive a pattern of loose coupling between rules and actual technical activities. Implications of these results for theory and practice were discussed.

Journal
Journal of Sport Management: Volume 27, Issue 2