An Equity Centered Management Approach to Exploiting Sport Employee Productivity

Year 2017, Volume: 2 Issue: 2, 38 - 47, 29.12.2017

Robert C. Schneider

https://doi.org/10.25307/jssr.364020

Abstract

A primary goal of
sport organizations is to exploit employees’ abilities to their fullest
capacities. Sport managers who successfully maximize employee productivity will
greatly increase the chances of achieving the organization’s goals and
objectives. The full potential of sport employees’ abilities can be realized
through the application of the equity component grounded in Adam’s Equity
Theory (Adams, 1963). Centered on the premise that the relationship between
sport manager and employer must be one of equity, the equity component focuses
on achieving equity between what the employee puts into the job, referred to as
“employee inputs,” and what the employee gets out of the job from the employer,
referred to as “sport manager outputs.” The input-output equity balance is
centered on the moral value of fairness. When fairness is achieved, reasonable
employees and employers should be mutually satisfied (Mill, 1863/1957). A
shared interest between employees in achieving the goals and objectives of the
mission of the sport organization is required if an equitable input-output
balance is to be achieved. Lower resistance to realizing a proper balance
between inputs and outputs should be expected when an employee’s professional
interests are naturally aligned with the mission of the sport organization
(Kim, 2012). Screening employees during the hiring process to ensure for a
congruent employer-employee “fit” is preferable to help ensure for the
satisfactory balance of inputs and outputs over the long term. Regardless of
the compatibility between the employee’s interest and the mission of the sport
organization, the often dynamic nature of sport organizations calls for constant
maintenance of input-output exchanges. When seeking to balance the input-output
exchange, sport managers will be well served to heed the insight by Jiang and
Men (2017) who stated that productivity follows employee engagement, which
comes from transparent communication by organizational leaders. The sport
manager who hires employees whose interests align with the sport organization
mission will be well positioned to achieve an equitable balance between
employee inputs and employer outputs. Doing so is supportive of a sport
organization that maximizes its potential for employee productivity.

Keywords

leadership, governance, human resources, motivation, hiring

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