Modeling the Drivers of Occupational Socialization among Graduates of Sport Management
Keywords:
Educational policies, Human resource management, Graduates’ skillsAbstract
The present study aimed to model the drivers of occupational socialization among graduates of sport management. This applied, quantitative, causal-correlational study included 384 graduates of sport management who were employed either part-time or full-time in sport organizations and were selected using stratified random sampling. Given that the present study was extracted from a doctoral dissertation conducted through a mixed qualitative–quantitative method, the data collection instrument was a researcher-made questionnaire derived from the qualitative findings of the dissertation. Data analysis was conducted by describing the participants’ demographic information and using confirmatory factor analysis and the partial least squares method in SPSS version 24 and SmartPLS version 3 at the significance level of 0.05. The research model showed an acceptable fit, and all three variables, namely improvement of universities’ educational policies (β = 0.513; t = 8.757), improvement of sport management graduates’ skills (β = 0.142; t = 2.744), and human resource management in sport organizations (β = 0.299; t = 7.561), had direct and significant relationships with the occupational socialization of sport management graduates in Iran. Improving universities’ educational policies, enhancing the perseverance of sport management graduates, and optimizing human resource management in sport organizations in terms of recruiting, training, and retaining competent human resources are effective drivers of occupational socialization among sport management graduates.
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Copyright (c) 2026 Payam Rafiee, Mohammadrahim Najafzadeh, Habib Mohammadpour Yaghini, Farrokhlegha Najafzadeh (Author)
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