Department of Sport Science and Physical Education

Permanent URI for this collection

http://etd.aau.edu.et/handle/12345678/168

Browse

Browsing Department of Sport Science and Physical Education by Author "Bereket Yitbarek"

Now showing 1 - 1 of 1
  • No Thumbnail Available
    Item
    Roles, Contributions and Managerial Skills of Athlete Managers in Ethiopian Athletics
    (Addis ababa Universty, 2025-03-20) Bereket Yitbarek; Aschenaki Taddese
    Middle- and long-distance running is the most popular athletics event in Ethiopia, participated in both sexes in search of glory, recognition, and/or financial security. Athletes engage in the training tirelessly with enthusiasm, and their success was determined by the different stakeholders; however, athlete management protocols play a significant role. To this end, the study attempts to examine the roles, contributions, and managerial skills of athletes` managers by using a concurrent mixed-methods research design. Both quantitative and qualitative data were gathered by using a 5-point Likert scale questionnaire and a semi-structured questionnaire. SPSS version 27 was used to analyze quantitative data, and the qualitative data were analyzed using thematic analysis. The samples for the study were 248 elite athletes, 16 coaches, eight athlete managers/agents, and two experts from the Ethiopian Athletic Federation. The study was conducted in the capital city, Addis Ababa, where the majority of participants reside. The response rate for the questionnaire was 84.6%. Majority of the respondents were male athlete (n=151, 60.9 %); and in terms of their running discipline, majority of them were long-distance runners (n=171, 69%). On the other hand, all of the coach respondents were male. Factor analysis was carried out for roles, contributions, managerial skills, and developmental aspects; accordingly, each factor was treated as a subtheme. Accordingly, roles played by athlete managers can come in the form of training-related, competition-related, or off-field roles; and they provide logistic, technical, and social support to athletes under their supervisor. With regard to the managerial skills, an athlete manager possesses conceptual, technical, and human/interpersonal skill. On the other hand, the developmental aspects of the Ethiopian athletics focus on elite, youth, coach, and training center development. To better understand the descriptive analysis frequency and percentage were used to analyze the responses from the questionnaire. In relation to the inferential statistics, non-parametric tests were used since the data fails the normality test; Kolmogorov-Smirnov tests show a non-normal distribution (K-S, p<0.05); accordingly, Mann-Whitney U test and Kruskal-Wallis H tests were employed to assess the group difference. The findings reveal that roles related to training and competitions were emphasized over off-field roles. The logistic and technical supports were favoured at the expense of contribution to the social support. Athlete managers were found to possess better conceptual skills resulted from their prior exposure as an athlete and/or coach while their human and technical skills require a remedy. Athlete managers highly emphasize on working with elite athlete via hunting what is on the market. Besides, poor linkage was observed among training centers, clubs and athlete representatives (athlete managers). Therefore, the Ethiopian Athlete Federation should play its mandating role in insisting athlete managers to address the roles, contributions and managerial skills in a balanced manner.