Erasmus+ funded Developing Sport Managers & Leaders Across Europe (DSMLE) project. Sport Management Student & Sport Manager Field Research Summary. Technical Report.

This technical report forms part of the dissemination series of the Erasmus+ funded Developing Sport Managers & Leaders Across Europe (DSMLE) project (Reference: 622709-EPP-1-2020-1-UK-SPO-SCP). It is being recorded in Figshare to provide a citable DOI, giving it a citable identity beyond the project sites. The report presents an analysis of secondary and primary findings from the project field research programme, collected data from six countries: the UK, the Netherlands, France, Lithuania, Bulgaria, and Belgium. The data from the fieldwork programme were used to inform six national multiplier-event consultations with industry and academic stakeholders and a final international summit to refine the project's overall national and European Union policy recommendations.

The field research aimed to explore sport management employability, education and career construction concepts across three strands: (1) student research, (2) sport manager research, and (3) expert sport leader life-history interviews. The field research programme consolidated ongoing secondary data, identified existing good practice, and built on the recommendations of recent major sport management workforce projects. The report illustrates the summary findings of the data collection for:

Pre-professional sport management students’ attitudes towards career intentions, career readiness, professional identity, entrepreneurial intentions, entrepreneurial orientation, and self-assessment of skills and competencies against national and international frameworks. The student data includes the following survey components and scales:

Career Registration / Career Readiness
Employability Enhancing Experience
Entrepreneurial Intentions Questionnaire
Career Adapt-Abilities Scale
Sport Management Perceived Competency Scale.
Sport managers’ (Frontline, Middle and Top Managers) from a variety of sport contexts (Community sport, Elite sport, Public, Private, Not for profit, Voluntary Sector) and backgrounds (gender, age) attitudes towards career development, appropriateness of talent development pathways, entrepreneurial intentions, entrepreneurial orientation and self-assessment of skills and competencies.

Career Registration / Employability Enhancing Experience
Entrepreneurial Intentions Questionnaire
Career Adapt-Abilities Scale
Protean Career Scale (short form)
Boundaryless Career Scale (short form)
Career Satisfaction Scale
Sport Management Perceived Competency Scale.
Education & Training Development
The critical development decisions, educational (formal/informal) choices, career path preferences, and critical experiences that shaped the success of Expert Strategic Leaders in Sport, identifying common key factors that can assist in the development of employability and career development strategies for pre-professional (student) and early career managers in the sport industry.

Education and development decisions.
Career path preferences.
Formative experiences or people that influenced career choices.
Managerial transitions.