Motivation and Job Satisfaction Levels of Sports Managers

Introduction The core function of managers in any organisation is to ensure that organisational goals are met through the effective utilisation of the organisations resources, the most important of these resources being the people within the organisation. As each individual is unique, it would be fair to assume that no two individuals would have the same dreams, hopes, needs and aspirations, and would thus be motivated by different things. To understand what motivates people, it would be prudent to define what motivation is, what effect it has on people and to look at ways of how organisations can use motivation to their benefit. Closely linked to motivation is job satisfaction. Kinicki & Kreitner (2009:159) stated that job satisfaction as a multidimensional concept which results in an affective or emotional response to various facets of one’s job. An attempt will be made to establish the relationship, if any, between motivation and job satisfaction and to consider the factors that influence job satisfaction. Problem Statement Within the sports department of the Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University there is a perceived lack of motivation amongst the various sports managers that translates to a lack of performance of the various sports clubs within the University over the past two years. Although vast resources have been made available to the sport department, there seems to be no correlation between the investment made in the various sports and the results achieved by the various sporting codes, with a few exceptions. This report aims to study the correlation between the levels of motivation of the various sports managers and their perceived levels of job satisfaction. The relationship between motivation, job satisfaction and performance will also be scrutinised with reference to the above department. Methodology A focus group consisting of the 7 sports managers at the university was asked to participate in an empirical study. Input

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