Game Nexus

Factors associated with national football team coach selection in Iran

Maryam Tavakoli ^* iD , Mohammad Amin Shahidi Bonjar iD , Arefeh Jamshidi iD

To examine the associations of professional, organizational, financial, political, and sociocultural factors with stakeholder perceptions of national football team coach selection in Iran, using the quantitative phase of a doctoral dissertation. A cross-sectional online survey included 396 complete questionnaires from football stakeholders recruited through convenience sampling. Respondents included federation officials, club executives, coaches, players, agents, sport management academics, supporters’ association managers, and sports publication managers. A researcher-developed questionnaire, informed by an earlier qualitative phase, assessed nine domains on five-point agreement scales. Data were analyzed using descriptive statistics and partial least squares structural equation modeling in SmartPLS. Reliability, average variance extracted, cross-loadings, interconstruct correlations, and direct-path statistics were extracted from the dissertation without re-estimation. The sample included 315 men and 81 women. Reported domain-level Cronbach’s alpha values ranged from 0.70 to 0.87, composite reliability from 0.87 to 0.91, and average variance extracted from 0.64 to 0.83. All nine reported direct associations were positive. Performance history had the largest coefficient (β = 0.612, t = 24.41), followed by political factors (β = 0.546, t = 24.01), media (β = 0.533, t = 19.67), coaching skills (β = 0.518, t = 26.40), informal influential groups (β = 0.500, t = 29.19), financial and material factors (β = 0.493, t = 24.77), public culture and religious characteristics (β = 0.487, t = 22.25), official sports organizations (β = 0.476, t = 26.67), and individual factors (β = 0.460, t = 24.67). The dissertation reported R² = 0.99 and GoF = 0.836. Inconsistencies in predictive-relevance and discriminant-validity reporting limit claims of full model validation. Stakeholders perceived coach selection as a multidimensional process extending beyond professional credentials. The findings support examining appointment procedures through both coaching competence and governance, while requiring verification of the original model outputs before strong predictive conclusions are drawn.

Designing a Paradigmatic Model of Snakes and Ladders in the Career Path of Iranian Football Managers

Roghayeh Ghaloujeh iD , Mahdi Naderi Nadab ^* iD , Mokhtar Nasiri Farsani iD , Ali Khoorjahani iD

The present study aimed to design a paradigmatic model of snakes and ladders in the career path of Iranian football managers. In terms of purpose, the study was applied-developmental, and methodologically, it adopted a qualitative design based on Strauss and Corbin's systematic grounded theory approach. The participants consisted of current and former head coaches and technical managers of Iranian football teams who had direct experience of appointment, professional activity, career advancement, stagnation, dismissal, decline, or re-entry into football management. Participants were selected through purposive and theoretical sampling, and the interviews were stopped after 15 participants, with saturation assessed by the research team. In total, semi-structured interviews were conducted with 15 participants. Data collection and analysis were performed concurrently using the constant comparative method and the three stages of open, axial, and selective coding. During open coding, 170 initial codes were identified. After refinement, integration of similar concepts, and removal of duplicates, 123 non-repetitive open codes remained. These codes were organized into 41 subcategories (36 grouped subcategories plus five central-phenomenon states, summarized in Table 3) and 18 main categories. The analysis identified appointment mechanisms, professional capital, and club governance as the principal causal-condition categories. Snakes-and-ladders dynamics was treated as the central phenomenon and encompassed five career states: gradual advancement, career leap, career stagnation, career decline, and professional re-entry. The contextual conditions included institutional structure, football culture, and the macro environment, while the intervening conditions comprised professional support, intra-club collaboration, and contingent events. The managers' strategies were categorized as purposeful opportunity seeking, position stabilization, threat management, and career path reconstruction. The outcomes of the model emerged at four individual, professional, social, and organizational levels. Overall, the accounts suggested that the career trajectories of Iranian football managers are neither linear nor predictable; rather, they are shaped through the interaction of individual competencies and actions with appointment mechanisms, club governance, institutional structures, cultural and media pressures, and contingent events. Accordingly, merit-based selection, development of professional capital, delegation of authority, managerial stability, organizational support, and the active management of opportunities and threats may function as career ladders. In contrast, informal influence, non-specialist interference, unstable ownership, pressure for immediate results, and unequal access to opportunities may increase the likelihood of career stagnation and decline.

From Ecosystem Strategies to Sustainable Sport Development: Structural Validation of a Human Resource Management Ecosystem Model in Sport Organizations

Maryam Chitsaz Qazvini iD , Mahdi Naderi Nasab ^* iD , Seyed Abbas Biniaz iD , Ali Khorjahani iD

Sport organizations increasingly depend on human resources located across organizational boundaries, including federations, clubs, public agencies, universities, professional communities, coaches, referees, medical specialists, technology providers, and volunteers. Although the emerging human resource management (HRM) ecosystem perspective provides a useful way to conceptualize such interdependence, empirical structural testing in sport remains limited. This study quantitatively evaluated a sport-specific HRM ecosystem model derived from an earlier qualitative phase. A cross-sectional quantitative study was conducted with 400 respondents from Iranian sport organizations and related professional groups. A 120-item researcher-developed questionnaire represented six higher-order domains and 15 main categories identified in the qualitative model. Content validity was assessed by 15 experts, pilot reliability was examined in 30 participants, and the measurement and structural models were evaluated using partial least squares structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM). Internal consistency, composite reliability, average variance extracted, discriminant validity, predictive relevance, standardized path coefficients, t statistics, and coefficients of determination were examined. Reliability and convergent validity were supported for all six higher-order constructs (Cronbach's alpha = 0.96-0.98; composite reliability = 0.96-0.98; AVE = 0.56-0.61). Reported Q² values were positive (0.47-0.52). The construct labelled causal conditions was strongly associated with the HRM ecosystem (β = 0.95, t = 120.95), with R² = 0.917 for the HRM ecosystem. The HRM ecosystem (β = 0.96, t = 119.76), contextual conditions (β = 0.78, t = 88.61), and intervening conditions (β = 0.95, t = 121.23) were positively associated with ecosystem strategies and jointly accounted for R² = 0.937. Ecosystem strategies were strongly associated with outcomes (β = 0.96, t = 183.84; R² = 0.936). The findings provide strong internal support for the proposed structural pattern in this sample, but the cross-sectional, single-source design and unusually high coefficients preclude causal inference and require independent replication. The model offers a quantitative basis for examining sport HRM as a network-level system linking people, knowledge, talent, and performance across organizational boundaries.

Breaking the Glass Ceiling in Sport Organizations: Institutional, Cultural, and Power-Based Barriers to Women’s Leadership

Afsaneh Honarmandnia iD , Mehdi Naderinasab ^* , Vahid Moghaddam iD , Mostafa Soltani iD

Women remain markedly underrepresented in senior leadership across sport organizations, but the mechanisms sustaining this pattern are often treated as separate problems rather than as an interacting organizational system. This article examines the barrier side of a doctoral grounded theory study on women’s leadership transformation in Iranian sport organizations. The qualitative phase comprised 24 in-depth semi-structured interviews with women holding managerial or executive experience in sport organizations and academics or experts with relevant sport-management knowledge. Sampling proceeded purposively and through snowball and theoretical sampling until theoretical saturation. Data were analyzed using a Glaserian grounded theory approach with constant comparison, open, selective, and theoretical coding. The full dissertation generated 133 refined initial codes, 43 subcategories, and 15 main categories; the present article focuses exclusively on the seven categories that constituted the mechanisms reproducing the glass ceiling. These were institutional blockage, gendered culture, human-resource inequality, power networks, organizational flattery, informal relationships, and family obligations. The findings show that women’s exclusion is reproduced through the interaction of formal structures and everyday practices: male-dominated decision systems restrict access to authority; gendered beliefs shape judgments of competence; recruitment, evaluation, and succession routines accumulate career disadvantage; informal power networks control information and sponsorship; ingratiation and personal proximity can displace merit; and work-family arrangements reduce access to time-sensitive leadership opportunities. The resulting barrier architecture explains why symbolic appointment or individual competence alone does not dismantle the glass ceiling. Sustainable change requires transparent selection and succession, equitable access to strategic assignments and resources, formalized information flows, accountable decision processes, and work arrangements that do not treat an unencumbered male career pattern as the organizational norm.

Developing and Empirically Evaluating a Health-Oriented Participatory Sports Competition Model in Iran: An Exploratory Sequential Mixed-Methods Study

Hoora heybatzadeh iD , Mahdi Naderi Nasab ^* , Seyyed Abbas Biniaz iD

Participatory sport events are increasingly promoted as vehicles for physical activity and public health, yet event exposure alone does not guarantee sustained participation. This study developed and empirically evaluated a context-sensitive organizational model for health-oriented participatory sports competitions in Iran. An exploratory sequential mixed-methods design was used. In the qualitative phase, 15 experts in sport management, sport-for-all, public health, and event delivery were recruited purposively and theoretically. Semi-structured interviews were analysed using classical grounded theory with open, selective, and theoretical coding. The emergent framework was operationalized for quantitative professional evaluation in 400 respondents with relevant sport, health, municipal, federation, or event-management experience. PLS-SEM was used to assess the measurement and structural models. Qualitative analysis yielded 106 initial codes, 41 subcategories, and 13 main categories organized into four higher-order dimensions: institutional and strategic requirements; participation and health architecture; responsible implementation assurance; and learning and health legacy. The core category was transformation of episodic competition into sustainable health-promoting participation. In the quantitative professional-evaluation model, all four dimensions were positively associated with the expert-rated sustainable-participation construct: responsible implementation assurance (β=0.332, t=8.246, p<0.001), learning and health legacy (β=0.302, t=7.628, p<0.001), participation and health architecture (β=0.238, t=6.328, p<0.001), and institutional and strategic requirements (β=0.209, t=5.067, p<0.001). Together they explained 49.9% of the variance in the outcome construct (R²=0.499). Measurement quality and model fit were satisfactory (factor loadings 0.833-0.908; SRMR=0.042; estimated-model NFI=0.915). The findings support an integrated organizational framework for planning, delivering, and evaluating health-oriented participatory competitions. Because the quantitative phase used cross-sectional professional judgments rather than longitudinal participant behaviour, the model should be interpreted as an empirically supported framework of perceived organizational conditions for sustainable participation, not as direct evidence of sustained physical activity or public-health effects.

A Grounded Theory Model for the Development of Para Swimming in Iran

Parastoo rahmani iD , Seyed Abbas Biniaz ^* iD , Azam Abdollahpour iD , Mokhtar Nasiri Farsani iD , Arefeh Jamshidi iD

Purpose: This study developed a context-sensitive model for para-swimming development in Iran using Strauss and Corbin’s systematic grounded theory. Methods: The applied, exploratory qualitative study involved 18 experts drawn from academia, sport administration, coaching, para swimming, pool management, and disability sport. Participants were selected purposively and through snowball and theoretical sampling. Semi-structured interviews continued until theoretical saturation. Data were analysed through open, axial, and selective coding and organised within the Strauss-Corbin paradigm. Results: Strategic governance, policymaking and sustainable financing, together with an integrated talent-identification, progression, and competition system, constituted the causal conditions. The core phenomenon was the integrated, sustainable, and performance-oriented development of para swimming in Iran. Contextual conditions comprised a network of accessible physical infrastructure, equipment and training technologies, and specialist human-capital development. Intervening conditions included integrated health, sports medicine and sport-science services; dual-career empowerment, personal development and family participation; and internationalisation, knowledge transfer and the media ecosystem. Monitoring, evaluation, standardisation and continuous performance improvement formed the principal strategy. Expected outcomes were improved elite performance, participation and retention, talent development, international presence, pathway quality, and the social standing of para swimming. Conclusion: The proposed model offers an actionable framework for coherent policy, planning, implementation, and evaluation of sustainable, performance-oriented para-swimming development in Iran.

A Financial Management Model for Professional Football Clubs in Iran: An Exploratory Sequential Mixed-Methods Study

Hashem Sadeghi , Seyyed Abbas Biniaz ^* iD , Mahdi Naderi Nasab iD , Mokhtar Nasiri Farsani iD , Elham Attari iD

Financial instability has become a persistent constraint on the professionalization of football clubs in Iran, yet the mechanisms linking ownership, financial discipline, environmental conditions, managerial action, and organizational outcomes have not been integrated in a context-specific empirical model. This study developed and validated a financial management model for Iranian professional football clubs. An exploratory sequential mixed-methods design was used. In the qualitative phase, 16 experts in sport management, sport economics, club administration, finance, football governance, marketing, and sports law were selected purposively and theoretically. Semi-structured interviews lasting 60–100 minutes continued until theoretical saturation; saturation was reached at interview 15 and a final interview confirmed adequacy. Data were analyzed through open, axial, and selective coding following grounded-theory procedures. In the quantitative phase, an 88-item researcher-developed questionnaire derived from the qualitative model was administered to relevant professionals. Of 250 distributed questionnaires, 215 complete responses were analyzed using SPSS 22 and SmartPLS 3. The qualitative analysis produced a six-part paradigm model comprising causal conditions, the central phenomenon, contextual conditions, intervening conditions, strategies, and consequences. Sustainable financial management—expressed through financial sustainability, economic governance, and commercial development—formed the central phenomenon. Causal conditions positively predicted financial management (β = .793, t = 25.064, p < .001). Contextual conditions (β = .534, t = 6.358), intervening conditions (β = .581, t = 7.490), and financial management (β = .527, t = 11.423) positively predicted strategies, while strategies strongly predicted consequences (β = .853, t = 29.738); all p values were < .001. The model showed strong overall fit (GOF = .713). Sustainable club finance therefore requires simultaneous reform of ownership and accountability, realistic budgeting and debt control, transparent reporting, diversified commercial income, systematic fan monetization, and long-term financial partnerships. The model provides a locally grounded framework for club boards, the league organization, the football federation, investors, and regulators seeking to replace short-term financial rescue with institutionalized financial sustainability.

Developing a Talent Identification Management Model for Athletics in Iran: A Sequential Exploratory Mixed-Methods Study

Enayat Hassanpour , Mehran Nasiri ^* iD , Fahimeh Adib Saber iD

Talent identification in athletics is frequently treated as a one-time selection exercise, although athletic potential develops through dynamic interactions among biological maturation, event-specific demands, coaching, organizational support, and opportunity. Iran lacks an integrated, context-sensitive management framework connecting schools, provincial boards, clubs, coaches, families, and the national federation. This study developed and quantitatively validated a grounded model of talent identification management for Iranian athletics. An applied-developmental sequential exploratory mixed-methods design was used. In the qualitative phase, 15 experts were selected through purposive and theoretical sampling and interviewed using a semi-structured protocol. Data were analyzed through open, axial, and selective coding following the systematic grounded-theory approach. In the quantitative phase, a researcher-developed questionnaire derived from the qualitative categories was administered to 400 managers, federation and provincial-board experts, athletics coaches, physical-education teachers, school-sport specialists, academics, and sport-science specialists. The measurement and structural models were assessed using partial least squares structural equation modeling in SmartPLS 3. Analysis produced 170 initial codes, refined to 120 non-redundant open codes, 30 subcategories, and 15 main categories. The paradigm comprised causal conditions (inefficiency of the existing system; complexity of talent), the core phenomenon (organizing the talent cycle; sustainable talent development), contextual conditions (regional and social contexts), intervening conditions (policy environment; macro-level support), strategies (institutional integration; professionalization of implementation; stakeholder mobilization), and outcomes (identification effectiveness; athlete flourishing; a stronger championship pipeline; development of athletics). All five structural paths were positive and significant: causal conditions to the core phenomenon (β = .95, t = 133.13); core phenomenon to strategies (β = .96, t = 119.76); contextual conditions to strategies (β = .78, t = 88.61); intervening conditions to strategies (β = .95, t = 121.23); and strategies to outcomes (β = .96, t = 175.18). R² values were .917, .937, and .936 for the core phenomenon, strategies, and outcomes, respectively. Sustainable athletics talent development in Iran requires a continuous, evidence-informed governance system rather than isolated screening campaigns. The model provides an actionable framework for coordinated identification, event allocation, development, monitoring, retention, and equitable access.

Game Nexus

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Designing a Grounded Theory Model of Factors Affecting Coach Selection in the Iranian Premier Football League

Designing an Effective Coaching Skills Training Model for Sport Coaches: An Integrative Review and Conceptual Framework

Effects of Time Pressure on Visual Processing and Shooting Accuracy in Skilled Futsal Players

The Effect of Educational Computer Games on Students’ Academic Engagement and Academic Self-Efficacy

Identifying the Components of Effective Coaching-Skills Education for Participants in Level 3 Coaching Courses: A Qualitative Study in Kermanshah Province

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