ABSTRACT

Title: What can business leaders learn from sport management?

Authors: Domagoj Dragicevic and Simon Lindqvist

Supervisor: Monika Wallmon and Maria Fregidou-Malama

Date: 2018 – January

Purpose: The purpose of this study is to increase the understanding for business leaders about how they can use servant leadership to motivate employees seen from a sport management perspective.

Method: This is a qualitative study based on 11 semi-structured interviews used to collect data. The theoretical framework under which the empirical data was analysed in consists of the Self-Determination theory.

Results and conclusions: The results indicate that the athletes feel that relatedness is the most prominent of the three basic needs according to SDT to create motivation followed by competence and autonomy. Autonomy did not show to be an important basic need to create motivation compared to relatedness and competence.

Suggestions for future research: A similar study to the one we have conducted with a larger number of respondents and from a larger group we believe could have affected the result. A larger group could complicate leadership as well as the relatedness within the group, which makes us think this would be an interesting topic to investigate further.

Contribution of the thesis: Business leaders can utilize this study as it highlights the apparent connection between individuals need of relatedness and competence to their experienced motivation. Motivated employees have shown to be more creative and show a greater tendency to remain within the company.

Key words: Servant leadership, Self-Determination theory, SDT, motivation