Organizational culture in sports programs: a paradigm shift in the student’s role from an interpretive perspective
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.47197/retos.v77.118097Keywords:
Sports programs, organizational culture, measurement, performanceAbstract
Introduction: Studies on organizational culture have proven effective across various socioeconomic contexts, including university-level education, particularly within sports programs.
Objective: To evaluate factors associated with organizational culture in sports training programs at Ecuadorian universities, highlighting the student’s role from an interpretive paradigm.
Methodology: This study employed an exploratory, mixed-methods, cross-sectional field design. A non-probabilistic convenience sample of 98 subjects was selected to ensure sample adequacy. Denison's Organizational Culture Questionnaire was administered, and data was analyzed using described and inferential statistical techniques. Findings from the quantitative analysis, combined with semi-structured interviews with sports program directors, supported the proposed paradigm shift.
Results: A moderate organizational culture predominates in sports programs, with the Mission dimension showing the highest per-formance and Consistency the lowest. The dimensions are clustered into a single construct, confirming the validity of the model used.
Discussion: The findings provide initial evidence on the cultural dynamics of sports programs as organizational units, enabling comparisons with other sports-related contexts, where the relationship between organizational culture, performance, and success is notable.
Conclusions: The interpre-tive analysis revealed factual elements of organizational culture in sports programs, highlighting strengths and weaknesses across the evaluated dimensions and demonstrating the need to strengthen components of students’ comprehensive training.
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