The nature of managerial work in Canadian intercollegiate athletics

This study described and analyzed the managerial work in Canadian intercol-legiate athletics. The directors of 37 Canadian intercollegiate athletic departments responded to a questionnaire eliciting perceived importance of, time devoted to, and percentage responsibility for 19 managerial activities carried out by athletic departments. These managerial activities were largely patterned after Mintzberg's (1975) description of managerial work and were verified by a group of experts. Results showed that financial management, leadership, policy making, disturbance handling, revenue generation, and athlete affairs were perceived to be the most important and most time consuming activities. Information seeking, maintenance activities, and league responsibilities were rated the least important. The athletic directors reported that they were largely responsible for the more important tasks with average percent responsibility of 55%. The average responsibility assigned to assistant directors was 29.5%, and this limited responsibility was significantly but inversely related to the importance of the tasks.