Career awareness as a mediator between communication skills and entrepreneurial tendencies in prospective sport managers

Zafer Gayretli, Zülbiye Kaçay, Samet Zengin, Nuh Osman Yıldız, Laurentiu-Gabriel Talaghir, Teodora Mihaela Iconomescu, Gabriel Marian Manolache and Dumitru Marius Cosoreanu

PLOS ONE, 2026, vol. 21, issue 9, 1-21

Abstract: Universities are increasingly expected to develop transferable competencies that improve graduates’ employability, yet little is known about the psychological mechanisms through which such competencies translate into entrepreneurial outcomes in sport management education. Drawing on social cognitive career theory (SCCT), this study examined whether career awareness mediates the relationship between communication skills and entrepreneurial tendencies among prospective sport managers. Cross-sectional data were collected from 622 undergraduate sport management students in Türkiye (280 women, 342 men) using the Communication Skills Scale, the Career Awareness Scale, and the Entrepreneurship Scale for University Students. Following a pre-specified mediation protocol, a pooled measurement model containing all constructs was evaluated by confirmatory factor analysis before the structural model was estimated by maximum likelihood; indirect effects were tested with bias-corrected bootstrapping based on 5,000 resamples. All hypothesised paths were supported. Communication skills predicted career awareness (β = 0.73, p

Date: 2026
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:plo:pone00:0358456

DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0358456

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