The Contribution of Managers to Organizational Success: Evidence from German Soccer

Sandra Hentschel (), Gerd Muehlheusser () and Dirk Sliwka
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Sandra Hentschel: University of Bielefeld
Gerd Muehlheusser: University of Hamburg

No 8560, IZA Discussion Papers from Institute of Labor Economics (IZA)

Abstract: We study the impact of managers on the success of professional soccer teams using data from the German "Bundesliga". We evaluate the performance impact of individual managers by estimating regression models that include both team and manager fixed effects, where we are exploiting the high turnover of managers between teams to disentangle the managers' contributions. We find that teams employing a manager at the 75% ability percentile gain on average 0:25 points per game more than those employing a manager at the 25% ability percentile, which corresponds to a sizeable difference of 18% of the average number of points awarded per game. Moreover, estimated abilities have significant predictive power for future performance.

Keywords: managerial skills; human capital; empirical; fixed effects; professional sports (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: J24 J44 J63 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 30 pages
Date: 2014-10
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-bec, nep-hrm and nep-spo
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

Published - published in: Journal of Sports Economics, 2018, 19(6), 786-819

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