Extended Abstract
Background and Purpose
Developing and empowering female managers will help the organization achieve greater success. When the leader has a dynamic mind and is a strong person, it increases the motivation of employees and encourages them to perform better. Therefore, it is better for managers and leaders, especially female managers in organizations, to acquire the necessary skills for effective leadership instead of implementing strict self-control methods and be able to implement their goals at the individual and organizational levels and progress in their jobs. Certainly, the presence of capable female managers and effective leadership will be satisfying for employees. Cultivating positive relationships between employees and female leaders can improve attitudes and increase performance in production, and after that, work will be the second most effective criterion for professionalizing the environment. For this reason, providing opportunities to reward and recognize a leadership style that is appropriate for the group or environment will not only improve relationships between employees but also increase their desire to learn and grow for the advancement of the organization. According to the above-mentioned materials, the research question is whether the empowerment of female sports managers in West Azerbaijan Province is affected by defense mechanisms and stress coping styles. In order to answer this question, the present study was conducted with the aim of investigating the effect of defense mechanisms and stress coping styles on the empowerment of female sports managers in West Azerbaijan Province.
Methods
This research is applied research in terms of purpose and because the research component conditions are examined, it is descriptive correlational research that was conducted in the field. The statistical population of this research includes all female sports managers in West Azerbaijan Province, which is 313 people according to statistics. The sample size of this research was considered to be complete due to the small size of the population and also to increase the reliability of the data, and all female managers in the province were selected as a statistical sample. In order to collect data, Spreitzer and Doneson (2005) Manager Empowerment Questionnaire, Andrews et al. (1993) Defense Styles Questionnaire, and Endler and Parker (1994) Stress Coping Styles Questionnaire were used. The content validity and reliability of all three questionnaires have been confirmed in previous research and for re-examination in the present study, the face and content validity of the questionnaire was confirmed by 10 specialists and experts, and in addition, convergent validity and Fornell-Larker (divergent validity) tests were used to examine the validity of the research instrument. The reliability of the research instrument was also examined and confirmed using composite reliability tests, Cronbach's alpha, and factor loadings. The Cronbach's alpha values for the three questionnaires were 0.893, 0.791, and 0.857, respectively, and the factor loadings of all remaining questions in the model (after removing questions with items with factor loadings less than 0.4) were higher than 0.4. In general, all three tests showed that the research instrument, in addition to validity, also has appropriate reliability. In order to analyze the data in the present study, the collected data were entered into SPSS23 and Smartpls3.1.1 software. In the descriptive analysis section, the demographic information of the participants was examined for the variables of age, gender, marital status, level of education, and management experience, and in the inferential section, the structural equation modeling test was used. All data analyses in the present study were performed at a significance level of 0.05.
Results
The descriptive results of the study showed that most of the participants were between 30 and 40 years old (N = 164), 227 of them were married and 86 were single, 153 had a bachelor's degree, 120 had a master's degree, and 40 had a doctorate, and most had 5 to 10 years of management experience (N = 120). In this study, structural equation modeling (SEM) was used to analyze the data. For this purpose, first, the fit indices of the first-order reflective and second-order constructivist measurement models were used to examine the fit of the research model. To examine the fit of the first-order reflective measurement models, composite reliability indices, Cronbach's alpha, factor loadings, convergent validity (AVE), and Fornell-Larker index (divergent validity) were used, and to examine the fit of the second-order constructivist model, the variance increment index (VIF) was used. The research results showed that the research model has a good fit and stress coping styles (p = 0.001; t = 9.123) and defense mechanisms (p = 0.001; t = 12.206) have a significant effect on empowerment of sports managers of West Azerbaijan Province.
Conclusion
All people use defense mechanisms to keep away potentially disturbing experiences. Only when defense mechanisms are used in a rigid and extreme way do they become a source of disturbance. Defense mechanisms have the ability to eliminate impulses, limit social relationships, distort reality, reduce learning, change people's conscious cognitions about themselves, reduce people's awareness of conflicts, or influence feelings that conflict with people's beliefs. According to the results of the research, coping styles and defense mechanisms have an impact on the empowerment of managers of sports organizations, so it is suggested that managers use various strategies to keep unacceptable thoughts, instincts, and feelings away from conscious awareness in order to remain immune to anxiety.
Article Message
Paying attention to stress coping styles and defense mechanisms can play an important role in enhancing the capabilities of female sports managers, and investing in the development of these skills will pave the way for greater growth and success of managers in sports environments.
Ethical Considerations
In the present study, all ethical considerations were observed, including voluntary participation in the study, confidentiality of information with the authors, etc.
Authors' Contributions
Conceptualization: Sara Khezerloo and Jafar Barghimoghaddam
Data collection: Sara Khezerloo
Data analysis: Sara Khezerloo and Mohammad Rahim Najafzadeh
Manuscript Writing: Sara Khezerloo
Reviewing and editing: Jafar Barghimoghaddam and Hamid Jenani
Literature Review: Sara Khezerloo and Hamid Jenani
Project Manager: Sara Khezerloo
Conflict of Interest
There are no conflicts of interest in the present study.
Acknowledgments
The present research is an extract from a doctoral dissertation, and we would like to express our gratitude to all those who participated in all stages of this research.