Prioritization of Human Resources Recruiting and Retaining Strategies at Different Stages of Life Cycle in Iranian Sports Startups

The purpose of the present study was to prioritize the strategies of recruiting and retaining human resources in different stages of the life cycle in Iranian sports startups.

This research work was interpretative, applied, and quantitative, which was conducted in the form of a survey. The research participants were university professors of sports management, human resources management, and managers of sports start-ups, 16 of whom were purposefully and available selected as a statistical sample. In order to collect data, a closed-answer questionnaire was used, and to analyze the data, expert-choice software and Analytical Hierarchy Process were used.

In the human resource recruiting section, except for the stage of business maturity and exit, where intra-organizational strategies had a higher priority; in the rest of the life cycle stages of startups, extra-organizational strategies have a higher priority. Also, the prioritization of human resource retaining strategies showed that none of the three categories of strategies has a higher priority than the other, and at all stages of the life cycle, compared to the conditions governing startups, all three categories of financial, educational and justice-oriented strategies can be used equally. In this research work, internal and external strategies of recruiting and financial, educational, and justice-oriented strategies of retaining human resources were prioritized separately.

At different stages of the life cycle of sports startups, in the field of recruiting and retaining human resources, a strategy should be adopted according to the conditions governing the organization.