Identification and Prioritization of Accountability Barriers in Sport Organizations

Regarding the importance of responsiveness in sport organizations, this study aimed at identifying barriers and limitations of implementing the accountability system in sport organizations and providing a strategy in the form of a model. The research method was mixed and the viewpoints of 25 sport professors and experts were purposively collected in the qualitative phase and 9 factors were identified as barriers to the implementation of the accountability system in sport organizations: legal, functional, environmental, cultural, organizational, managerial, individual, behavioral and structural. In the quantitative phase, 211 managers and employees of the Ministry of Sport and Youth responded to the research questionnaire by convenient sampling method. The validity of the questionnaire was evaluated using the viewpoints of sport management professors and experts, and its reliability was calculated to be 0.88 by Cronbach's alpha. The exploratory factor analysis also confirmed the researcher-made questionnaire. Path analysis of the proposed research model suggested that except for environmental barriers, all the variables identified in the research had positive and significant effects on the accountability barriers of sport organizations. The highest amount of effect was related to functional barriers (47%). According to the findings of this study, it is recommended that officials and managers of sport organizations of Iran should try to obviate the identified barriers so that the effectiveness of the sport organizations can be enhanced.