The Relationship between Knowledge Management with Entrepreneurship and Mediating Role of Social Capital in Sports Clubs in Shiraz City

The purpose of this study was to investigate the relationship between knowledge management and entrepreneurship with the mediating role of social capital in managers of private sports clubs in Shiraz.

The statistical population included 400 managers of private clubs in Shiraz. The statistical sample consisted of 196 respondents who were chosen through cluster sampling based on the distribution of clubs in the eleven urban areas of Shiraz. In order to measure knowledge management, Sharon Lawson Questionnaire (2003), Social Capital Assessment, Gaini Questionnaire (2012) and Entrepreneurship Assessment, Chupani Questionnaire (2010) were administered among the respondents. Five qualified managers assessed and confirmed the validity of the questionnaires and the reliability of the questionnaires was assessed and confirmed through Cronbach's alpha coefficient and the combined reliability. In order to investigate the relationships between the data, the redearchers applied the path analysis method with partial minimum squares using PLS2 software.

The findings showed that there was a significant relationship between the components of knowledge management and entrepreneurship in sports clubs. There was also a significant relationship between the components of social capital and entrepreneurship. In addition, the research findings showed that social capital could be a good medium for the development of entrepreneurship through knowledge management in the sports club.

According to the research findings, it is recommended that sport clubs create inter and intra-club networks taking the creativity and efficiency of their social capital for granted to make the path of entrepreneurial development shorter and more effective along with developing infrastructure to create a knowledge-based sports club in order to develop entrepreneurship.