Management succession and success in a professional soccer team

Research into sports team performance has shown that across many sports and league competitions, teams that change their coaches after a decline in performance do rebound, but fare no better on average than teams that have not changed their coach in a similar situation. A similar lack of succession benefits has been reported in studies of manager and CEO succession: it has not been established that changing a team’s leader improves a declining team’s performance. We study the effect of a change of coach on the performance of a professional soccer team. Based on rarely obtained access to a whole season (one year) of daily close observation of the team and coaching staff in practice and matches, this study uses quantitative and qualitative data to go beyond the “average” pattern reported in the literature. We document in detail how, in a single team case study over an entire season, the processes in leadership behavior changed with a change of coach, the effect this had on the state of mind of the team, how the match behaviors of the players changed, and how these changes translated into improved performance. The process effects of a leadership change on the performance of a sports team may hold insights for leader succession in management: in addition to the aggregate organizational and experience fit of the new team leader, the specific leadership processes introduced by the new leader are critical for performance effects.针对运动队竞技表现的相关研究表明，在诸多体育项目与联赛赛事中，那些在战绩下滑后更换主教练的球队确实能够触底反弹，但平均表现并不优于处于相似境遇下未更换主帅的球队。针对企业经理及首席执行官的继任更迭研究也报告了类似的继任收益缺失现象：尚无确凿证据表明更换团队领导者能够改善业绩下滑的团队表现。本研究聚焦主教练更换对职业足球队表现的影响。得益于此前极少获得的一整赛季（一年）的每日近距离观测数据——涵盖球队与教练组的训练及赛事全程——本研究结合定量与定性数据，突破了现有文献中仅关注「平均效应」的研究局限。我们通过单支球队的全赛季个案研究，详细记录了主教练更换前后领导行为模式的演变、该变化对球队精神状态的影响、球员赛场表现的转变，以及这些变化如何最终推动球队表现提升。领导层更迭对运动队表现的过程性影响，或许可为企业管理中的领导者继任问题提供借鉴：除新领导者与组织的整体适配性及过往经验匹配度外，新领导者所引入的特定领导行为模式，对业绩成效至关重要。