Impact of Managers’ Entrepreneurial Skills on Customer Attraction to Private Sports Clubs Based in Tehran

This study aimed to evaluate the Impact of the Entrepreneurial Skills of Managers on Customer Attraction of Tehran Private Sports Clubs. This research is a type of descriptive- survey research and is in the group of mixed research (qualitative and quantitative) that in terms of purpose is an applied one. In the qualitative section, content analysis and Semi-Structured Interviews with professors teaching entrepreneurship and physical education along with club managers (10 people) were performed using the Snowball Sampling Method. Hereupon, the entrepreneurship skills components were achieved, and based on this, the managers’ questionnaire was built with 51 questions. The statistical population for this research was all sports clubs based in Tehran, from which 300 clubs were selected using the Random Sampling Method. In each club, the manager responded to the questionnaire of the managers and the clients (an average number of 25-35 people) responded to the American Customer Satisfaction Standard Questionnaire (ACSI), the total number of which accounted for 6338 people. To evaluate the validity, reliability, the goodness of fit for latent variables and test research hypotheses, the Structural Equations Modelling method was applied using the AMOS software. The results of Confirmative Factor Analysis proved the validity, reliability, and goodness of fit for latent variables. The research showed that entrepreneurial skills (personal skills and management skills) have significant effects on customer attraction, Moreover, the variables of pioneering, marketing, independence, planning, communication, decision-making, internal locus of control, commercialization, risk-taking, and innovation have the greatest effects respectively, the variable of creativity and wish for success does not have any significant effect on customer attraction.