Internationalization and managing diversity on the basis of professional basketball clubs

Abstract

There is an undoubted impact of globalization on sport. In that matter we can analyze sport industry through the prism of different forms of internationalization that it is experiencing. There is a wide range of different activities however the main one relates to the migration of sport personnel mainly including players and coaches. This creates a situation of high levels of diversity in the roster of the professional sports club. The degree of difference in an organization may have a different effect on it. It may translate into a different level of efficiency of human resources employed and profitability of the organization and its overall success in the industry and the level of further development. Thus from the point of view of the organization the existing cultural diversity among its human resources must be properly managed. The article contains a brief analysis of the concept of internationalization in sports. Additionally author includes an analysis of The Basketball Migration Report published in 2019 by FIBA and CIES Observatory, which presents data in regards to international basketball transfers in a given basketball season. The article highlights some problems that relate to high degree of diversity that can be noticed in the basketball environment and points out some possible implications for professional club managers. Those problems can be viewed as quite universal and may also be visible in different sport disciplines, thus additional analysis is needed to develop appropriate managerial approach to possibly decrease the negative impacts of existing diversification level of sport workforce.