A comparison of managerial skills among NCAA athletic directors and corporate chief executive officers

This study examined the relationship between intercollegiate athletic directors (ADs) who's institutions hold membership in the NCAA and corporate chief executive officers (CEOs) in terms of perceived managerial competencies needed to function effectively and efficiently in their occupational position. A population of head athletic directors (n = 1,021) from NCAA institutions as well as CEOs (n = 516) from the corporate sector responded to the Managerial Competencies Inventory Survey - Krotee & Richman, (MCIS-KR). The MCIS-KR encompassed demographic information and 63 managerial competencies that were clustered into seven categories. The categories were: (a) business, (b) personal, (c) communications, (d) human resource management, (e) financial management, (f) marketing and (g) facility management.; A value was calculated for each competency category to determine order of importance as perceived by the various response groups. This calculation disclosed that intercollegiate athletic directors in division II institutions (ADs-II) and intercollegiate athletic directors in division III institutions (ADs-III) were similar in their rankings of the categories. While intercollegiate athletic directors in division I institutions (ADs-I) and CEOs were different from each other as well as different from ADs-II or ADs-III in their rankings of the categories.; The data were also treated with one-way analysis of variance (ANOVA) and Fisher's least significant difference procedures (LSD) and revealed that each of the seven competency categories showed significant differences between the ADs and CEOs. Twenty-one of the 63 competency items including seven of the ten top ranked competencies, as well as, the top five ranked competencies revealed no significant differences. Data analysis revealed six of seven categories showed significant differences among the three divisions of NCAA ADs. It was also elucidated that 18 of the 63 competency items including seven of the ten top ranked competencies, as well as the top five ranked competencies, showed no significant difference between the divisional levels of the ADs. The mean score rankings for the competencies further indicated some differences among the various divisions of the ADs as well as between the ADs and CEOs. However, many competency items, particularly the top ten ranked competency items, were either ranked in similar fashion or did not show significant difference. The data indicated that while some competencies were specifically common among the divisional levels of ADs as well as between the ADs and CEOs, some competencies were significantly different.