When the managerial merry-go-round stops: A case study of how disconfirming episodes affect the identities of expert football managers.

Due to the highly competitive nature of top-level football (i.e., top domestic league or international standard) expert football managers often undergo several disconfirming episodes throughout their careers (e.g., job loss, public criticism, unsuccessful interviews or career moves).However, little is known about how such episodes are experienced and impact identity.Therefore, the following case study aims explore the affect, if any, disconfirming experiences had on the identities and self-concept of three, unemployed, top-level football managers.Narrative constructs reveal that during disconfirming episodes' managers experience feelings of anger, a loss of self-respect, disappointment, and sadness.Further, they also report how confusion regarding their future career prospects leaves them in a state of limbo (i.e., identity interference), whereby they were unsure as to how, when or if they should cease their commitment to a valued identity.When the managerial merry-go-round stops. When the Managerial Merry-go-round Stops: A Case Study of how DisconfirmingEpisodes Affect the Identities of Expert Football Managers There are only two types of manager.Those who have been sacked and those who will be in the future.~ Howard Wilkinson, Chair of the League Managers Association.Recent years have witnessed a surge of public interest in the career trajectories of football managers 1 .Betting companies offer odds on who will be sacked first, the sports sections of newspapers and websites are filled with stories about which manager is insecure in their job, and fans around the world pontificate with friends and colleagues over their respective manager's future.Despite this considerable public interest and calls from several scholars (Kenttä, Mellalieu, Roberts, 2016;Lavallee, 2006; Gordon & Lavallee, 2004), little research has thus far been conducted within the population of sports managers (Lavallee, 2006).Instead, the extant literature has primarily focussed on athletes' experiences of adjustment difficulties during disconfirming experiences (e.g., career termination, unsuccessful junior to senior transitions, club initiated transfers, and injury).Research conducted within an athlete population, however, has argued that the competitive environment of elite sport limits opportunities for post-career planning (Lavallee, 2005; Lavallee, Gordon, & Grove, 1996; Taylor & Ogilvie, 2001).Given that both managers and athletes operate within the same environment -albeit facing different challenges -it is likely that managers will report a similar lack of post-career planning.Lavallee ( 2006) lends weight to this notion and suggests that managers report an unwillingness to consider a career outside of management.Given that the average tenure of managers in the English football leagues is 1.66 years (League Managers Association, 2017) and that 50% of first time managers fail to achieve a second managerial position (Bridgewater, 2010), this is problematic.Further, Lavallee, Gordon, and Grove (1997) suggests that while working in management may allow sport-related identities and social support networks to remain intact, managers are vulnerable to identity related difficulties should they cease to maintain a career in management.Shavelson, Hubner and Stanton (1976) define self-concept as the way a person generally perceives him-or herself, based on their experience and interpretation of their environment.The primary role of such generalisations is to organise and guide the processing of self-related information, acting as a selective mechanism which determines how information is structured and ultimately, attended to (Strachan, Sheilds, Beatty, & Glassford, 2012).As such, the process is relatively fluid and is in part influenced by the views of significant others and one's own behaviour.In contrast, identities are formed at a more conscious level and are based on the individual's traits and characteristics, their social relations, and the roles and social group memberships in which they occupy.As such, identities help us to make meaning and evaluate what is important to us within a context (Oyserman, Elmore, & Smith, 2012).Although the self-concept includes the cognitive generalisations held about a specific role, role-identity refers to the self-descriptive and internalised social role an individual occupies (Owens, Robinson, & Smith-Lovin, 2010).Like a police officer with a criminal or a parent and child, each role occupied is accompanied with role expectations, reinforces membership, and creates a unique identity (Hogg, 2006).Within football, Mills (2015, p. 610) describes the social pressures unemployed managers experience and the diminutive influence this may have on identity: