摘要：One of the obstacles to the presence of women in managerial positions is the existence of stereotyped attitudes. In this regard, the present study to evaluate stereotyped attitudes toward the presence of women in managerial positions in the sports industry was formed as an applied study on the survey methodology. The Statistical population includes physical education and sport management students in Tehran's high-ranked universities, which leads to a sample of 324 cases with an 80% response rate using four data collectors. The research tool was Women as Managers Scale (WAMS) questionnaire introduced by Mihail (2006). Content and facial validity are scrutinized by 13 experts while Cronbach’s alpha about 0.87 ensures reliability. Data analysis enjoys factor analysis, analysis of variance, and Tukey test. Findings illustrate that students’ attitudes toward women's managerial roles are stereotypical, especially by men reflected in women’s tendency and feminine barriers respectively. However, there were no other significant differences in the attitudes of these students concerning other characteristics such as education, employment, and job status. Therefore, it will be very useful to develop mechanisms to measure the stereotypes of people before entering and correcting them after entering the sports industry. Also, setting policies that increase women's desire to hold managerial positions and remove the barriers created for them by the role of housekeeping, will help to alleviate this stereotypical attitude. Keyword Gender Stereotypes, Managerial positions, Female managers, Sports industry. Introduction Sport and gender is a topic that has always been a concern, which is followed by much more attention in recent years. All around the world, many efforts have been made to ensure gender equality in education and employment in the field of sports, which has led to an increase in the number of women in related university educations and, consequently, their employment. Despite the increase in the number of women in educational courses; Unfortunately, the evidence depicts that the number of women compared to men in executive management roles and leadership positions in sports is not significant. This trend, which has not changed much over time, although a manifestation of the absence of women in managerial and leadership roles in all areas (Lyness and Terrazas, 2006: 267; Eagly, 2007: 3), is more indicative of the marginalization of women in the sports industry. Studies have shown that the presence of women in managerial positions in the field of sports has numerous positive consequences. According to Bailey et al. (2005), women managers in sport are role models for girls who play sports. These women can be a source of inspiration and motivation for girls who have just defined a career path for themselves. The lack of female managers in sports means the lack of role models for girls and young women in this field, which can hinder the development of their self-efficacy and motivation (Sanchez-Hucles & Davis, 2010); While more female managers shine in sports means more role models, which in turn leads to increased performance of girls who are potential future leaders (Banar et al., 2013: 13). Despite these findings, there is little evidence of the allocation of managerial positions to women in sports organizations. For example, by referring to the list of sports federations on the website of the IRAN's Ministry of Sports and Youth, we find that out of the 51 existing federations, only the chair of the federation of specific diseases belongs to women (Ministry of Youth and Sports, 2019). This ensures that although women have competencies in their professional lives, they are not very successful in reaching managerial positions in the sport's industry. One explanation for this situation and the lower presence of women in managerial positions is the existence of gender stereotypes about women that conflicts with the stereotypes of management and leadership. An image of a successful manager is more in line with more masculine than feminine characteristics and supports masculine gender stereotypes. Therefore, this study is conducted to investigate the stereotyped attitudes of sports students towards women in management positions. The attitude of sports students is imperative since their attitude reflects the attitude of future managers of the sport's industry, which can potentially shape the career path of women in the field. Accordingly, the main question of the study is: What are the dimensions affecting the students' stereotyped attitude toward women playing a managerial role? Research method This is an applied study in terms of purpose, and it is descriptive in terms of method. The study population included undergraduate students in the field of physical education and masters and doctoral students in sports management in the first-level universities located in Tehran province, from which 384 samples were selected according to Morgan's table. The research instrument was the 20-item "Women as a Manager Scale" questionnaire developed by Mihail (2006). All questions were based on a 5-point Likert scale in which one denotes for very low and 5 denotes for very high. For reliability analysis, 50 questionnaires were distributed, collected, and analyzed in a pilot sample. Cronbach's alpha was calculated using SPSS software reached the value of 0/87, which indicates reasonable reliability. Findings Confirming the model validity, confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) was employed. In this analysis, six absolute fitness indices including chi-square(χ^2), chi-square to the degree of freedom(χ^2⁄df), root-mean-square of estimation error (RMSEA), Root Mean Square Residual (SRMR), Goodness of fit index (GFI), Adjusted goodness of fit index (AGFI) and three relative fit indices (comparative) including Comparative Fit Index (CFI), Normed Fit Index (NFI), Non-Normed Fit Index (NNFI) and two parsimony fit indices including Parsimony Normed Fit Index (PNFI) and Parsimony goodness of fit index (PGFI) have been used to evaluate the model fitness, which ultimately ensured the validity of the confirmation model. To identify the affecting dimensions on students' attitudes toward women's managerial role, exploratory factor analysis was employed using SPSS software. Results provided four factors with the total variance explained about 56% for the study data set, including general acceptance, desire, ability, and female barriers. To statistically evaluate significant differences between the provided factors, analysis of variance was employed. Considering the significance level, a significant difference between the dimensions was quite obvious. Therefore, employing Tukey's posthoc test, there was no significant difference between social acceptance and women's ability, while the women's barriers and women's tendencies were different significantly. In other words, in the view of the respondents, the two dimensions of women's tendency and women's barriers have gained significantly fewer points than society's acceptance and women's ability to hold managerial positions. Accordingly, by performing an analysis of variance, a significant difference in attitudes toward women's playing a managerial role was examined by demographic variables including gender, education, and job status. The results depicted that the women's scores were significantly higher than men's. While the level of education, job status, and having managerial positions did not affect the respondents' attitudes toward women playing managerial roles, employed or inexperienced people with different levels of education had similar views on this issue.
