Factors of Athletes’ Work Engagement in South-East European Basketball Teams

The purpose of this paper is to examine how human resource management (HRM) quality and cohesion in post-transitional South-East European basketball teams influence athletes’ work engagement and their contribution to their team’s performance. The model was tested with structural equation modelling on a sample of 559 basketball athletes from four South-East European countries. The results show that the perceived quality of HRM directly affects the level of athletes’ work engagement, but does not directly affect the perception of cohesion or the self-reported contribution to the team’s performance. However, athletes’ work engagement mediates the effects of the HRM and cohesion on their contribution to their team’s performance. The study’s main contribution is the finding that work engagement in the context of basketball teams from post-transitional South-East European countries represents a mediator through which HRM can affect an individual athlete’s performance.