The Best Position To Be In – A Study on the Impact of Club Quality, League Quality, and Playing Position on a Soccer Player’s Post-Transfer Performance

Abstract

Today, more and more companies are struggling to develop internal talent at the same speed that the world changes. Therefore, it has become a common practice to search for high-performing talents on the external market. While this sounds simple, research within the field of inter-organizational transfer gives reason to believe that not every high performer will be able to replicate their prior performance right after transfer. Though conclusions have been made that several factors are helpful in aiding a transferee’s post-transfer performance, research lacks insights on how the overall difference between job positions can affect it. In this study, we explore how different job positions affect portability in addition to confirming previous research findings. We do so by applying these ideas to the realm of soccer. The soccer industry shows high similarities to organizations outside of sports, and it offers the benefit of providing a high number of transfer occurrences and more easily accessible data. Using a data set of the most valuable soccer transfers in the last decade, we come to conclude that organizational capabilities in terms of the club and league quality impact a player’s post-transfer performance. Furthermore, we see the impacts of positional differences on soccer players’ post-transfer performances. While we conclude that organizational theory is not perfect in explaining soccer performance after a transfer, it does give reason to believe in the importance of a transferee’s position. The insight gained from this study suggests that a job position’s effect on post-transfer performance should also be further investigated in organizational research.