Referees are key sport personnel who have important responsibilities both on-and off-the field.Organized competition would not survive without referees, yet little is known about what cause referees to discontinue in the role. This research examines the experiences of former referees so that managers may better understand strategies that might encourage more referees to be retained. Fifteen previous basketball referees were interviewed about their refereeing experience. Ten themes emerged that were related to the sport development stages of referee recruitment, referee retention, and referee advancement. The results indicate that issues experienced during the retention phase (Problematic Social Interaction, Training/Mentoring, and Lack of Referee Community) and then at the advancing stage (Lack of Administrator Consideration, Administrator Decision Making, and Sport Policies) are linked to eventual departure from the role. Interestingly, off-court factors were reported as more influential in the decision to leave. Managerial strategies and implications are discussed.

In an effort to explore the shortage of female sport officials, the authors examined the experience of eight former female basketball officials from five geographically diverse states in the U.S. who voluntarily left the role. Specifically, the authors asked former female basketball officials to describe their workplace experiences. Utilizing a phenomenological approach and workplace incivility framework, the results indicated that the felt social inequity for female officials detracted from the participants experiencing a sense of community in the workplace, which ultimately led to their discontinuation in the role. Results indicate four key factors that created this uncivil work environment. An examination of the data revealed four major themes. Specifically the female basketball officials reported experiencing a Lack of Mutual Respect from male counterparts; Perceived Inequity of Policies; a Lack of Role Modeling and Mentoring forand from female officials; and experiencing more Gendered Abuse than did their male counterparts. The combination of these four factors exacerbated the female officials' inability to connect to the officiating community and led to their withdrawal from the role. The results further indicate that women officials likely threatened the hegemonic characteristics of a sport setting. Although females have made great strides in terms of sport participation, the practical implications of this research suggest that understanding females in workplace roles, such as officiating, is vital if social equity is to be achieved in the sporting community.

In this paper, we posit experiential learning projects in business as

Building on the current sport officiating research, this study puts forth the Referee Retention Scale. Through a three-phase process, the researchers developed a valid and reliable scale to predict sport officials’ job satisfaction and intention to continue. The first phase consisted of instrument development, whereas the second phase included field testing of referees (n = 253). After exploratory factor analysis and Rasch analysis, the resultant refined scale from Phases 1 and 2 was then administered to 979 referees in Phase 3. Phase 3 results using confirmatory factor analysis indicated that the seven-factor, 28-item Referee Retention Scale was a valid and reliable tool for measuring and predicting referee retention. The results highlight the importance of considering a variety of factors associated with the referee experience, which include administrator consideration, intrinsic motives, mentoring, remuneration, sense of community, lack of stress, and continuing education. A discussion on how the Referee Retention Scale can help administrators manage and retain sport officials is included.

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