Background and Purpose
In the economic era, organizations paid special attention to physical work factors, equipment, and locations, referred to as tangible assets, in order to increase efficiency and success. However, with changes and advancements in management science, the importance of human resources and their characteristics, such as knowledge and expertise, job attitude, organizational commitment, motivation, communication, organizational intelligence, and self-efficacy, as well as the processes of interaction among them, which are called intangible assets, have gained significant importance for competition, increasing the life cycle, and organizational success. Therefore, in organizations such as the Ministry of Sports and Youth, which is responsible for creating a suitable environment for ensuring the health of individuals in society through physical activities, the importance of intangible assets found in the characteristics of human resources becomes more evident. In this regard, Mahdad (2006) believes that the most important goal in any organization is to achieve the highest possible level of productivity or optimal productivity. According to him, the effective factors in productivity include capital, tools, methods of work, human resources, and the characteristics of human resources. Therefore, among the intangible assets that should be considered in the Ministry of Sports and Youth, self-efficacy and its relationship with employees' organizational commitment can be significant.
Regarding Bandura's concept of self-efficacy (1997), it is believed that self-efficacy is the degree of an individual's belief in their ability to organize and manage the necessary resources to act in order to achieve set outcomes. These beliefs influence aspirations and the level of commitment to them, the quality of analytical and strategic thinking, the level of motivation and perseverance in facing difficulties and setbacks, the tendency to avoid adversity, causal attributions for success or failure, and vulnerability to stress and depression. In relation to organizational commitment, Allen and Meyer (1990) believe that organizational commitment consists of three distinct dimensions, each with its own unique characteristics that influence an individual's behaviors and attitudes in different ways. Emotional commitment refers to an emotional or affective attachment to the organization, where individuals with emotional commitment identify with the organization, feel attached to it, and enjoy being a part of it. A person with a sense of emotional commitment usually demonstrates a high level of performance, has a positive work attitude, and is inclined to stay with the organization and continue collaborating. Continuance Commitment is based on the relationship between employees and the organization. In this way, what do employees receive in return for their efforts? And what will they lose if they leave the organization? Such a commitment causes individuals to refrain from leaving the organization and to feel a sense of commitment towards it. Due to the financial, social, psychological, and other costs incurred from leaving the organization, individuals with continuance commitment will only put forth their best efforts when the rewards align with their expectations. In other words, continuance commitment is a reflection of the assessment of the costs associated with leaving the organization versus the benefits gained from the organization. Normative commitment is based on organizational social experiences. These experiences emphasize competence and loyalty to an employer. The following will address some of the studies conducted related to the research area. As the review of theoretical foundations and literature indicates, the relationship between self-efficacy and organizational commitment has been considered in various organizations with different objectives. However, in the field of sports, especially regarding the relational model and the impact of various components of these two intangible assets, which play a significant role in organizational success, fewer studies have been conducted. Therefore, since the Ministry of Sports and Youth is considered one of the organizations whose main mission is to create and improve the health status of the entire population of the country through physical activities, and achieving this goal requires employees with optimal self-efficacy and organizational commitment, and given that no research has been conducted in this area within the mentioned ministry so far, the present study aims to answer the question of what the relational model between self-efficacy and organizational commitment of the employees of the Ministry of Sports and Youth is. Is the following conceptual model well-fitted? In other words, is there a significant relationship between employee self-efficacy and their organizational commitment? And how do these two variables and their components influence the relationship between self-efficacy and organizational commitment in the Ministry of Sports and Youth?
Research Methodology
The present study was descriptive-analytical in nature and was conducted in the field. In terms of the relationship between variables, it was causal and specifically based on the structural equation modeling approach. The statistical population of the research consisted of all 1,000 employees of the Ministry of Sports and Youth, from which 278 individuals were randomly selected for the research sample based on Morgan's table. The measurement tool included a self-efficacy questionnaire containing 17 questions, which were measured on a five-point Likert scale ranging from strongly disagree to strongly agree. For questions 1, 3, 8, 9, 13, and 15, scores from 1 to 5 were assigned from right to left, while for the other questions, scores from 5 to 1 were assigned in reverse order. Additionally, to measure organizational commitment, the Allen and Meyer organizational commitment questionnaire, which contains 24 questions with a five-point Likert scale ranging from strongly disagree to strongly agree, was used. This questionnaire includes three dimensions: affective commitment, continuance commitment, and normative commitment. In this questionnaire, affective commitment was measured by questions one to eight, continuance commitment by questions nine to sixteen, and normative commitment by questions seventeen to twenty-four. Considering that slight changes were made to the questionnaires and they were localized according to the structure of the Ministry of Sports and Youth, the face and content validity were confirmed by 15 specialists. The reliability of the questionnaires was also calculated in a preliminary study with 30 participants, yielding a Cronbach's alpha of 0.90 for the self-efficacy questionnaire and 0.89 for the organizational commitment questionnaire. Descriptive and inferential statistics were used for the statistical analysis of the research findings. In the first part, the statistical methods of mean, standard deviation, frequency distribution table and diagram were used for descriptive analysis of the findings. In the inferential statistics section, Kolmogorov-Smirnov tests were used to determine the normality of the data distribution, Pearson's one-group t-test, confirmatory factor analysis, directional path analysis, and structural equation modeling method was used to determine the causal relationship between variables, using SPSS and Amos software.
 
Discussion and Conclusion
The aim of the present study was to design a relationship model between self-efficacy and organizational commitment of employees of the Ministry of Sports and Youth. In this regard, the research findings showed that the self-efficacy of employees of the Ministry of Sports and Youth is below average, which is consistent with the results of research by Keshavarz et al. (2012). Therefore, since self-efficacy is the level of an individual's belief in their ability to organize and manage the required resources, and to act to produce the specified achievements (3), it seems that managers and policymakers of the Ministry of Sports and Youth should pay serious attention to increasing the level of self-efficacy of employees. Because low self-efficacy in human resources of the Ministry of Sports and Youth can affect many departments and functions of this important sports institution of the country. Therefore, holding training courses with the presence of sports psychologists and sports management experts is recommended. In another part of the research findings, it was found that the organizational commitment of the employees of the Ministry of Sports and Youth is above average, which is consistent with the results of Ming's (2011) research. Since organizational commitment is influential in providing services to customers by human resources and ultimately the effectiveness and productivity of any organization, it seems that the necessary grounds for increasing organizational commitment in the Ministry of Sports and Youth are provided through greater interaction between managers and employees for decision-making and the development of programs and their implementation, creating appropriate grounds for promoting organizational positions and paying attention to the selection of future managers based on meritocracy from within the Ministry of Sports and Youth, as well as paying attention to the livelihood opportunities and employment stability of employees, so that the level of organizational commitment can be improved to a high level.
Therefore, it seems that the officials and trustees of the high levels of the ministry should implement appropriate strategies to identify and strengthen the self-efficacy of human resources in this ministry. It is also recommended to hold training courses with the benefit of management and sports psychology experts to familiarize and increase self-efficacy among the ministry's human resources. On the other hand, in the relationship between self-efficacy and organizational commitment of human resources in the Ministry of Sports and Youth, affective commitment, normative commitment, and continuance commitment play the largest role, respectively. Therefore, it is recommended that managers and officials of the Ministry of Sports and Youth pay special attention to these three factors that will cause human resources to depend on the Ministry and gain a sense of enjoyment in working in the Ministry, and will continue to provide a high level of performance. Such a feeling will bring a positive work attitude and will cause employees in the Ministry to continue their work with more interest and not leave the Ministry. They will also have better relationships with other employees and remain loyal to the Ministry of Sports and Youth. On the other hand, if self-efficacy and organizational commitment in employees at different levels are at a desirable level, support for colleagues and work conscience can increase, which can ultimately lead to the success of the Ministry of Sports and Youth in various dimensions.
Finally, according to the results of this study and the interrelatedness of the research variables, coordinated attention to the self-efficacy and organizational commitment of employees in the Ministry of Sports and Youth is emphasized, and since the fit of the self-efficacy and organizational commitment relationship model has been confirmed, the use of the following model is recommended to increase the level of self-efficacy and organizational commitment, as well as attract and promote employees