A New Era for Governance Structures and Processes in Canadian National Sport Organizations

Abstract

With the numerous changes to the sport system landscape since Slack and his colleagues examined national sport organizations’ governance in the 1990s, the purpose of this paper was to begin exploring the impact of these environmental changes on Canadian national sport organizations. To do so, we focused on five Canadian national sport organizations, from large Olympic sport organizations to small non-Olympic sport organizations. The two-pronged content and network analyses point to a convergence of governance structures and stakeholder interactions between the five organizations due in no small part to the new Canada Not-for-profit Corporations Act. We found organizations coordinating with both traditional (e.g., athletes) and nontraditional (e.g., social media public) stakeholder groups as well as renewing their focus on accountability and transparency. These findings imply a need to revisit the kitchen table–boardroom–executive office archetype continuum and demonstrate the extent of influence environmental changes (e.g., technological advancement and new laws) can have on sport organizations.