Building of the legitimacy of a sports organization in a hybridized operating environment: case Finland

Abstract

During the past few years, Finland has seen the reform of the Finnish Olympic Committee (OC), the dissolution of three major sports organizations and the establishment of two new central sports organizations: first, Valo (Finnish Sports Confederation) and two years later, the merged Valo-OC. The focus of this article lies on the building of Valo-OC’s organizational legitimacy in a hybridized environment. The research material has been collected by thematic interviews and analysed by ATLAS.ti content analysis software. Van Leeuwen’s legitimation strategies have been used as the study’s interpretative framework. The results indicate that sports leaders build legitimacy through experts, individualistic thinking and managerialist practices. From the government representatives’ perspective, legitimacy building leans on Valo-OC’s member organizations and on the ways in which the organization acts as a link between the government and the sports movement. Valo-OC’s value base is viewed as incoherent due to two competing ideologies, elite sports and sport for all. Valo-OC’s conflicting interests and internal instability weaken its legitimacy building, which may have a negative effect on the organization’s ability to credibly act inside the entire Finnish sports movement.