Theorising organisational resilience for sport management research and practice

Abstract

ABSTRACT Purpose/Rationale: Helping individuals and teams achieve their goals by being resilient is an established research field in sport. How sport organisations can be resilient in adversity is comparatively neglected, so the purpose is to provide firm foundations for conceptualising organisational resilience in sport management. Research question: “How can organisational resilience best be theorised for sport management research and practice?” Design/Methodology/Approach: From a critique of the resilience literature, a new Framework for Organisational Resilience Management (FfORM) is developed, based on the theory of organisational resource conversion and the separation of normative and descriptive levels. The FfORM is applied to sport management contexts, including the resilience of National Governing Bodies of Sport (NGBs) to reductions in UK Sport funding. Results and Findings: Organisational resilience is conceptualised as a means to an end, to achieve externally generated goals, emphasising its dynamic, temporal nature. The FfORM illuminates the challenges for NGBs in developing organisational resilience because of trade-offs in the actions they take. Practical implications: As well as being an evaluation tool, the FfORM will be of utility to sport organisations addressing the unprecedented challenges arising from COVID-19. Research contribution: Development of theory on organisational resilience, for use in both sport and other contexts.