Nonprofit Sport Organizations Research Articles

Commercialization processes within Swedish child and youth sport – a Deleuzioguttarian perspective

In the Nordic countries sport has a particular connection to civic society, and this is reflected in the Nordic governments ‘sport for all’ policies. The region also includes large voluntary non-profit sport organizations with an implicit monopoly on competitive sport. During the last decade scholars in Sweden have noted that commercial entrepreneurs have emerged in the child and youth sports landscape. However, empirical research on this phenomenon is scarce. Hence, in this article the aim is to map different commercial businesses and the services they offer on their websites. We make use of a Deleuzioguttarian inspired theory and method and a post-qualitative research practice, which is informed by an ontological (re)turn to realism(s) in social theory. We present four different commercial de-territorialization processes and discuss how they affect the Swedish Sport Confederation in different ways.

“No Idea is a Bad Idea”: Exploring the Nature of Design Thinking Alignment in an Australian Sport Organization

As research into sport innovation management continues to evolve, the innovation efforts of both for- and non-profit sport organizations are increasingly revealed to be focused on best serving the sport user. Design thinking—a human-centered approach to innovation—may hold promise for sport organizations attempting to identify and deliver on the unmet needs of their users. As such, we undertook a qualitative exploration of the innovation practices of a commercial sport organization, attempting to balance hybrid for- and non-profit service goals. Alignment with design thinking themes was discovered in the organization’s practice, as were performative components of design thinking practice. Our findings suggest that design thinking is suitable—and indeed desirable—for adoption into sport management practice, particularly as a means of enhancing innovation efforts, designing holistic sport experiences, and/or overcoming competing institutional demands.

Leadership in and out of the sport boardroom: new empirical insights

ABSTRACT Research Question The aim of this paper is to increase understanding in the area of leadership at the governance level of nonprofit sport organizations. Specifically, we aim to explore how intra-board leadership at the national level influences the overall leadership capacity of a federal network. Research Methods In gathering new empirical evidence, the authors adopted a qualitative case study method focusing on a national sport organization operating within the Australian nonprofit sport industry. 12 interviews were conducted with current and former board members of the organization including the current and former Chief Executive Officers to gain new insights into the practice of leadership within non-profit sport governance. Interviews were analyzed using an interpretive process, and, a thematic structure relating to leadership in the non-profit sport governance context was developed. Results and Findings Leadership roles of the board, intra-board collective leadership, inter-board collective leadership, and individual and organizational leadership behaviors and actions emerged as the key themes in the research. Implications These themes combined with existing literature, notably an existing working model of leadership in this domain, are integrated into the paper to shed new light on this emerging area of inquiry. We offer a number of suggestions for future research to further increase understanding and to refine, test, critique, and elaborate upon our findings in this work.

Psychological contract, leadership, and job satisfaction: an empirical investigation into the non-profit sports sector

ABSTRACT Drawing upon leadership behaviour differentials, psychological contract, and level of satisfaction, the experiential practices of non-profit sports leadership illustrate how the application of particular leadership behaviours can lead to positive or negative outcomes. The paper investigates the direct and indirect effects of psychological contract on job satisfaction. A quantitative methods approach was used to gather the data. One thousand and twenty-two surveys were completed from non-profit sports organizations. Servant leadership fully mediated the relationship between psychological contract and job satisfaction, while leader-member exchange (LMX) partially mediated this relationship. In addition, psychological contract was positively related to job satisfaction in the non-profit sports sector. No research has addressed the direct and indirect relationships between psychological contract and job satisfactions, using leadership behaviours as mediators in the non-profit sports sector. Practical implications of the findings are discussed, together with limitations and ideas for future research.

WITHDRAWN: The impact of unlearning context on organizational performance through knowledge management: A case of community sport clubs in Iran

ABSTRACT The authors examined the effect of unlearning context on organizational performance of community sport clubs (CSCs) via knowledge management. The board of directors of CSCs in Iran were invited to participate in this study. The research employed the multidimensional constructs of unlearning context, knowledge management, and organizational performance. The findings indicated that unlearning context had positive effects on knowledge management and organizational performance. Knowledge management played a role of partial mediator in the relationship between unlearning context and organizational performance. Non-profit sport organizations need to take advantage of promoting unlearning context to facilitate acquisition, creation, sharing, storage, and application of new knowledge among members, which in turn, could help them perform better. The study provides both theoretical and managerial implications that promote sport clubs to apply unlearning context and knowledge management processes to increase both financial and non-financial aspects of their organizational performance.

Board roles in Scottish football: an integrative stewardship-resource dependency theory

ABSTRACT Research question: This study investigates how boards of directors perceive their roles in Scottish football clubs. With previous studies focusing on amateur and non-profit sport organisations (primarily in Canada, Australia and New Zealand), this research answers the call for more research into board roles and in other sport contexts. Research methods: A qualitative design is adopted and 24 directors of Scottish football clubs are interviewed. Football club directors are a difficult to access population and this research represents a rare opportunity to understand the perspectives of key sport governance informants. Template analysis is employed. Results and findings: Findings show that perceived board roles fall into five categories: control, service, operations, resource co-optation and strategy. Organisational size was found to influence perceptions of board roles in Scottish clubs, while an apparent alignment of interests between owners and managers, and a subsequent reduction in agency cost, has implications for the control role. An integration of stewardship theory and resource-dependency theory is argued to provide a more holistic understanding of board roles in this context. Implications: The study responds to calls for a multi-theoretical approach to board roles research by developing an integrative stewardship-resource dependency theory. The integrated theory is argued to be useful in framing the complex dynamics of board roles in Scottish football. Future research is encouraged to assess whether the stewardship-resource dependency theory can provide an effective framework for understanding board roles in other sport settings.

Branding Huntington Beach, Surf City USA®: Visitors, residents, and businesses

This study examines the branding of surfing culture for tourism purposes in Huntington Beach (HB), Surf City USA®, since the early twentieth century. After discussing previous works on tourist area life cycles, this study taps into the place branding theory to show surfing integration within the local growth strategy of the city. Results suggest that stakeholders of tourism development not only aim at attracting visitors, but also residents and businesses, thus creating conflicts arising from the definition of the image of surfing, and from its commodification. This analysis is based on archival research of regional newspapers, including the Los Angeles Times, as well as on 20 semi-structured interviews taped between 2010 and 2018 with the main stakeholders of surfing marketing and place branding. Stakeholders include elected local government officials, local surfers and residents, members of nonprofit sports organizations, board members of tourism businesses, as well as a global brand president of an action sports company.

Promoting knowledge economy, human capital, and dual careers of athletes: a critical approach to the Global Sports Talent Development Project in South Korea

ABSTRACTThis study explores four core vocational development programmes for former Korean elite athletes that were designed to develop their linguistic and cross-cultural competencies and professional knowledge in sport. Further, this study seeks to determine if there are any positive influences and existing challenges with regard to fostering potential sports human capital on the global stage. Qualitative individual interviews were conducted with 19 participants, who were divided into two groups. The first group of participants included four male senior administrators who have interacted with former elite athletes who participated in vocational training programmes. The second group of participants included 15 retired elite athletes who participated in vocational development programmes with governmental non-profit sports organizations. All interviewees shared their own experiences and perceptions of how the programming created opportunities for those who were academically disadvantaged to enable them to improve their chances in obtaining occupations in sports administration. However, social justice concerns still emerged from the elite sporting system. Whereas the core programming assisted former athletes in overcoming various life challenges through education, there are still limited full-time employment opportunities in sports administration at the national level. This study critically analyses the emerging structural problems in Korea’s elite sporting system and suggests plausible strategies to create more educational opportunities. In this regard, this study considers ways to promote the knowledge economy and sports human capital through the lens of the dual careers of athletes.

Voluntary sensemaking: the identity formation process of volunteers in sport organizations

ABSTRACTResearch questionVolunteers are essential to the management of nonprofit community sport organizations (CSOs). Although previous research has focused on the individual or institutional factors that influence volunteerism in these contexts, there has been less attention to how these factors collectively impact group identity formation, which is associated with collective solidarity.Research methodsUsing the theoretical lens of identity work, this case study analyzes this process from a critical realist perspective. Document analysis and a focus group with three paid staff members were used to generate data on the ‘sensebreaking’ and ‘sensegiving’ cues projected by a CSO, and interviews were conducted to understand volunteers’ ‘sensemaking’ of these cues, along with the corollary influence on group identity formation.Results and findingsResults indicate reconciling sport identities and adjusting to formalized tasks were salient ‘sensebreaking’ cues. Moreover, the reputation of the CSO and establishment of role identities were identified as key ‘sensegiving’ mechanisms, while symbols and conviviality among volunteers helped promote collective group identities.ImplicationsThe discussion focuses on the theoretical implications of findings, focusing specifically on the identity work performed by volunteers and group identity formation, and also discusses key implications for practice.

Big League Social Media: Cultivating Community Online

This case addresses a timely problem many non-profit sport organizations face: social media management. Due to a lack of resources and technical skills, many organizations fail to effectively utilize social media. This case focuses on the challenges of social media integration in Greenville Little Leagues (GLL), a chartered member of Little League International. Little League International is a global non-profit sports organization comprised of local league members such as GLL. This case focuses on a dilemma an intern with GLL must solve regarding social media and its annual tournament. The case outlines the organizational details regarding GLL’s operation and annual tournament, as well as their current social media strategy. This case provides an opportunity for students to: 1) examine effective tactics for using social media to develop community, 2) develop strategies non-profit sport organizations could use to promote community building, 3) identify cost-effective social media tactics for engaging a rapidly changing audience, and 4) articulate how to effectively utilize volunteers to share social media responsibilities. The case is intended for use in event management, organizational behavior, and/or marketing courses and provides an opportunity to highlight how research can and should inform practice.

Approach to management by processes in a sports department of a local government organization

The strategy creates assumptions that should reflect the organization and the surrounding environment. The difficulties in the operationalization of the strategy and the lack of resources for the nonprofit sports organization require effective approaches. This study uses the Business Process Management to support the strategy operationalization using improvement actions according to the existing circumstances of each organization. Based on the action research we analyze the existing situation of nonprofit sports organizations and identify the line of actions to achieve the municipality intended outcomes. The lack of financial resources requires the identification of improvements according to the existing resources. The assessment of the concerns and issues related to stakeholders provides a mechanism to clarify which improvement action should be developed considering the involvement of different board members of the organization. The manager training in nonprofit organizations is an important area to target actions to contribute to the development of the nonprofit organizations, increasing their knowledge. Our findings highlight how the proposed approach can be used in nonprofit sports organization to develop an action plan to engage their business objectives according to its environment.

USA Triathlon

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to examine the 2010–2015 financial performance (FP) of the national non-profit USA Triathlon (UST) using financial effectiveness (FE) indicators and financial efficiency (FY) ratios.Design/methodology/approachArchival data were used together with a case study method. FP was evaluated by net income; FE was indicated by total assets and total revenues, while FY was examined by program services ratios and support services ratios.FindingsOn average, the FP of the organization was positive ($2,100,591 net income per year), FE was moderate (66 percent increases in assets and revenues) and the FY was mixed (80 percent revenues spent on program services with an impressive return on asset of 14 percent).Research limitations/implicationsBy using case study method, the results may not be generalizable to other national non-profit sports organizations with non-financial objectives.Practical implicationsThe results revealed that overall FP is a product of both FE and FY, making the study valuable to managers who are often faced with unreliable financial resources.Originality/valueThe study utilized both FE and FY measures to evaluate the FPs of UST – a major shortfall in similar studies.

SPORT ORGANIZATIONS AND ENVIRONMENTAL PRESSURES: AN INSTITUTIONAL ANALYSIS

Capitalism plays a significant role in the process of commercialization of sport. The bureaucratization, professionalization, politics and policy change legitimate organizational activities (Oliver 1992). The external process of bureaucratization, which is ‘the organizational manifestation of the rationalization of social life’ (Slack & Hinings 1994: 806) transforms sport organizations. The new environment of sport organizations moves them from voluntary organization to formal organizations with professional staff. This work identifies impact of external processes such as bureaucratization, professionalization and commercialization on sport organization. The focus is on the environmental pressures which change practices (procedures) in sport organizations. The article shows the changes in the field of sport and the processes of excluding voluntary, non-profit sport organization from competitions in elite sport. The last section of the article presents an alternative point of view on volunteers in sport industry.

Authentic Leadership in Nonprofit Sport Organization Boards

To learn more about effective leadership of sport organizations, this study explored board member interactions in nonprofit sport boards and specifically the construct of authentic leadership and its impact on board functioning. This somewhat contrasts with the extant research on governance and boards, which has often focused on elements, such as structure, process, and policy. Scholars have often explored the leadership theme within sport at the individual, coach, team, and sport department level. Limited attention has been afforded to studying leadership within the sport governance domain, although the importance of gaining a greater understanding of this area has been noted by both industry and researchers alike. A case study investigation of the Australian Football League exploring authentic leadership in Australian Football League club boards is presented in this paper. Ten Australian Football League clubs took part in the study, and 51 in-depth interviews were conducted with participants (board members) from clubs located across Australia. Interviews were analyzed using an interpretive process, and a thematic structure relating to leadership, board dynamics, and authenticity was developed. Ultimately, three key components of authenticity emerged as highly influential on board effectiveness: relational orientation, self-awareness, and balanced processing. These findings suggest that the nature of relationships between board members, particularly the chair and chief executive officer, is more positively influential on board functionality if characterized by authenticity and likely to lead to higher levels of trust, reduced disharmony, and limiting the formation of harmful subgroups.

US Table Tennis Association

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to examine the 2004-2015 financial performance (FP) of the national non-profit US Table Tennis Association using financial effectiveness (FE) indicators and financial efficiency (FY) ratios.Design/methodology/approachArchival data were used together with a case study method. FP was evaluated by net income; FE was indicated by total assets and total revenues while FY was examined by program services ratios and support services ratios.FindingsOn an average, the FP of the organization was poor ($6,475.00 net loss per year), FE was moderate (50 percent increases in assets and revenues), and the FY was poor (80 percent revenues spent on program services with a return on asset of 201.5 percent).Research limitations/implicationsBy using case study method, the results may not be generalizable to other national non-profit sports organizations with non-financial goals.Practical implicationsThe paper suggests that national non-profit organizations can enhance their FP by focusing on both FE and FY.Originality/valueThe study utilized both FE and FY measures to evaluate the FPs – a major shortfall in similar studies.

Exploring the emotional intelligence of leaders in governance of non-profit sports organizations: A voluntary vs. non-voluntary comparison

Research and practice have overlooked the emotional intelligence (EI) of senior leaders in non-profit organizations. Our research aims to explore and compare the EI capacity of two groups of such leaders; voluntary (i.e., presidents of sport federations) and remunerated (i.e., provincial directors of sports), in the sport governance system of Turkey. The results of a small-scale census revealed that voluntary leaders were older, had more years of sporting experience, and achieved significantly higher EI scores than their paid counterparts. A regression analysis to examine whether age and sporting experience predicted the EI scores returned positive results for age only. A priori and post hoc power analyses assured that results had sufficient power for practically meaningful implications (.95 and .85, respectively). These results suggest that sports-governing non-profit organizations can benefit from some EI training for the development of their leaders, including those younger and with limited sporting experience. We discuss the implications of our findings within the metamorphosis of sports governing bodies from a non-profit organization to a more business-like entity.

Leadership competencies: qualitative insight into non-profit sport organisations

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to explore the competencies of leadership used and the reasons behind their use in an attempt to understand the nature of leadership competencies in non-profit sports organisations, and guide the experts to focus on specific competencies for general purposes.Design/methodology/approachThe current study adopts a qualitative method to achieve the aim of the study.FindingsThe results revealed that four groups of competencies, namely, understanding the whole,communication, general management relation, and change tend to be specific competencies for general purposes in different leadership positions. The findings demonstrate the value of the approach in discoveringinsights that would not have emerged from more commonly utilised methodologies.Practical implicationsOverall, these findings suggest that individuals, in different sport leadership positions, need four groups of competencies to overcome internal and external challenges effectively. Implications of this research may exist in business and other domains. Specifically, several competency frameworks are suggested in business for leaders to meet their internal and external challenges.Originality/valueThis research represents the first attempt to understand and explore the nature of leadership competencies in non-profit sports organisations in the Middle East.

Leadership styles and organizational learning in UK for-profit and non-profit sports organizations

PurposeThe purpose of this study is to investigate the transformational and transactional leadership styles and organizational learning at for-profit and non-profit sports organizations, and the impact of these leadership styles on enhancing organizational learning in these sports organizations.Design/methodology/approachA quantitative questionnaire survey method was adopted. The data were collected from for-profit and non-profit sports organizations in the UK.FindingsManagement by exception-active in transactional leadership and idealized leadership in transformational leadership seem to be equally important for facilitating organizational learning. The results also revealed significant differences between for-profit and non-profit sports organizations in leadership styles and organizational learning.Research limitations/implicationsThe generalizability of the results for different sports settings or different countries must be examined, given that only some sports organizations under the umbrellas of non-profit and for-profit sectors were used as the target population. The research is limited to the use of moderating variables, such as motivation, organizational structure, culture and innovation, that might attenuate this effect. This study contributes to the field by investigating the direct relationship between leadership styles and organizational learning in a sports setting.Originality/valueThe originality of this study is its advances of sports leadership research that is linking leadership styles and organizational learning in for-profit and non-profit sports organizations.

Networking with a purpose: men and women’s perception of career networking in sport NGBs

PurposeNetworking practices are considered to be an important career advancement strategy. However, little empirical research exists which provides understanding of this phenomenon as it relates to the differences in practices and experiences between genders. The purpose of this paper is to explore how the role and nature of networking and career relationships in nonprofit sport organizations is perceived to impact career development.Design/methodology/approachIn total, 34 semi-structured interviews were conducted with male and female executives in a range of nonprofit organizations to elicit views, attitudes, and information regarding formal and informal networking strategies and practices employed in this context.FindingsFindings highlight differences in perceptions of how networking is defined, the central role of mentors, the nature of networking relationships, and networking strategies. The authors found that there are various perceived barriers with regard to gender and organizational culture in sport national governing bodies (NGBs).Research limitations/implicationsNetworking practice and policy implications are discussed for sport NGBs and other organizations. The authors offer recommendations for future research.Originality/valueThe project adds value to the understanding of the career advancement of women as it directly compares perceptions of men and women.

Get ready to innovate! Staff’s disposition to implement service innovation in non-profit sport organisations

ABSTRACTWhile sport entrepreneurs are known for being risk-takers and for being proactive when implementing new ideas, little is known about individuals’ attitudes within non-profit sport organisations (NPSO). The present study draws on policy implementation and innovation theories to address this gap by investigating staff attitudes towards newness and its impact on innovativeness and change. An online survey was administered to representatives of regional sport federations in Belgium (n = 101; 70% response rate) in order to measure their attitude towards newness, the number of service innovation successfully implemented and the levels of innovativeness and organisational change perceived. On average, sport federation staffs show a positive attitude towards newness, which supports the implementation of service innovation. The number of service innovations and perceptions of innovativeness both have significant indirect effects on organisational change as perceived by individuals within sport federations. Managerial and policy implications are provided with regard to the need to develop positive attitude towards newness within NPSOs in order to foster innovation.