Sport Organizations Research Articles

Agency and institutions in sport

ABSTRACT Much like the social phenomenon which it seeks to explain, institutional theory has become an institutional and dominant theoretical research traditional within sport management. In the context of sport, institutional theory can be used to examine the complex relationship between sport organisations and their broader environment. Specifically, it explains how sport organisations are influenced by and in turn influence, broader social, political and economic forces, as well as how these institutional forces shape the behaviour and practices of athletes, coaches and fans. The five original contributions contained within this special issue seek to advance institutional scholarship and bridge the growing theoretical divide between sport management and management. Taken together, the papers in this special issue represent the potential for not only further illumination of how institutional theory can advance sport management, but also how sport management might hold the possibility for further articulation and advancement of institutional theory. In doing so, we set out a future research agenda that calls for a return to the original motivations and concepts of institutional theory and a further appreciation of the distinctiveness of the sport context for understanding institutional arrangements.

The New Normal

Over the past two years, sport organizations worldwide have had to adapt traditional operating procedures regarding employee health and well-being as a response to the COVID-19 pandemic. Among these has been the implementation of remote work as an integral part of organizational structure. Through a review of the general literature regarding remote work, this paper presents an argument for the adoption of remote work as part of the standard operating practices of intercollegiate athletic departments. Specifically, organizational control theory provides a lens through which college athletic organizations can implement remote work and maintain a level of organizational effectiveness by utilizing the management of communication and trust. By extending scholarship on organizational control theory within sport management, the utilization of the organizational controls will allow athletic department leadership to modernize their departments while gaining competitive advantage.

(Un)Doing Gender Inequalities in Sport Organizations

Gender can be seen not only as a binary category but also as a performance or doing that is shaped by, and shapes organizational processes and structures that are deeply embedded in (sport) organizations in multiple and complex ways. The purpose of this paper is to explore strategies for addressing the undoing of gender in sport organizations with the use of an overarching or meta-approach. Strategies that aim to undo gender require a recognition of the complexity of regimes of inequality and the need to use incremental steps in the form of small wins while acknowledging change is not linear. The complexity and multiplicity of the gendering of sport organizations should, therefore, be considered a wicked problem. The naming of heterotopias can provide directions or goals for small wins and for addressing the wicked problem of the doing of gender in sport organizations.

Tracing Gender Allyship and the Role of Awareness in Addressing the Gender Leadership Gap in Sport Organizations

An extensive literature base has investigated women’s underrepresentation in decision-making positions with sport organizations, yet women’s access to these positions remains limited. Diversification strategies, based on distributive justice, have failed to create further opportunities. A new approach is needed to address this latent issue. The concept of gender allyship is presented to address the limitations of distributive justice paradigms that involves men and women to work as members of a coalition to improve gender equity in sport organizations. Utilizing grounded theory, this paper presents the core category of awareness and related subcategories self-awareness, organizational awareness, and industry awareness, as a means of informing the performance of gender allyship. The findings provide interesting theoretical and empirical implications for understanding the development of awareness, its subcategories, and how it contributes to change.

Leadership as Critical Success Factor of Total Quality and Human Resource Management in Sports Organizations

This study presents a model inspired by the Burke-Litwin causal model of the organization, suitable to encompass both individual and organizational performance and aligned with the proposal of a structure explicitly adapted for sports organizations from De Knop. The model was tested on senior management in 131 tennis clubs registered in Serbia. Although some scholars are against the implementation of common management in sports organizations, the results show that well-structured total quality and human resource management processes genuinely increase the effectiveness of sports organizations. Our findings show that critical success factors of this approach were complexity-based leadership, clearly defined mission and vision of the organizations, informal communication paired with unambiguous policies and comprehensible procedures, and broader operational responsibilities given to the employees. The levels of legal compliance and reward management systems were the main weaknesses of these sports organizations.

Exploring Sport Employees’ Conceptualizations of Meaningful Work

Modern sport management scholars have paired the fields of positive organizational behavior and human resource development with sport management to enhance the productivity of sport organizations through their employees. One area of study receiving increased attention is meaningful work, an emerging employee well-being metric whose definition is debated. The purpose of this study was to explore the ways in which sport employees conceptualize meaningful work. Semistructured interviews were conducted with 32 sport employees. The following themes were identified: meaningful work is work that serves, meaning gained from sport organizations, and individual meaningful work experiences. Discussion offers valuable implications for practitioners of sport management, as well as the emerging scholarly field of human resource development in sport management, and the evolving discourse surrounding meaningful work.

A Typology of Circular Sport Business Models: Enabling Sustainable Value Co-Creation in the Sport Industry

There is a continuing interest in the relationship between sport and nature. As a new field, sport ecology explores the impact sport has on the natural environment and how sport organizations and individuals can promote sustainability. However, a critical element is still missing in the sport ecology discourse—the link between organizations’ sustainability efforts and their value co-creation processes. The circular economy can provide this link by decoupling the value co-creation of sport business models from their environmental impact and resource depletion. Based on an extensive literature review, this study provides a new theoretically derived typology of circular sport business models, including comprehensive reasoning about sustainable value co-creation processes in the sport industry. It explains how sport managers of all three sectors—for-profit, public, and nonprofit—can transition toward more sustainable and circular business practices and offer integrative guidelines for future research.

Performance Enhancement Model for Sports Coaches Based on Motivational Job Factors with Emphasis on Herzberg's Two-Factor Motivation-Hygiene Theory

Human efficiency is not always predictable based on economic calculations and other psychological factors such as needs, motivation, and satisfaction must be considered. Sports organizations are among those that, if the working conditions for coaches are favorable, will more fully serve the goals of sports and physical education. This descriptive-survey research, in terms of nature and method, and applied in terms of purpose, was conducted using the structural equation modeling technique. The goal was to model the performance enhancement of sports coaches based on motivational job factors, emphasizing Herzberg's Two-Factor Motivation-Hygiene Theory. The statistical population of this study consists of all sports coaches working in sports clubs of municipalities, general departments of sports and youth, and education departments across the country. The sample was selected using multi-stage cluster and simple random sampling methods. In this method, the provinces of the country are the initial sampling units, and sports clubs within the provinces are sampled in the second stage, followed by a random selection of a number of sports clubs. Given the unlimited size of the statistical population, Cochran's formula was used in the present study. Therefore, the sample size, according to the above relation, is 384 individuals. To measure the research variables, a 78-item questionnaire on "Factors Affecting Job Motivation Enhancement" by researcher based on a five-point Likert scale, from strongly disagree (1) to strongly agree (5), and a researcher-made questionnaire on coaches' performance (technical (knowledge) performance, leadership performance, emotional (intelligence) performance, communication (skills) performance, behavioral performance) were used. The collected data were analyzed using descriptive and inferential statistical methods with the help of SPSS software version 21 and LISREL version 8.8. Considering the results, the path coefficients between motivational factors (individual, contextual, managerial-leadership, organizational) and performance enhancement are positive, with t-values greater than 1.96. Therefore, with 95 percent confidence, it can be concluded that these path coefficients are significant at the 0.05 error level, indicating that individual, contextual, managerial-leadership, and organizational dimensions have a significant and positive effect on the enhancement of sports coaches' performance.

Structure and Organization of Sport for People With Intellectual Disabilities Across Europe.

Opportunities to participate and compete in sports for athletes with intellectual disability (ID) have increased; however, this group still encounters limitations in accessing a comprehensive range of sports. This study addressed the current knowledge on how sport for people with ID is organized and the relationships between the major sport organizations for people with ID across 10 European countries. The participants were 29 national sport organizations for people with ID. Data were collected using semistructured interviews with representatives from the key organizations and analyzed thematically. From the results, two major themes emerged: (a)connection and networking between sport organizations and (b)organizational landscape of each nation (i.e.,ID, multidisability, or mainstream). The results of this study contribute to understanding how sport for people with ID is organized across the participating nations, demonstrating different models of development and examples of good practice.

The Influence of the European Experts’ Activities on the Development of the Physical and Sports Movement in Yekaterinoslav Governorate (From the Second Half of the 19th Until Early 20th Centuries)

After the establishment of Ukraine as an independent state, the interest in investigating historical aspects of the development of physical culture and sports both in Ukraine and in its several regions increased significantly. The chronological framework of this study covers the period from the second half of the 19th century untilthe beginning of the 20th century, when, in the conditions of the progress of the industrial and economic potential and the influx of foreign experts,the foundations of physical culture and sports were laid in the Yekaterinoslav Governorate,one of the largest provinces in the south-eastern lands of Ukraine. The article identifies the peculiarities of the physical culture and sports movement in the region, reveals the role of foreign experts (from Europe) in the development of physical education in educational institutions, in organizing and conducting training classes within the Sokil Gymnastics system in gymnasiums and schools. The contribution of foreign experts in the creation of the first sports organizations and clubs from certain kindsof sports is highlighted. The special contribution of the Polish diaspora and its representative Ignacy Jasiukowicz into the development of academic rowing in the Yekaterinoslav Governorateis revealed.

Sources of Financing of the Physical and Sports Organizations

Sources of Financing of the Physical and Sports Organizations

An Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis of Black Women Diversity and Inclusion Leaders in Sport Organizations

Athletic Diversity and Inclusion Officers (ADIOs) are novel leadership positions in sport tasked with creating and sustaining diverse, inclusive, and equitable athletic departments. Interestingly, Black women have assumed many of the Division I ADIO positions. Thus, they seek to lead inclusionary efforts in an organizational field with sustained issues of gender and racial exclusion. This hermeneutic phenomenological study applied a Black feminist lens to examine what it means to be a Black woman ADIO who leads diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives in gendered and racialized Division I collegiate athletic departments. This study has three themes: (a) the ADIO position elicits the Strong Black Woman stereotype, inducing emotional fatigue; (b) Black women ADIOs are positioned as athletic departments’ conscience, often interpreting substantive and symbolic diversity, equity, and inclusion practices; and (c) Black women ADIOs center their perception of affirmative prescriptions of Black womanhood in an attempt to withstand the adverse realities of ADIO leadership.

Genetic Variability of Traffic Tolerance and Surface Playability of Bermudagrass (Cynodon spp.) under Fall Simulated Traffic Stress

Bermudagrasses (Cynodon spp.) are the most preferred turfgrass species for athletic fields in the southern and transition zones of the United States. Developing and using bermudagrasses with superior traffic tolerance and surface playability under trafficked conditions benefits turfgrass managers, athletes, and sport organizations. A 2-year field study was conducted in Stillwater, OK, to quantify the genetic variability of traffic tolerance and surface playability from a population composed of two commercially available and 87 experimental interspecific hybrid bermudagrasses under fall simulated traffic stress. The experiment design was a randomized complete block design with three replications. Plots were subjected to 60 simulated cleat traffic events for 6 weeks in the fall of 2019 and 2020 using a Baldree traffic simulator. Bermudagrasses were evaluated for turfgrass quality (TQ), normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI), fall percent green cover (FPGC), shear strength (SS), and surface hardness (SH) after 3 and 6 weeks of traffic. Spring green-up percent green cover (SGPGC) was evaluated in the spring of 2020 and 2021. Except for SH, significant entry effects were found for all parameters and reliability estimates were moderate to high (i2 = 0.49 to 0.68) under simulated trafficked conditions. Experimental entries 17-4200-19X13, 17-4200-19X9, 17-4200-36X19, 17-5200-4X11, 18-7-2, 18-7-6, 18-8-2, 18-8-3, 18-8-7, 18-9-2, OSU1101, and OSU1664, and TifTuf® had excellent traffic tolerance. Entries 18-8-7, OSU1101, OSU1675, TifTuf®, and Tahoma 31® demonstrated high SS. There was a large group of entries that had consistent early spring green-up across both years, including Tilin#5, 18-9-8, OKC1221, OSU1257, OSU1318, OSU1337, OSU1406, OSU1439, OSU1651, OSU1675, Tahoma 31®, and TifTuf®. OSU1101 was the entry ranking in the top statistical grouping most often throughout the study. Findings illustrated the possibility of improving traffic tolerance and SS through breeding and using phenotypic selection could reliably select bermudagrass genotypes with improved traffic tolerance and SS in the transition zone.

Increasing Sport Fans’ Receptivity to Sustainability Messaging Through the Enhancement of Brand Authenticity

Brand authenticity is a crucial concept in determining a continuing relationship between a team and its fans. To better understand brand authenticity in the sport industry, this study explored how professional sport teams’ brand authenticity can be enhanced by its antecedents and what is the role of brand authenticity on fan loyalty, ultimately enhancing receptivity to environmental sustainability messaging. A total of 349 fans of the National Football League participated in an online survey. This research employed structural equation modeling to examine the relationships among the eight main constructs in the hypothesized research model. The results indicated that the five predictors positively influenced the team’s brand authenticity. Furthermore, enhanced brand authenticity impacted fan loyalty, while receptivity to environmental sustainability messaging was affected by fan loyalty and environmental sustainability attitude. The findings demonstrate how sport organizations can increase fans’ receptivity to environmental sustainability messaging through fans’ perceived brand authenticity and loyalty.

Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion in Sport Organizations

Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion in Sport Organizations

УПРАВЛЕНИЕ КОММЕРЧЕСКОЙ ОРГАНИЗАЦИЕЙ НА ПРИМЕРЕ ЛЫЖНЫХ ВИДОВ СПОРТА

This article presents a comprehensive analysis of management processes in a commercial organization specializing in ski sports, with an emphasis on the features of the organizational structure, human resource management, financial and strategic management, as well as marketing strategies. The article demonstrates how the unique aspects of sports management manifest themselves in the context of the chosen organization. The authors analyze key performance indicators and offer strategic recommendations for optimizing management processes. As an illustrative example, an analysis of the activities of the sports and recreation complex "XXX" is also carried out here. The range of services offered by the company and management approaches are considered, as well as financial indicators are analyzed in detail. Special attention is paid to the analysis of competitive strategy. Based on the results of the analysis, the article suggests ways to solve organizational problems and improve the company's competitive position in the market. The development of a competitive strategy for the XXX fitness club based on differentiation and its economic effects are also considered. Thanks to this study, it becomes clearly clear how important it is in the process of managing a specialized organization (in this case, a sports organization) to use not only fundamental management methods that are common to all types of organizations, but also to apply specific methods that would affect the characteristics of a particular area. This contributes to more effective management, the elimination of all problems that arise in connection with the specifics of a particular area, as well as the improvement of all key indicators of the organization that determine its success.

The development of the Vatican’s sports diplomacy tools in the 21st century

The article discusses the Vatican's public diplomacy tools, specifically the phenomenon of sports diplomacy. Sports diplomacy is a new tool for the realization of soft power by the Vatican, which gained its relevance during the pontificate of Francis I. This type of cultural diplomacy is characterized by significant dynamism, connection with socio-economic and political trends, and for a long time was out of the Vatican's sight due to moral and ethical contradictions inherent in this type of public diplomacy, as well as the lack of resources for the implementation of initiatives in this area. The contradictory nature of sports diplomacy for the Vatican is due, on the one hand, to the "ideal" sport's focus on the cultivation of moral and ethical values approved by the Roman Catholic Church (compassion, respect, love, harmony, and joy), and, on the other hand, to the political engagement and business orientation of "real" professional sport. Due to the traditional role of the RCC as a source of moral and ethical guidelines for Catholic society, sports diplomacy for the Vatican involves significant reputational risks. These risks stem from many factors, among them: the exploitation of athletes, the spread of dishonest sporting behavior (e.g., doping) within sports organizations, and the inconsistency with the values imposed by the sports industry, among them body worship, hedonism, consumerism, hoarding, individualism, and the obsession with success. In many ways, the emergence of this tool has been a forced measure and is linked to the changing territorial distribution and national composition of Catholicism, which has necessitated the need to find new ways to establish a dialogue with the Vatican's target audience, which is predominantly made up of people from developing countries in the global South. These circumstances have led to a decline in the popularity of the RCC and its doctrines, as well as a decline in the attractiveness of the Christian way of life and Christian values among believers. They have also become an indicator for the RCC of the need to respond to the changes that have taken place and to seek new tools of public diplomacy that can bring the Church back to the attention of its target audience. The article examines the Vatican's views on the values of sport and the sports industry, discussing their relevance to Christian values, as well as acceptable formats for the Vatican's participation in the sporting life of society. The article discusses the Vatican's priorities, including its predominant focus on amateur sports. At the same time, it reveals evidence of the Vatican's intention to increase its representation in professional sports, which is expressed in the creation of specialized agencies, inclusion in sports associations and societies, and involvement of professional athletes. The current limitations of Vatican sports diplomacy are also examined. Conclusions are drawn about the Vatican's interest in the development of sports diplomacy and its desire to use this tool to achieve strategic goals.

From the Other Side: Supervisor Perspectives on Paid Versus Unpaid Sport Management Internships

Internships help position college students to succeed in the sport industry but have historically been unpaid. In response to a call from Walker et al. for more research on the impacts of unpaid internships, this study interviewed internship supervisors regarding their perspectives on unpaid internships. Data analysis was framed by institutional theory, exploitation theory, and efficiency wage theory. Results showed that supervisors use several narratives to justify unpaid internships and organizations are often slow to change without a pressing reason. While the supervisors believed that higher pay would attract better candidates and produce higher quality work, they also believed that some organizations are not capable of paying their interns and sport organizations are popular enough to attract many applicants without paying.

The Role of Sports Stars in Shaping Fans' Behavioral Characteristics

Objective: The objective of this study is to investigate the impact of sports stars on the behavioral characteristics of fans. Methodology: This research utilized a mixed-method approach (qualitative-quantitative) conducted in two phases. In the qualitative phase, data were collected through in-depth interviews with experts and active sports fans on social media platforms. In the quantitative phase, a researcher-designed questionnaire was distributed among 186 fans and sports managers using purposive sampling. Data analysis was performed using SPSS and Smart PLS software. Findings: The findings revealed that sports stars have a significant impact on all aspects of fan behavior. The influence of sports stars on citizenship behavior (path coefficient 0.992), emotional behavior (path coefficient 0.909), consumptive behavior (path coefficient 0.446), and normative behavior (path coefficient 0.503) was positive and significant, while their effect on deviant behavior was negative and significant (path coefficient -0.592). Conclusion: The results of this study suggest that sports stars significantly influence fans' behaviors, acting as social role models to enhance positive and responsible behaviors while reducing deviant actions. These findings recommend that sports organizations and managers leverage the influence of sports stars to improve fan engagement and foster loyalty.

Sport and Transnational Indigenous Solidarity From Turtle Island to Palestine? Examining Iroquois Nationals’ 2018 Trip to Israel

The Iroquois Nationals’ participation in the 2018 World Lacrosse Championship was welcomed by the hosting Israeli state despite the call for boycott from the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions movement and pro-Palestinian groups’ appeal for Indigenous solidarity. This paper discusses the historical/geopolitical contexts of this event and examines the responses from multiple parties, including the team representatives, pro-Israel groups, and Indigenous media/activists. By bringing together literature in Indigenous studies, settler colonial studies, Palestinian studies, and critical sport studies, it highlights the challenges for transnational solidarity in the sport industry as well as the urgency for deepening an internationalist anticolonial/anti-imperialist political consciousness among athletes and sport organizations, Indigenous or non-Indigenous alike.