- Home
- Sport Management and Sport Business
- Understanding Sport Organizations
Understanding Sport Organizations
Applications for Sport Managers
Edited by Trevor Slack, Terri Byers and Alex Thurston
536 Pages
In this third edition, new chapters incorporate critical concepts that sport managers in the current era must be familiar with:
- Different policy types and the responses of sport organizations to policy
- Perspectives of marketing of sport and marketing through sport
- Control in sport organizations
- Sex and gender in sport organizations
- Volunteer management in sport
- Dimensions and assessment of governance in sport organizations
- Mental health difficulties and management strategies within sport environments
- Applying statistical analysis to support analytic decision making in sport
- Corporate social responsibility
- Procurement and sport organizations
Real-world examples throughout the text provide opportunities for additional exploration and application of relevant concepts. Every chapter references key articles that build on the foundational framework presented and includes suggestions for further reading within general management and sport management literature. This thorough presentation of subject matter will guide readers to a greater and more practical understanding of core issues.
Synthesizing modern conceptual and empirical research from many fields of management into a practical, engaging look at the sport management field, Understanding Sport Organizations: Applications for Sport Managers, Third Edition, is an invaluable resource for students and current practitioners alike.
Chapter 1. The Management of Sport Organizations
Trevor Slack, PhD, and Alex Thurston, PhD
Why Sport Managers Need to Understand the Complexity of the Sport Industry
Some Definitions
Ways to Look at Sport Organizations
Future Directions for Sport Management and Improving Our Understanding of Sport Organizations
Chapter 2. Doing Research in Sport Management
Trevor Slack, PhD, and Terri Byers, PhD
The Research Process
Theoretical Framework
The So-Called Debate on Qualitative-Quantitative or Mixed-Methods Research
Research Design
Data Collection Methods and Issues
Data Analysis Methods
Issues of Quality
The Write-Up
Part II. Fundamentals of Managing Sport Organizations
Chapter 3. Organizational Goals and Effectiveness
Trevor Slack, PhD, and Terri Byers, PhD
Importance of Understanding Organizational Goals and Effectiveness
Organizational Goals
Effectiveness or Efficiency
Approaches to Studying Organizational Effectiveness
Chapter 4. Sport Organizations and Their Environments
Trevor Slack, PhD, and Terri Byers, PhD
The Nature of the Organizational Environment
Research on Organizational Environments
Controlling Environmental Uncertainty
Other Perspectives on the Organization–Environment Relationship
The Relationship Between an Organization’s Environment and Its Structure
Chapter 5. Dimensions of Organizational Structure
Trevor Slack, PhD, and Alex Thurston, PhD
Complexity
Formalization
Centralization
Chapter 6. Design Options in Sport Organizations
Trevor Slack, PhD, and Alex Thurston, PhD
Typologies and Taxonomies
Mintzberg’s Configurations
The Simple Structure
The Machine Bureaucracy
The Divisionalized Form
The Professional Bureaucracy
Adhocracy
Organizational Designs as Ideal Types
Notes on Organizational Size
Contemporary Perspectives on Organizational Design
Chapter 7. Sport Organizations and Their Responses to Policy
Spencer Harris, PhD
Defining Policy
Studying Organizational Responses to Sport Policy
Chapter 8. Strategy in Sport Organizations
Trevor Slack, PhD, James Andrew Kenyon, PhD, and Argyro Elisavet Manoli, PhD
What Is Organizational Strategy?
Levels of Strategy
Strategy Formulation and Implementation
Strategy and Structure
Strategy in Voluntary Sport Organizations
Chapter 9. Sport Marketing
Frank Pons, PhD, Marilyn Giroux, PhD, and Lionel Maltese, PhD
Marketing of Sport: Spectator Sports, Branding, and Merchandising
Marketing Through Sport: Sponsorship, Activation, and Venue Naming
Part III. Dynamics and Complexity of Managing Sport
Chapter 10. Control in Sport Organizations
Terri Byers, PhD, Alex Thurston, PhD, and Phillip Lunga, MBA
Evolution of Control
Elements, or Components, of Control
Sport Management Research on Control
Chapter 11. Gender and Sport Organizations
Berit Skirstad, MS
Concepts of Sex and Gender in Sport
Historical Development of Women in Sport and Sport Organizations
Barriers for Women to Overcome in Sport
Theoretical Approaches Explaining Underrepresentation of Women in Sport
Gender Equity Policies in Sport
Chapter 12. Volunteers in Sport Organizations
Graham Cuskelly, PhD
Sport Volunteerism Defined
Size, Nature, and Scope of Volunteering in Sport
Volunteer Life Cycle
Organizational Commitment
Psychological Contract and Volunteers
Volunteer Management
Volunteers and Paid Staff
Chapter 13. Governance of Sport Organizations
Borja GarcÌa, PhD
Theoretical Frameworks
The Autonomy of Sport and the Role of the State in Sport Governance
The Assessment of Governance
Chapter 14. Decision Making in Sport Organizations
Trevor Slack, PhD, and Alex Thurston, PhD
Defining Decision Making
Conditions Under Which Decisions Are Made
Approaches to Understanding Decision Making
Chapter 15. Power and Politics in Sport Organizations
Trevor Slack, PhD, and Alex Thurston, PhD
Strategic Choice
Power and Authority
Sources of Power
Other Notable Interpretations of Power
Power in Sport Management Research
Organizational Politics
Politics in Sport Management Research
Chapter 16. Managing Conflict in Sport Organizations
Trevor Slack, PhD, and Terri Byers, PhD
What Is Conflict?
Horizontal and Vertical Conflict
Is Conflict Dysfunctional to the Operation of a Sport Organization?
The Conflict Process
Sources of Conflict in Sport Organizations
Conflict Management Strategies
Stimulating Conflict
Current Research About Conflict in Sport Organizations
Chapter 17. Managing Culture in Sport Organizations
Trevor Slack, PhD, and Terri Byers, PhD
Organizational Culture Compared to Climate
Manifestations of a Sport Organization’s Culture
Thick and Thin Cultures
One or More Cultures
Organizational Culture and Effectiveness
Creating, Managing, and Changing a Sport Organization’s Culture
Chapter 18. Organizational Change in Sport
Trevor Slack, PhD, and Alex Thurston, PhD
The Concept of Change
Change as Paradox
Perspectives on Organizational Change
What Causes Organizational Change?
Resistance to Change
Dealing With Resistance and Implementing Change
Stages of the Change Process
Innovation in Sport Organizations
Chapter 19. Leadership and Sport Organizations
Trevor Slack, PhD, and Terri Byers, PhD
Traditional Approaches to Leadership
Charismatic and Transformational Leadership
Modern Approaches to Leadership: Beyond Idealistic Views of Leaders
Part IV. Contemporary Issues in Sport Organizations
Chapter 20. Mental Health and Sport Organizations
Meghan Thurston, DClin Psy, PhD, Jon Arcelus, LMS, GP(T), FRCPsych, PhD, and Alex Thurston, PhD
An Introduction to Mental Health
Classification Systems
Factors That Contribute to Mental Health Difficulties in Sport
Mental Health Difficulties
Management of Mental Health Difficulties in Sport
Role of Mental Health Professionals in Sport
Chapter 21. Technology in Sport Organizations
Trevor Slack, PhD, and Andy Miah, PhD
Research on Technology and Organizations
Critiques of the Technology Imperative
Microelectronic Technologies
Relationship Between Technology and Organizational Structure
Chapter 22. Sports Analytics
Bill Gerrard, DPhil
The Nature of Sports Analytics
Moneyball: The Game Changer
Analytics in Invasion Team Sports
Other Applications of Analytics in Sports Organizations
Chapter 23. Corporate Social Responsibility and Sport Organizations
Christos Anagnostopoulos, PhD, and Jonathan Robertson, PhD
Corporate Social Responsibility
Theoretical Perspectives of CSR
Multilevel Approach for CSR and Sport Organizations
Chapter 24. Procurement and Sport Organizations
Sue Arrowsmith, QC (hon), DJur
A Multidisciplinary Perspective
Introduction to Procurement and Its Significance for Sport Organizations
Objectives of the Procurement Process
Transparency and Competitive Bidding
Procurement for Sporting Events
Procurement by Sport Federations
Trevor Slack, PhD, was the Canada research chair of the International Institute for the Study of Sport Management at the University of Alberta in Edmonton. He was widely published in major sport and organization journals and was a keynote speaker at conferences on sport organizations around the world. He was editor of the Journal of Sport Management and the European Journal of Sport Management, and he served on the editorial board of several journals related to sport management. Slack was awarded numerous grants for social science and humanities research projects. In 1995, he presented the Zeigler Lecture, the leading lecture in sport management, and in 2001, he was awarded a Canada research chair for his work in sport management. Trevor Slack passed away in January 2016.
Terri Byers, PhD, is an associate professor at the University of New Brunswick, Canada. She was previously a principal lecturer at Coventry University, and she has taught in higher education in the United Kingdom for almost 20 years. She is widely published in journals, books, and online forums. She is currently working on projects related to managing innovation in sport organizations, using innovation (virtual reality) to create positive legacy from Paralympic Games, and managing diversity in sport organizations. Byers has collaborated with colleagues from around the globe and has been granted research funding from the European Union and Canada for her research in sport management. She takes an innovative and creative approach to projects and believes that students of sport management should always challenge existing practices to constantly improve the sport environment for diverse populations.
Alex Thurston, PhD, completed his PhD in analysis of sport policy implementation and is currently teaching several modules across the sport management degrees at Loughborough University in the United Kingdom. He leads the Introduction to Sport Management module and supervises undergraduate and postgraduate dissertation project students. In 2019, Loughborough was ranked number one in the QS World University Rankings for sports-related subjects for the third consecutive year, receiving a 5-star rating. Thurston has a growing list of publications and has presented at conferences all around the world. He also delivered Trevor Slack’s final two keynote speeches: one at the EASM conference in Coventry, England (2014), and the other at the NASSM conference in Ottawa, Canada (2015). Outside of academia, Thurston has more than 10 years of swimming coaching experience. He completed a two-way English Channel relay swim, became a double European champion in 2016, and holds an age-group world record.
Multilevel approach for CSR and sport organizations
By Christos Anagnostopoulos and Jonathan Robertson
In a recent review on CSR, Aguinis and Glavas (2012) argued that multilevel and multidisciplinary approaches to examining CSR would offer a more complete understanding of the concept. In the following sections, we draw on this in order to structure our CSR discussion in relation to sport organizations. By so doing, the reader can form connections to the previously discussed theoretical perspectives (especially at the institutional and organizational level). In addition, we draw on sport and CSR literature with the purpose of inviting more questions rather than offering concrete answers for any of the following levels discussed. The goal for such an approach is to provide prospective sport scholars and practitioners with access points to key debates in CSR and sport literature.
Institutional Level
Scholarly activity on professional teams' social involvement has offered valuable insights into the environmental pressures that prompt organizations to engage in CSR practices. These pressures are amalgamated within both the institutional and organizational analysis levels. The institutional level addresses at least one element of Scott's (1995) three pillars of institutions, which are regulative, normative, and cultural-cognitive systems (Aguinis & Glavas, 2012; Godfrey, 2009). Hoffman (1997, cited in Scott, 2013, p. 59) described that “each pillar forms a continuum moving from the conscious and legally enforceable (for example, regulation), to the unconscious and taken for granted (for example, cultural-cognitive systems).” Guided by institutional and stakeholder perspectives, this section will focus separately on each pillar to elaborate on social responsibility systems at institutional level of analysis.
Changes in the regulative environment for sport organizations can come from a variety of sources, including governments, leagues, interest groups, unions or associations, and various other stakeholder groups. At the institutional level, changes in regulation can have significant impacts on the social responsibility of elite sport organizations. For example, in 2012 the NFL introduced new rules guiding how gridiron football teams must respond to player concussion. The change was initiated from player associations and medical groups that showed how players who had suffered severe concussions during their playing career had a higher chance of developing brain injury (chronic traumatic encephalopathy [CTE]) (Hanna & Kain, 2010). (For more information, see the Time Out “The NFL's Response to Concussion Injury.”) Another example of changes coming from government was the UK government's creation of the Football Foundation charity (Taylor, 2004). The change in the institutional environment led many English association football teams to create charitable foundations following the creation of the Football Foundation charity. The institutional environment in elite sport organizations is highly complex and subject to multiple regulatory regimes (e.g., laws of society, anti-doping, anti-corruption, governing body regulation specific to the sport). It is therefore imperative that organizations understand their external environment to avoid costly risks (noncompliance breaches) and capitalize on potential opportunities (changes in funding structures).
Normative systems occur simultaneously with regulative and cultural-cognitive elements at the institutional level. Scott (2013) described that normative systems are comprised of both values (desirable standards from which organizational behavior is assessed) and norms (the legitimate way society perceives things ought to be). Normative elements broadly conceptualize how society perceives certain obligations ought to be fulfilled. Often normative values are the precursor to society codifying laws and regulations and are therefore closely coupled with the above regulative systems (Carroll, 1979). Over the past century, several areas of institutional life have codified values and norms into laws and regulation in areas such as human rights, labor practices, fair operating practices, consumer issues, and more recently environmental issues (International Organization for Standardization [ISO] 26000, 2010). In sport organizations, a major shift has occurred in the area of environmental awareness. Trendafilova, Babiak, and Heinze (2013, p. 309) suggested that “scrutiny and regulation, and normative and associative pressures play a role in sport organizations' adoption of environmentally friendly behaviors. These forces seem to be working together and reinforcing one another, and often through the vehicle of the media, to create a broad trend around this [environmental] form of CSR.” As the chapter-opening scenario on the Philadelphia Eagles demonstrated, elite sport organizations are picking up on the environmental aspect of their social responsibility and even beginning to use opportunities strategically (Porter & Kramer, 2006, 2011). The changes in social norms regarding the environment have had widespread effect on sport organizations (Babiak & Trendafilova, 2011), college sport (Trendafilova, Pfahl, & Casper, 2013), major sporting events (Zhang, Jin, Kim, & Li, 2013), consumer perceptions of sport organizations (Walker & Mercado, 2013; Walker, 2013), and sport facilities (Mercado & Walker, 2012). Normative values have also begun to give way to regulative measures such as the 1995 Kyoto protocol that outlined mandatory targets for greenhouse gas emissions, millennium development goals to meet a broad range of social issues to improve the lives of the world's poorest populations, and increasing international regulation such as the ISO 14000 standard on environmental management that regulatesthe environmental behavior of organizations throughout the supply chain. For sport organizations, normative values around environmental practices are becoming critical to understanding broad social expectations at the institutional level.
Cultural-cognitive systems are unconscious assumptions of an area of social life and represent “shared conceptions that constitute the nature of social reality and create the frames through which meaning is made . . . where internal interpretive processes are shaped by external cultural frameworks” (Scott, 2013, p. 67). At the institutional level, such systems help explain what makes the social responsibility of sport different from other social institutions (e.g., commerce, religion, arts). Elite sport organizations represent an identifiable cultural-cognitive system that has unique features, including instability of sport performance, a unique competitive balance between organizations, increased media exposure, and the resultant public analysis of player performance (Smith & Stewart, 2010). Consequently, sport organizations demonstrate a cultural-cognitive system of social responsibility that is unique compared to other areas of institutional life (Babiak & Wolfe, 2009, 2013). While it is taken for granted that winning, high media exposure, and a lack of direct competition (in the sense of competitive strategy) are within the remit of sport organizations, it is precisely these features that differentiate the social responsibility of the team sport cultural-cognitive system from other social and cultural systems.
Institutional, normative, and cultural-cognitive systems individually and collectively can act as a framework to guide future research directions. Institutional environments shape the manifestation of, for example, a team's responsibility to society via explicit regulative mechanisms (laws, regulations, and standards) and from multiple regulative bodies (governments, leagues, and associations). Heightened media exposure focuses normative pressures on organizations to behave in a manner that society sees fit. However, cognitive-cultural systems, or unconscious assumptions, vary significantly within a multistakeholder society. For sport organizations, the institutional level produces an environment in which the organization is required to respond to multiple actions simultaneously in order to fulfill its social responsibility.
Concepts of sex and gender in sport
By Berit Skirstad
Sex segregation is a core organizing principle of most modern sports and is deeply embedded in sport organizations. Physical education is the only school subject that is segregated in many countries. Sport is a male domain. As Meyerson and Fletcher (2000) have argued, men have generally made organizations for themselves, and this seems as truer of sport organizations as of any other kind of organization. Modern sports originate from the public schools in England in the nineteenth century. In some countries, traditional sport organizations were divided according to sex, resulting in separate male and female sport federations. The sports of shooting and sailing did not divide into classes by sex in the 1970s and '80s, but now they do. Equestrianism is the only Olympic sport that is not organized around sex segregation. In the Olympic disciplines of dressage, show jumping, and eventing, the women and men compete against each other and have done so for over 60 years (Dashper, 2012). There is formal equality in the sport situation, and they use the same equipment and clothing (Plymoth, 2012).
We must understand several key concepts in connection with gender and organizations. Sex is “a biological category associated with a person's chromosomes and expressed in genitals, reproductive organs, and hormones” (Ely & Padavic, 2007, p.1125). Sex is used to label the dichotomous distinction between females and males based on physiological characteristics that are genetically determined, whereas gender is used to label the psychological, cultural, and social dimensions of masculinity and femininity. The difference between sex and gender is meant to differentiate between the biological and the cultural (Hall, 1990). The main aim of gender studies in organizations is to fight the gender bias in practices and structures. To properly make this fight, one must understand this distinction, and that “in particular is among the most personally sensitive topics one may study” (Alvesson & Billing, 2009, p. 11).
Femininity and masculinity refer to the values, experiences, and meanings that are associated with women and men or that define a feminine or masculine image (Ely & Padavic, 2007). Concepts of femininity and masculinity change over time and across cultures (Alvesson & Billing, 1997).
In sport management research within the last decade, Adriaanse (2012), Adriaanse and Schofield (2013, 2014), and Adriaanse and Claringbould (2016) have drawn upon the sociologist Connell's conception of gender as a social structure involving a specific relationship with bodies. Connell (2009, p. 11) argues that “gender is the structure of social relations that centers on the reproductive arena, and the set of practices (governed by this structure) that bring reproductive distinctions between bodies into social processes.”
Gender is a social structure that differs from culture to culture and is multidimensional. It is not only about identity, work, power, or sexuality, but rather all these things simultaneously. These points will be explored later.
Relationship between technology and organizational structure
By Trevor Slack and Andy Miah
While the debate over whether technology determines the structure of an organization is unresolved, some important indicators can be found in the relationship between technology and the different elements of structure. This section reviews some findings on the relationship of technology to complexity, formalization, and centralization.
Technology and Complexity
Findings about the relationship between technology and complexity yield a mixed message. Technologies such as Woodward's mass-production technology, Perrow's routine technology, and Thompson's long-linked technology are generally associated with bureaucratic structures. Therefore, one can expect this type of technology to be related to high levels of task specialization and vertical differentiation. However, specialization as measured by the amount of professional training of the workforce is likely to be low (Hage & Aiken, 1969). When technology is nonroutine, as in Perrow's classification or Woodward's unit production technology, one is likely to find a more organic structure. Here task specialization and the number of vertical levels in the organization will be low, but complexity as measured by the amount of professional training of staff is likely to be high. These mixed results should not be construed as a product of weak or inadequate research. Rather, they serve to underscore a point made by Hrebiniak (1974, p. 408), that both structure and technology are multidimensional concepts and “that when dealing only with general categories of either concept [such as the notion of complexity] it might be unreasonable to assume clear relationships or empirical trends.”
Technology and Formalization
Notwithstanding Hrebiniak's caution about the problems of trying to relate technology to broadly based concepts of organizational structure, a clearer pattern emerges in regard to technology and formalization. Gerwin (1979) reviewed five studies (Blau & Schoenherr, 1971; Child & Mansfield, 1972; Hickson et al., 1969; Hinings & Lee, 1971; Khandwalla, 1974) that showed technology to be positively related to formalization. However, when he controlled for size the relationship disappeared. What Gerwin's review suggests is that the smaller the organization, the greater the impact of technology on formalization.
Technology and Centralization
While there are exceptions (Hinings & Lee, 1971), the majority of studies (Blau & Schoenherr, 1971; Child & Mansfield, 1972; Hage & Aiken, 1969; Hickson et al., 1969; Khandwalla, 1974) have shown a relationship, albeit often small and not statistically significant, between the level of technology within an organization and the extent to which decision making is decentralized. Generally speaking, organizations that employ routine technology will be more centralized; those with nonroutine technology are likely to be decentralized.
Multilevel approach for CSR and sport organizations
By Christos Anagnostopoulos and Jonathan Robertson
In a recent review on CSR, Aguinis and Glavas (2012) argued that multilevel and multidisciplinary approaches to examining CSR would offer a more complete understanding of the concept. In the following sections, we draw on this in order to structure our CSR discussion in relation to sport organizations. By so doing, the reader can form connections to the previously discussed theoretical perspectives (especially at the institutional and organizational level). In addition, we draw on sport and CSR literature with the purpose of inviting more questions rather than offering concrete answers for any of the following levels discussed. The goal for such an approach is to provide prospective sport scholars and practitioners with access points to key debates in CSR and sport literature.
Institutional Level
Scholarly activity on professional teams' social involvement has offered valuable insights into the environmental pressures that prompt organizations to engage in CSR practices. These pressures are amalgamated within both the institutional and organizational analysis levels. The institutional level addresses at least one element of Scott's (1995) three pillars of institutions, which are regulative, normative, and cultural-cognitive systems (Aguinis & Glavas, 2012; Godfrey, 2009). Hoffman (1997, cited in Scott, 2013, p. 59) described that “each pillar forms a continuum moving from the conscious and legally enforceable (for example, regulation), to the unconscious and taken for granted (for example, cultural-cognitive systems).” Guided by institutional and stakeholder perspectives, this section will focus separately on each pillar to elaborate on social responsibility systems at institutional level of analysis.
Changes in the regulative environment for sport organizations can come from a variety of sources, including governments, leagues, interest groups, unions or associations, and various other stakeholder groups. At the institutional level, changes in regulation can have significant impacts on the social responsibility of elite sport organizations. For example, in 2012 the NFL introduced new rules guiding how gridiron football teams must respond to player concussion. The change was initiated from player associations and medical groups that showed how players who had suffered severe concussions during their playing career had a higher chance of developing brain injury (chronic traumatic encephalopathy [CTE]) (Hanna & Kain, 2010). (For more information, see the Time Out “The NFL's Response to Concussion Injury.”) Another example of changes coming from government was the UK government's creation of the Football Foundation charity (Taylor, 2004). The change in the institutional environment led many English association football teams to create charitable foundations following the creation of the Football Foundation charity. The institutional environment in elite sport organizations is highly complex and subject to multiple regulatory regimes (e.g., laws of society, anti-doping, anti-corruption, governing body regulation specific to the sport). It is therefore imperative that organizations understand their external environment to avoid costly risks (noncompliance breaches) and capitalize on potential opportunities (changes in funding structures).
Normative systems occur simultaneously with regulative and cultural-cognitive elements at the institutional level. Scott (2013) described that normative systems are comprised of both values (desirable standards from which organizational behavior is assessed) and norms (the legitimate way society perceives things ought to be). Normative elements broadly conceptualize how society perceives certain obligations ought to be fulfilled. Often normative values are the precursor to society codifying laws and regulations and are therefore closely coupled with the above regulative systems (Carroll, 1979). Over the past century, several areas of institutional life have codified values and norms into laws and regulation in areas such as human rights, labor practices, fair operating practices, consumer issues, and more recently environmental issues (International Organization for Standardization [ISO] 26000, 2010). In sport organizations, a major shift has occurred in the area of environmental awareness. Trendafilova, Babiak, and Heinze (2013, p. 309) suggested that “scrutiny and regulation, and normative and associative pressures play a role in sport organizations' adoption of environmentally friendly behaviors. These forces seem to be working together and reinforcing one another, and often through the vehicle of the media, to create a broad trend around this [environmental] form of CSR.” As the chapter-opening scenario on the Philadelphia Eagles demonstrated, elite sport organizations are picking up on the environmental aspect of their social responsibility and even beginning to use opportunities strategically (Porter & Kramer, 2006, 2011). The changes in social norms regarding the environment have had widespread effect on sport organizations (Babiak & Trendafilova, 2011), college sport (Trendafilova, Pfahl, & Casper, 2013), major sporting events (Zhang, Jin, Kim, & Li, 2013), consumer perceptions of sport organizations (Walker & Mercado, 2013; Walker, 2013), and sport facilities (Mercado & Walker, 2012). Normative values have also begun to give way to regulative measures such as the 1995 Kyoto protocol that outlined mandatory targets for greenhouse gas emissions, millennium development goals to meet a broad range of social issues to improve the lives of the world's poorest populations, and increasing international regulation such as the ISO 14000 standard on environmental management that regulatesthe environmental behavior of organizations throughout the supply chain. For sport organizations, normative values around environmental practices are becoming critical to understanding broad social expectations at the institutional level.
Cultural-cognitive systems are unconscious assumptions of an area of social life and represent “shared conceptions that constitute the nature of social reality and create the frames through which meaning is made . . . where internal interpretive processes are shaped by external cultural frameworks” (Scott, 2013, p. 67). At the institutional level, such systems help explain what makes the social responsibility of sport different from other social institutions (e.g., commerce, religion, arts). Elite sport organizations represent an identifiable cultural-cognitive system that has unique features, including instability of sport performance, a unique competitive balance between organizations, increased media exposure, and the resultant public analysis of player performance (Smith & Stewart, 2010). Consequently, sport organizations demonstrate a cultural-cognitive system of social responsibility that is unique compared to other areas of institutional life (Babiak & Wolfe, 2009, 2013). While it is taken for granted that winning, high media exposure, and a lack of direct competition (in the sense of competitive strategy) are within the remit of sport organizations, it is precisely these features that differentiate the social responsibility of the team sport cultural-cognitive system from other social and cultural systems.
Institutional, normative, and cultural-cognitive systems individually and collectively can act as a framework to guide future research directions. Institutional environments shape the manifestation of, for example, a team's responsibility to society via explicit regulative mechanisms (laws, regulations, and standards) and from multiple regulative bodies (governments, leagues, and associations). Heightened media exposure focuses normative pressures on organizations to behave in a manner that society sees fit. However, cognitive-cultural systems, or unconscious assumptions, vary significantly within a multistakeholder society. For sport organizations, the institutional level produces an environment in which the organization is required to respond to multiple actions simultaneously in order to fulfill its social responsibility.
Concepts of sex and gender in sport
By Berit Skirstad
Sex segregation is a core organizing principle of most modern sports and is deeply embedded in sport organizations. Physical education is the only school subject that is segregated in many countries. Sport is a male domain. As Meyerson and Fletcher (2000) have argued, men have generally made organizations for themselves, and this seems as truer of sport organizations as of any other kind of organization. Modern sports originate from the public schools in England in the nineteenth century. In some countries, traditional sport organizations were divided according to sex, resulting in separate male and female sport federations. The sports of shooting and sailing did not divide into classes by sex in the 1970s and '80s, but now they do. Equestrianism is the only Olympic sport that is not organized around sex segregation. In the Olympic disciplines of dressage, show jumping, and eventing, the women and men compete against each other and have done so for over 60 years (Dashper, 2012). There is formal equality in the sport situation, and they use the same equipment and clothing (Plymoth, 2012).
We must understand several key concepts in connection with gender and organizations. Sex is “a biological category associated with a person's chromosomes and expressed in genitals, reproductive organs, and hormones” (Ely & Padavic, 2007, p.1125). Sex is used to label the dichotomous distinction between females and males based on physiological characteristics that are genetically determined, whereas gender is used to label the psychological, cultural, and social dimensions of masculinity and femininity. The difference between sex and gender is meant to differentiate between the biological and the cultural (Hall, 1990). The main aim of gender studies in organizations is to fight the gender bias in practices and structures. To properly make this fight, one must understand this distinction, and that “in particular is among the most personally sensitive topics one may study” (Alvesson & Billing, 2009, p. 11).
Femininity and masculinity refer to the values, experiences, and meanings that are associated with women and men or that define a feminine or masculine image (Ely & Padavic, 2007). Concepts of femininity and masculinity change over time and across cultures (Alvesson & Billing, 1997).
In sport management research within the last decade, Adriaanse (2012), Adriaanse and Schofield (2013, 2014), and Adriaanse and Claringbould (2016) have drawn upon the sociologist Connell's conception of gender as a social structure involving a specific relationship with bodies. Connell (2009, p. 11) argues that “gender is the structure of social relations that centers on the reproductive arena, and the set of practices (governed by this structure) that bring reproductive distinctions between bodies into social processes.”
Gender is a social structure that differs from culture to culture and is multidimensional. It is not only about identity, work, power, or sexuality, but rather all these things simultaneously. These points will be explored later.
Relationship between technology and organizational structure
By Trevor Slack and Andy Miah
While the debate over whether technology determines the structure of an organization is unresolved, some important indicators can be found in the relationship between technology and the different elements of structure. This section reviews some findings on the relationship of technology to complexity, formalization, and centralization.
Technology and Complexity
Findings about the relationship between technology and complexity yield a mixed message. Technologies such as Woodward's mass-production technology, Perrow's routine technology, and Thompson's long-linked technology are generally associated with bureaucratic structures. Therefore, one can expect this type of technology to be related to high levels of task specialization and vertical differentiation. However, specialization as measured by the amount of professional training of the workforce is likely to be low (Hage & Aiken, 1969). When technology is nonroutine, as in Perrow's classification or Woodward's unit production technology, one is likely to find a more organic structure. Here task specialization and the number of vertical levels in the organization will be low, but complexity as measured by the amount of professional training of staff is likely to be high. These mixed results should not be construed as a product of weak or inadequate research. Rather, they serve to underscore a point made by Hrebiniak (1974, p. 408), that both structure and technology are multidimensional concepts and “that when dealing only with general categories of either concept [such as the notion of complexity] it might be unreasonable to assume clear relationships or empirical trends.”
Technology and Formalization
Notwithstanding Hrebiniak's caution about the problems of trying to relate technology to broadly based concepts of organizational structure, a clearer pattern emerges in regard to technology and formalization. Gerwin (1979) reviewed five studies (Blau & Schoenherr, 1971; Child & Mansfield, 1972; Hickson et al., 1969; Hinings & Lee, 1971; Khandwalla, 1974) that showed technology to be positively related to formalization. However, when he controlled for size the relationship disappeared. What Gerwin's review suggests is that the smaller the organization, the greater the impact of technology on formalization.
Technology and Centralization
While there are exceptions (Hinings & Lee, 1971), the majority of studies (Blau & Schoenherr, 1971; Child & Mansfield, 1972; Hage & Aiken, 1969; Hickson et al., 1969; Khandwalla, 1974) have shown a relationship, albeit often small and not statistically significant, between the level of technology within an organization and the extent to which decision making is decentralized. Generally speaking, organizations that employ routine technology will be more centralized; those with nonroutine technology are likely to be decentralized.
Multilevel approach for CSR and sport organizations
By Christos Anagnostopoulos and Jonathan Robertson
In a recent review on CSR, Aguinis and Glavas (2012) argued that multilevel and multidisciplinary approaches to examining CSR would offer a more complete understanding of the concept. In the following sections, we draw on this in order to structure our CSR discussion in relation to sport organizations. By so doing, the reader can form connections to the previously discussed theoretical perspectives (especially at the institutional and organizational level). In addition, we draw on sport and CSR literature with the purpose of inviting more questions rather than offering concrete answers for any of the following levels discussed. The goal for such an approach is to provide prospective sport scholars and practitioners with access points to key debates in CSR and sport literature.
Institutional Level
Scholarly activity on professional teams' social involvement has offered valuable insights into the environmental pressures that prompt organizations to engage in CSR practices. These pressures are amalgamated within both the institutional and organizational analysis levels. The institutional level addresses at least one element of Scott's (1995) three pillars of institutions, which are regulative, normative, and cultural-cognitive systems (Aguinis & Glavas, 2012; Godfrey, 2009). Hoffman (1997, cited in Scott, 2013, p. 59) described that “each pillar forms a continuum moving from the conscious and legally enforceable (for example, regulation), to the unconscious and taken for granted (for example, cultural-cognitive systems).” Guided by institutional and stakeholder perspectives, this section will focus separately on each pillar to elaborate on social responsibility systems at institutional level of analysis.
Changes in the regulative environment for sport organizations can come from a variety of sources, including governments, leagues, interest groups, unions or associations, and various other stakeholder groups. At the institutional level, changes in regulation can have significant impacts on the social responsibility of elite sport organizations. For example, in 2012 the NFL introduced new rules guiding how gridiron football teams must respond to player concussion. The change was initiated from player associations and medical groups that showed how players who had suffered severe concussions during their playing career had a higher chance of developing brain injury (chronic traumatic encephalopathy [CTE]) (Hanna & Kain, 2010). (For more information, see the Time Out “The NFL's Response to Concussion Injury.”) Another example of changes coming from government was the UK government's creation of the Football Foundation charity (Taylor, 2004). The change in the institutional environment led many English association football teams to create charitable foundations following the creation of the Football Foundation charity. The institutional environment in elite sport organizations is highly complex and subject to multiple regulatory regimes (e.g., laws of society, anti-doping, anti-corruption, governing body regulation specific to the sport). It is therefore imperative that organizations understand their external environment to avoid costly risks (noncompliance breaches) and capitalize on potential opportunities (changes in funding structures).
Normative systems occur simultaneously with regulative and cultural-cognitive elements at the institutional level. Scott (2013) described that normative systems are comprised of both values (desirable standards from which organizational behavior is assessed) and norms (the legitimate way society perceives things ought to be). Normative elements broadly conceptualize how society perceives certain obligations ought to be fulfilled. Often normative values are the precursor to society codifying laws and regulations and are therefore closely coupled with the above regulative systems (Carroll, 1979). Over the past century, several areas of institutional life have codified values and norms into laws and regulation in areas such as human rights, labor practices, fair operating practices, consumer issues, and more recently environmental issues (International Organization for Standardization [ISO] 26000, 2010). In sport organizations, a major shift has occurred in the area of environmental awareness. Trendafilova, Babiak, and Heinze (2013, p. 309) suggested that “scrutiny and regulation, and normative and associative pressures play a role in sport organizations' adoption of environmentally friendly behaviors. These forces seem to be working together and reinforcing one another, and often through the vehicle of the media, to create a broad trend around this [environmental] form of CSR.” As the chapter-opening scenario on the Philadelphia Eagles demonstrated, elite sport organizations are picking up on the environmental aspect of their social responsibility and even beginning to use opportunities strategically (Porter & Kramer, 2006, 2011). The changes in social norms regarding the environment have had widespread effect on sport organizations (Babiak & Trendafilova, 2011), college sport (Trendafilova, Pfahl, & Casper, 2013), major sporting events (Zhang, Jin, Kim, & Li, 2013), consumer perceptions of sport organizations (Walker & Mercado, 2013; Walker, 2013), and sport facilities (Mercado & Walker, 2012). Normative values have also begun to give way to regulative measures such as the 1995 Kyoto protocol that outlined mandatory targets for greenhouse gas emissions, millennium development goals to meet a broad range of social issues to improve the lives of the world's poorest populations, and increasing international regulation such as the ISO 14000 standard on environmental management that regulatesthe environmental behavior of organizations throughout the supply chain. For sport organizations, normative values around environmental practices are becoming critical to understanding broad social expectations at the institutional level.
Cultural-cognitive systems are unconscious assumptions of an area of social life and represent “shared conceptions that constitute the nature of social reality and create the frames through which meaning is made . . . where internal interpretive processes are shaped by external cultural frameworks” (Scott, 2013, p. 67). At the institutional level, such systems help explain what makes the social responsibility of sport different from other social institutions (e.g., commerce, religion, arts). Elite sport organizations represent an identifiable cultural-cognitive system that has unique features, including instability of sport performance, a unique competitive balance between organizations, increased media exposure, and the resultant public analysis of player performance (Smith & Stewart, 2010). Consequently, sport organizations demonstrate a cultural-cognitive system of social responsibility that is unique compared to other areas of institutional life (Babiak & Wolfe, 2009, 2013). While it is taken for granted that winning, high media exposure, and a lack of direct competition (in the sense of competitive strategy) are within the remit of sport organizations, it is precisely these features that differentiate the social responsibility of the team sport cultural-cognitive system from other social and cultural systems.
Institutional, normative, and cultural-cognitive systems individually and collectively can act as a framework to guide future research directions. Institutional environments shape the manifestation of, for example, a team's responsibility to society via explicit regulative mechanisms (laws, regulations, and standards) and from multiple regulative bodies (governments, leagues, and associations). Heightened media exposure focuses normative pressures on organizations to behave in a manner that society sees fit. However, cognitive-cultural systems, or unconscious assumptions, vary significantly within a multistakeholder society. For sport organizations, the institutional level produces an environment in which the organization is required to respond to multiple actions simultaneously in order to fulfill its social responsibility.
Concepts of sex and gender in sport
By Berit Skirstad
Sex segregation is a core organizing principle of most modern sports and is deeply embedded in sport organizations. Physical education is the only school subject that is segregated in many countries. Sport is a male domain. As Meyerson and Fletcher (2000) have argued, men have generally made organizations for themselves, and this seems as truer of sport organizations as of any other kind of organization. Modern sports originate from the public schools in England in the nineteenth century. In some countries, traditional sport organizations were divided according to sex, resulting in separate male and female sport federations. The sports of shooting and sailing did not divide into classes by sex in the 1970s and '80s, but now they do. Equestrianism is the only Olympic sport that is not organized around sex segregation. In the Olympic disciplines of dressage, show jumping, and eventing, the women and men compete against each other and have done so for over 60 years (Dashper, 2012). There is formal equality in the sport situation, and they use the same equipment and clothing (Plymoth, 2012).
We must understand several key concepts in connection with gender and organizations. Sex is “a biological category associated with a person's chromosomes and expressed in genitals, reproductive organs, and hormones” (Ely & Padavic, 2007, p.1125). Sex is used to label the dichotomous distinction between females and males based on physiological characteristics that are genetically determined, whereas gender is used to label the psychological, cultural, and social dimensions of masculinity and femininity. The difference between sex and gender is meant to differentiate between the biological and the cultural (Hall, 1990). The main aim of gender studies in organizations is to fight the gender bias in practices and structures. To properly make this fight, one must understand this distinction, and that “in particular is among the most personally sensitive topics one may study” (Alvesson & Billing, 2009, p. 11).
Femininity and masculinity refer to the values, experiences, and meanings that are associated with women and men or that define a feminine or masculine image (Ely & Padavic, 2007). Concepts of femininity and masculinity change over time and across cultures (Alvesson & Billing, 1997).
In sport management research within the last decade, Adriaanse (2012), Adriaanse and Schofield (2013, 2014), and Adriaanse and Claringbould (2016) have drawn upon the sociologist Connell's conception of gender as a social structure involving a specific relationship with bodies. Connell (2009, p. 11) argues that “gender is the structure of social relations that centers on the reproductive arena, and the set of practices (governed by this structure) that bring reproductive distinctions between bodies into social processes.”
Gender is a social structure that differs from culture to culture and is multidimensional. It is not only about identity, work, power, or sexuality, but rather all these things simultaneously. These points will be explored later.
Relationship between technology and organizational structure
By Trevor Slack and Andy Miah
While the debate over whether technology determines the structure of an organization is unresolved, some important indicators can be found in the relationship between technology and the different elements of structure. This section reviews some findings on the relationship of technology to complexity, formalization, and centralization.
Technology and Complexity
Findings about the relationship between technology and complexity yield a mixed message. Technologies such as Woodward's mass-production technology, Perrow's routine technology, and Thompson's long-linked technology are generally associated with bureaucratic structures. Therefore, one can expect this type of technology to be related to high levels of task specialization and vertical differentiation. However, specialization as measured by the amount of professional training of the workforce is likely to be low (Hage & Aiken, 1969). When technology is nonroutine, as in Perrow's classification or Woodward's unit production technology, one is likely to find a more organic structure. Here task specialization and the number of vertical levels in the organization will be low, but complexity as measured by the amount of professional training of staff is likely to be high. These mixed results should not be construed as a product of weak or inadequate research. Rather, they serve to underscore a point made by Hrebiniak (1974, p. 408), that both structure and technology are multidimensional concepts and “that when dealing only with general categories of either concept [such as the notion of complexity] it might be unreasonable to assume clear relationships or empirical trends.”
Technology and Formalization
Notwithstanding Hrebiniak's caution about the problems of trying to relate technology to broadly based concepts of organizational structure, a clearer pattern emerges in regard to technology and formalization. Gerwin (1979) reviewed five studies (Blau & Schoenherr, 1971; Child & Mansfield, 1972; Hickson et al., 1969; Hinings & Lee, 1971; Khandwalla, 1974) that showed technology to be positively related to formalization. However, when he controlled for size the relationship disappeared. What Gerwin's review suggests is that the smaller the organization, the greater the impact of technology on formalization.
Technology and Centralization
While there are exceptions (Hinings & Lee, 1971), the majority of studies (Blau & Schoenherr, 1971; Child & Mansfield, 1972; Hage & Aiken, 1969; Hickson et al., 1969; Khandwalla, 1974) have shown a relationship, albeit often small and not statistically significant, between the level of technology within an organization and the extent to which decision making is decentralized. Generally speaking, organizations that employ routine technology will be more centralized; those with nonroutine technology are likely to be decentralized.
Multilevel approach for CSR and sport organizations
By Christos Anagnostopoulos and Jonathan Robertson
In a recent review on CSR, Aguinis and Glavas (2012) argued that multilevel and multidisciplinary approaches to examining CSR would offer a more complete understanding of the concept. In the following sections, we draw on this in order to structure our CSR discussion in relation to sport organizations. By so doing, the reader can form connections to the previously discussed theoretical perspectives (especially at the institutional and organizational level). In addition, we draw on sport and CSR literature with the purpose of inviting more questions rather than offering concrete answers for any of the following levels discussed. The goal for such an approach is to provide prospective sport scholars and practitioners with access points to key debates in CSR and sport literature.
Institutional Level
Scholarly activity on professional teams' social involvement has offered valuable insights into the environmental pressures that prompt organizations to engage in CSR practices. These pressures are amalgamated within both the institutional and organizational analysis levels. The institutional level addresses at least one element of Scott's (1995) three pillars of institutions, which are regulative, normative, and cultural-cognitive systems (Aguinis & Glavas, 2012; Godfrey, 2009). Hoffman (1997, cited in Scott, 2013, p. 59) described that “each pillar forms a continuum moving from the conscious and legally enforceable (for example, regulation), to the unconscious and taken for granted (for example, cultural-cognitive systems).” Guided by institutional and stakeholder perspectives, this section will focus separately on each pillar to elaborate on social responsibility systems at institutional level of analysis.
Changes in the regulative environment for sport organizations can come from a variety of sources, including governments, leagues, interest groups, unions or associations, and various other stakeholder groups. At the institutional level, changes in regulation can have significant impacts on the social responsibility of elite sport organizations. For example, in 2012 the NFL introduced new rules guiding how gridiron football teams must respond to player concussion. The change was initiated from player associations and medical groups that showed how players who had suffered severe concussions during their playing career had a higher chance of developing brain injury (chronic traumatic encephalopathy [CTE]) (Hanna & Kain, 2010). (For more information, see the Time Out “The NFL's Response to Concussion Injury.”) Another example of changes coming from government was the UK government's creation of the Football Foundation charity (Taylor, 2004). The change in the institutional environment led many English association football teams to create charitable foundations following the creation of the Football Foundation charity. The institutional environment in elite sport organizations is highly complex and subject to multiple regulatory regimes (e.g., laws of society, anti-doping, anti-corruption, governing body regulation specific to the sport). It is therefore imperative that organizations understand their external environment to avoid costly risks (noncompliance breaches) and capitalize on potential opportunities (changes in funding structures).
Normative systems occur simultaneously with regulative and cultural-cognitive elements at the institutional level. Scott (2013) described that normative systems are comprised of both values (desirable standards from which organizational behavior is assessed) and norms (the legitimate way society perceives things ought to be). Normative elements broadly conceptualize how society perceives certain obligations ought to be fulfilled. Often normative values are the precursor to society codifying laws and regulations and are therefore closely coupled with the above regulative systems (Carroll, 1979). Over the past century, several areas of institutional life have codified values and norms into laws and regulation in areas such as human rights, labor practices, fair operating practices, consumer issues, and more recently environmental issues (International Organization for Standardization [ISO] 26000, 2010). In sport organizations, a major shift has occurred in the area of environmental awareness. Trendafilova, Babiak, and Heinze (2013, p. 309) suggested that “scrutiny and regulation, and normative and associative pressures play a role in sport organizations' adoption of environmentally friendly behaviors. These forces seem to be working together and reinforcing one another, and often through the vehicle of the media, to create a broad trend around this [environmental] form of CSR.” As the chapter-opening scenario on the Philadelphia Eagles demonstrated, elite sport organizations are picking up on the environmental aspect of their social responsibility and even beginning to use opportunities strategically (Porter & Kramer, 2006, 2011). The changes in social norms regarding the environment have had widespread effect on sport organizations (Babiak & Trendafilova, 2011), college sport (Trendafilova, Pfahl, & Casper, 2013), major sporting events (Zhang, Jin, Kim, & Li, 2013), consumer perceptions of sport organizations (Walker & Mercado, 2013; Walker, 2013), and sport facilities (Mercado & Walker, 2012). Normative values have also begun to give way to regulative measures such as the 1995 Kyoto protocol that outlined mandatory targets for greenhouse gas emissions, millennium development goals to meet a broad range of social issues to improve the lives of the world's poorest populations, and increasing international regulation such as the ISO 14000 standard on environmental management that regulatesthe environmental behavior of organizations throughout the supply chain. For sport organizations, normative values around environmental practices are becoming critical to understanding broad social expectations at the institutional level.
Cultural-cognitive systems are unconscious assumptions of an area of social life and represent “shared conceptions that constitute the nature of social reality and create the frames through which meaning is made . . . where internal interpretive processes are shaped by external cultural frameworks” (Scott, 2013, p. 67). At the institutional level, such systems help explain what makes the social responsibility of sport different from other social institutions (e.g., commerce, religion, arts). Elite sport organizations represent an identifiable cultural-cognitive system that has unique features, including instability of sport performance, a unique competitive balance between organizations, increased media exposure, and the resultant public analysis of player performance (Smith & Stewart, 2010). Consequently, sport organizations demonstrate a cultural-cognitive system of social responsibility that is unique compared to other areas of institutional life (Babiak & Wolfe, 2009, 2013). While it is taken for granted that winning, high media exposure, and a lack of direct competition (in the sense of competitive strategy) are within the remit of sport organizations, it is precisely these features that differentiate the social responsibility of the team sport cultural-cognitive system from other social and cultural systems.
Institutional, normative, and cultural-cognitive systems individually and collectively can act as a framework to guide future research directions. Institutional environments shape the manifestation of, for example, a team's responsibility to society via explicit regulative mechanisms (laws, regulations, and standards) and from multiple regulative bodies (governments, leagues, and associations). Heightened media exposure focuses normative pressures on organizations to behave in a manner that society sees fit. However, cognitive-cultural systems, or unconscious assumptions, vary significantly within a multistakeholder society. For sport organizations, the institutional level produces an environment in which the organization is required to respond to multiple actions simultaneously in order to fulfill its social responsibility.
Concepts of sex and gender in sport
By Berit Skirstad
Sex segregation is a core organizing principle of most modern sports and is deeply embedded in sport organizations. Physical education is the only school subject that is segregated in many countries. Sport is a male domain. As Meyerson and Fletcher (2000) have argued, men have generally made organizations for themselves, and this seems as truer of sport organizations as of any other kind of organization. Modern sports originate from the public schools in England in the nineteenth century. In some countries, traditional sport organizations were divided according to sex, resulting in separate male and female sport federations. The sports of shooting and sailing did not divide into classes by sex in the 1970s and '80s, but now they do. Equestrianism is the only Olympic sport that is not organized around sex segregation. In the Olympic disciplines of dressage, show jumping, and eventing, the women and men compete against each other and have done so for over 60 years (Dashper, 2012). There is formal equality in the sport situation, and they use the same equipment and clothing (Plymoth, 2012).
We must understand several key concepts in connection with gender and organizations. Sex is “a biological category associated with a person's chromosomes and expressed in genitals, reproductive organs, and hormones” (Ely & Padavic, 2007, p.1125). Sex is used to label the dichotomous distinction between females and males based on physiological characteristics that are genetically determined, whereas gender is used to label the psychological, cultural, and social dimensions of masculinity and femininity. The difference between sex and gender is meant to differentiate between the biological and the cultural (Hall, 1990). The main aim of gender studies in organizations is to fight the gender bias in practices and structures. To properly make this fight, one must understand this distinction, and that “in particular is among the most personally sensitive topics one may study” (Alvesson & Billing, 2009, p. 11).
Femininity and masculinity refer to the values, experiences, and meanings that are associated with women and men or that define a feminine or masculine image (Ely & Padavic, 2007). Concepts of femininity and masculinity change over time and across cultures (Alvesson & Billing, 1997).
In sport management research within the last decade, Adriaanse (2012), Adriaanse and Schofield (2013, 2014), and Adriaanse and Claringbould (2016) have drawn upon the sociologist Connell's conception of gender as a social structure involving a specific relationship with bodies. Connell (2009, p. 11) argues that “gender is the structure of social relations that centers on the reproductive arena, and the set of practices (governed by this structure) that bring reproductive distinctions between bodies into social processes.”
Gender is a social structure that differs from culture to culture and is multidimensional. It is not only about identity, work, power, or sexuality, but rather all these things simultaneously. These points will be explored later.
Relationship between technology and organizational structure
By Trevor Slack and Andy Miah
While the debate over whether technology determines the structure of an organization is unresolved, some important indicators can be found in the relationship between technology and the different elements of structure. This section reviews some findings on the relationship of technology to complexity, formalization, and centralization.
Technology and Complexity
Findings about the relationship between technology and complexity yield a mixed message. Technologies such as Woodward's mass-production technology, Perrow's routine technology, and Thompson's long-linked technology are generally associated with bureaucratic structures. Therefore, one can expect this type of technology to be related to high levels of task specialization and vertical differentiation. However, specialization as measured by the amount of professional training of the workforce is likely to be low (Hage & Aiken, 1969). When technology is nonroutine, as in Perrow's classification or Woodward's unit production technology, one is likely to find a more organic structure. Here task specialization and the number of vertical levels in the organization will be low, but complexity as measured by the amount of professional training of staff is likely to be high. These mixed results should not be construed as a product of weak or inadequate research. Rather, they serve to underscore a point made by Hrebiniak (1974, p. 408), that both structure and technology are multidimensional concepts and “that when dealing only with general categories of either concept [such as the notion of complexity] it might be unreasonable to assume clear relationships or empirical trends.”
Technology and Formalization
Notwithstanding Hrebiniak's caution about the problems of trying to relate technology to broadly based concepts of organizational structure, a clearer pattern emerges in regard to technology and formalization. Gerwin (1979) reviewed five studies (Blau & Schoenherr, 1971; Child & Mansfield, 1972; Hickson et al., 1969; Hinings & Lee, 1971; Khandwalla, 1974) that showed technology to be positively related to formalization. However, when he controlled for size the relationship disappeared. What Gerwin's review suggests is that the smaller the organization, the greater the impact of technology on formalization.
Technology and Centralization
While there are exceptions (Hinings & Lee, 1971), the majority of studies (Blau & Schoenherr, 1971; Child & Mansfield, 1972; Hage & Aiken, 1969; Hickson et al., 1969; Khandwalla, 1974) have shown a relationship, albeit often small and not statistically significant, between the level of technology within an organization and the extent to which decision making is decentralized. Generally speaking, organizations that employ routine technology will be more centralized; those with nonroutine technology are likely to be decentralized.
Multilevel approach for CSR and sport organizations
By Christos Anagnostopoulos and Jonathan Robertson
In a recent review on CSR, Aguinis and Glavas (2012) argued that multilevel and multidisciplinary approaches to examining CSR would offer a more complete understanding of the concept. In the following sections, we draw on this in order to structure our CSR discussion in relation to sport organizations. By so doing, the reader can form connections to the previously discussed theoretical perspectives (especially at the institutional and organizational level). In addition, we draw on sport and CSR literature with the purpose of inviting more questions rather than offering concrete answers for any of the following levels discussed. The goal for such an approach is to provide prospective sport scholars and practitioners with access points to key debates in CSR and sport literature.
Institutional Level
Scholarly activity on professional teams' social involvement has offered valuable insights into the environmental pressures that prompt organizations to engage in CSR practices. These pressures are amalgamated within both the institutional and organizational analysis levels. The institutional level addresses at least one element of Scott's (1995) three pillars of institutions, which are regulative, normative, and cultural-cognitive systems (Aguinis & Glavas, 2012; Godfrey, 2009). Hoffman (1997, cited in Scott, 2013, p. 59) described that “each pillar forms a continuum moving from the conscious and legally enforceable (for example, regulation), to the unconscious and taken for granted (for example, cultural-cognitive systems).” Guided by institutional and stakeholder perspectives, this section will focus separately on each pillar to elaborate on social responsibility systems at institutional level of analysis.
Changes in the regulative environment for sport organizations can come from a variety of sources, including governments, leagues, interest groups, unions or associations, and various other stakeholder groups. At the institutional level, changes in regulation can have significant impacts on the social responsibility of elite sport organizations. For example, in 2012 the NFL introduced new rules guiding how gridiron football teams must respond to player concussion. The change was initiated from player associations and medical groups that showed how players who had suffered severe concussions during their playing career had a higher chance of developing brain injury (chronic traumatic encephalopathy [CTE]) (Hanna & Kain, 2010). (For more information, see the Time Out “The NFL's Response to Concussion Injury.”) Another example of changes coming from government was the UK government's creation of the Football Foundation charity (Taylor, 2004). The change in the institutional environment led many English association football teams to create charitable foundations following the creation of the Football Foundation charity. The institutional environment in elite sport organizations is highly complex and subject to multiple regulatory regimes (e.g., laws of society, anti-doping, anti-corruption, governing body regulation specific to the sport). It is therefore imperative that organizations understand their external environment to avoid costly risks (noncompliance breaches) and capitalize on potential opportunities (changes in funding structures).
Normative systems occur simultaneously with regulative and cultural-cognitive elements at the institutional level. Scott (2013) described that normative systems are comprised of both values (desirable standards from which organizational behavior is assessed) and norms (the legitimate way society perceives things ought to be). Normative elements broadly conceptualize how society perceives certain obligations ought to be fulfilled. Often normative values are the precursor to society codifying laws and regulations and are therefore closely coupled with the above regulative systems (Carroll, 1979). Over the past century, several areas of institutional life have codified values and norms into laws and regulation in areas such as human rights, labor practices, fair operating practices, consumer issues, and more recently environmental issues (International Organization for Standardization [ISO] 26000, 2010). In sport organizations, a major shift has occurred in the area of environmental awareness. Trendafilova, Babiak, and Heinze (2013, p. 309) suggested that “scrutiny and regulation, and normative and associative pressures play a role in sport organizations' adoption of environmentally friendly behaviors. These forces seem to be working together and reinforcing one another, and often through the vehicle of the media, to create a broad trend around this [environmental] form of CSR.” As the chapter-opening scenario on the Philadelphia Eagles demonstrated, elite sport organizations are picking up on the environmental aspect of their social responsibility and even beginning to use opportunities strategically (Porter & Kramer, 2006, 2011). The changes in social norms regarding the environment have had widespread effect on sport organizations (Babiak & Trendafilova, 2011), college sport (Trendafilova, Pfahl, & Casper, 2013), major sporting events (Zhang, Jin, Kim, & Li, 2013), consumer perceptions of sport organizations (Walker & Mercado, 2013; Walker, 2013), and sport facilities (Mercado & Walker, 2012). Normative values have also begun to give way to regulative measures such as the 1995 Kyoto protocol that outlined mandatory targets for greenhouse gas emissions, millennium development goals to meet a broad range of social issues to improve the lives of the world's poorest populations, and increasing international regulation such as the ISO 14000 standard on environmental management that regulatesthe environmental behavior of organizations throughout the supply chain. For sport organizations, normative values around environmental practices are becoming critical to understanding broad social expectations at the institutional level.
Cultural-cognitive systems are unconscious assumptions of an area of social life and represent “shared conceptions that constitute the nature of social reality and create the frames through which meaning is made . . . where internal interpretive processes are shaped by external cultural frameworks” (Scott, 2013, p. 67). At the institutional level, such systems help explain what makes the social responsibility of sport different from other social institutions (e.g., commerce, religion, arts). Elite sport organizations represent an identifiable cultural-cognitive system that has unique features, including instability of sport performance, a unique competitive balance between organizations, increased media exposure, and the resultant public analysis of player performance (Smith & Stewart, 2010). Consequently, sport organizations demonstrate a cultural-cognitive system of social responsibility that is unique compared to other areas of institutional life (Babiak & Wolfe, 2009, 2013). While it is taken for granted that winning, high media exposure, and a lack of direct competition (in the sense of competitive strategy) are within the remit of sport organizations, it is precisely these features that differentiate the social responsibility of the team sport cultural-cognitive system from other social and cultural systems.
Institutional, normative, and cultural-cognitive systems individually and collectively can act as a framework to guide future research directions. Institutional environments shape the manifestation of, for example, a team's responsibility to society via explicit regulative mechanisms (laws, regulations, and standards) and from multiple regulative bodies (governments, leagues, and associations). Heightened media exposure focuses normative pressures on organizations to behave in a manner that society sees fit. However, cognitive-cultural systems, or unconscious assumptions, vary significantly within a multistakeholder society. For sport organizations, the institutional level produces an environment in which the organization is required to respond to multiple actions simultaneously in order to fulfill its social responsibility.
Concepts of sex and gender in sport
By Berit Skirstad
Sex segregation is a core organizing principle of most modern sports and is deeply embedded in sport organizations. Physical education is the only school subject that is segregated in many countries. Sport is a male domain. As Meyerson and Fletcher (2000) have argued, men have generally made organizations for themselves, and this seems as truer of sport organizations as of any other kind of organization. Modern sports originate from the public schools in England in the nineteenth century. In some countries, traditional sport organizations were divided according to sex, resulting in separate male and female sport federations. The sports of shooting and sailing did not divide into classes by sex in the 1970s and '80s, but now they do. Equestrianism is the only Olympic sport that is not organized around sex segregation. In the Olympic disciplines of dressage, show jumping, and eventing, the women and men compete against each other and have done so for over 60 years (Dashper, 2012). There is formal equality in the sport situation, and they use the same equipment and clothing (Plymoth, 2012).
We must understand several key concepts in connection with gender and organizations. Sex is “a biological category associated with a person's chromosomes and expressed in genitals, reproductive organs, and hormones” (Ely & Padavic, 2007, p.1125). Sex is used to label the dichotomous distinction between females and males based on physiological characteristics that are genetically determined, whereas gender is used to label the psychological, cultural, and social dimensions of masculinity and femininity. The difference between sex and gender is meant to differentiate between the biological and the cultural (Hall, 1990). The main aim of gender studies in organizations is to fight the gender bias in practices and structures. To properly make this fight, one must understand this distinction, and that “in particular is among the most personally sensitive topics one may study” (Alvesson & Billing, 2009, p. 11).
Femininity and masculinity refer to the values, experiences, and meanings that are associated with women and men or that define a feminine or masculine image (Ely & Padavic, 2007). Concepts of femininity and masculinity change over time and across cultures (Alvesson & Billing, 1997).
In sport management research within the last decade, Adriaanse (2012), Adriaanse and Schofield (2013, 2014), and Adriaanse and Claringbould (2016) have drawn upon the sociologist Connell's conception of gender as a social structure involving a specific relationship with bodies. Connell (2009, p. 11) argues that “gender is the structure of social relations that centers on the reproductive arena, and the set of practices (governed by this structure) that bring reproductive distinctions between bodies into social processes.”
Gender is a social structure that differs from culture to culture and is multidimensional. It is not only about identity, work, power, or sexuality, but rather all these things simultaneously. These points will be explored later.
Relationship between technology and organizational structure
By Trevor Slack and Andy Miah
While the debate over whether technology determines the structure of an organization is unresolved, some important indicators can be found in the relationship between technology and the different elements of structure. This section reviews some findings on the relationship of technology to complexity, formalization, and centralization.
Technology and Complexity
Findings about the relationship between technology and complexity yield a mixed message. Technologies such as Woodward's mass-production technology, Perrow's routine technology, and Thompson's long-linked technology are generally associated with bureaucratic structures. Therefore, one can expect this type of technology to be related to high levels of task specialization and vertical differentiation. However, specialization as measured by the amount of professional training of the workforce is likely to be low (Hage & Aiken, 1969). When technology is nonroutine, as in Perrow's classification or Woodward's unit production technology, one is likely to find a more organic structure. Here task specialization and the number of vertical levels in the organization will be low, but complexity as measured by the amount of professional training of staff is likely to be high. These mixed results should not be construed as a product of weak or inadequate research. Rather, they serve to underscore a point made by Hrebiniak (1974, p. 408), that both structure and technology are multidimensional concepts and “that when dealing only with general categories of either concept [such as the notion of complexity] it might be unreasonable to assume clear relationships or empirical trends.”
Technology and Formalization
Notwithstanding Hrebiniak's caution about the problems of trying to relate technology to broadly based concepts of organizational structure, a clearer pattern emerges in regard to technology and formalization. Gerwin (1979) reviewed five studies (Blau & Schoenherr, 1971; Child & Mansfield, 1972; Hickson et al., 1969; Hinings & Lee, 1971; Khandwalla, 1974) that showed technology to be positively related to formalization. However, when he controlled for size the relationship disappeared. What Gerwin's review suggests is that the smaller the organization, the greater the impact of technology on formalization.
Technology and Centralization
While there are exceptions (Hinings & Lee, 1971), the majority of studies (Blau & Schoenherr, 1971; Child & Mansfield, 1972; Hage & Aiken, 1969; Hickson et al., 1969; Khandwalla, 1974) have shown a relationship, albeit often small and not statistically significant, between the level of technology within an organization and the extent to which decision making is decentralized. Generally speaking, organizations that employ routine technology will be more centralized; those with nonroutine technology are likely to be decentralized.
Multilevel approach for CSR and sport organizations
By Christos Anagnostopoulos and Jonathan Robertson
In a recent review on CSR, Aguinis and Glavas (2012) argued that multilevel and multidisciplinary approaches to examining CSR would offer a more complete understanding of the concept. In the following sections, we draw on this in order to structure our CSR discussion in relation to sport organizations. By so doing, the reader can form connections to the previously discussed theoretical perspectives (especially at the institutional and organizational level). In addition, we draw on sport and CSR literature with the purpose of inviting more questions rather than offering concrete answers for any of the following levels discussed. The goal for such an approach is to provide prospective sport scholars and practitioners with access points to key debates in CSR and sport literature.
Institutional Level
Scholarly activity on professional teams' social involvement has offered valuable insights into the environmental pressures that prompt organizations to engage in CSR practices. These pressures are amalgamated within both the institutional and organizational analysis levels. The institutional level addresses at least one element of Scott's (1995) three pillars of institutions, which are regulative, normative, and cultural-cognitive systems (Aguinis & Glavas, 2012; Godfrey, 2009). Hoffman (1997, cited in Scott, 2013, p. 59) described that “each pillar forms a continuum moving from the conscious and legally enforceable (for example, regulation), to the unconscious and taken for granted (for example, cultural-cognitive systems).” Guided by institutional and stakeholder perspectives, this section will focus separately on each pillar to elaborate on social responsibility systems at institutional level of analysis.
Changes in the regulative environment for sport organizations can come from a variety of sources, including governments, leagues, interest groups, unions or associations, and various other stakeholder groups. At the institutional level, changes in regulation can have significant impacts on the social responsibility of elite sport organizations. For example, in 2012 the NFL introduced new rules guiding how gridiron football teams must respond to player concussion. The change was initiated from player associations and medical groups that showed how players who had suffered severe concussions during their playing career had a higher chance of developing brain injury (chronic traumatic encephalopathy [CTE]) (Hanna & Kain, 2010). (For more information, see the Time Out “The NFL's Response to Concussion Injury.”) Another example of changes coming from government was the UK government's creation of the Football Foundation charity (Taylor, 2004). The change in the institutional environment led many English association football teams to create charitable foundations following the creation of the Football Foundation charity. The institutional environment in elite sport organizations is highly complex and subject to multiple regulatory regimes (e.g., laws of society, anti-doping, anti-corruption, governing body regulation specific to the sport). It is therefore imperative that organizations understand their external environment to avoid costly risks (noncompliance breaches) and capitalize on potential opportunities (changes in funding structures).
Normative systems occur simultaneously with regulative and cultural-cognitive elements at the institutional level. Scott (2013) described that normative systems are comprised of both values (desirable standards from which organizational behavior is assessed) and norms (the legitimate way society perceives things ought to be). Normative elements broadly conceptualize how society perceives certain obligations ought to be fulfilled. Often normative values are the precursor to society codifying laws and regulations and are therefore closely coupled with the above regulative systems (Carroll, 1979). Over the past century, several areas of institutional life have codified values and norms into laws and regulation in areas such as human rights, labor practices, fair operating practices, consumer issues, and more recently environmental issues (International Organization for Standardization [ISO] 26000, 2010). In sport organizations, a major shift has occurred in the area of environmental awareness. Trendafilova, Babiak, and Heinze (2013, p. 309) suggested that “scrutiny and regulation, and normative and associative pressures play a role in sport organizations' adoption of environmentally friendly behaviors. These forces seem to be working together and reinforcing one another, and often through the vehicle of the media, to create a broad trend around this [environmental] form of CSR.” As the chapter-opening scenario on the Philadelphia Eagles demonstrated, elite sport organizations are picking up on the environmental aspect of their social responsibility and even beginning to use opportunities strategically (Porter & Kramer, 2006, 2011). The changes in social norms regarding the environment have had widespread effect on sport organizations (Babiak & Trendafilova, 2011), college sport (Trendafilova, Pfahl, & Casper, 2013), major sporting events (Zhang, Jin, Kim, & Li, 2013), consumer perceptions of sport organizations (Walker & Mercado, 2013; Walker, 2013), and sport facilities (Mercado & Walker, 2012). Normative values have also begun to give way to regulative measures such as the 1995 Kyoto protocol that outlined mandatory targets for greenhouse gas emissions, millennium development goals to meet a broad range of social issues to improve the lives of the world's poorest populations, and increasing international regulation such as the ISO 14000 standard on environmental management that regulatesthe environmental behavior of organizations throughout the supply chain. For sport organizations, normative values around environmental practices are becoming critical to understanding broad social expectations at the institutional level.
Cultural-cognitive systems are unconscious assumptions of an area of social life and represent “shared conceptions that constitute the nature of social reality and create the frames through which meaning is made . . . where internal interpretive processes are shaped by external cultural frameworks” (Scott, 2013, p. 67). At the institutional level, such systems help explain what makes the social responsibility of sport different from other social institutions (e.g., commerce, religion, arts). Elite sport organizations represent an identifiable cultural-cognitive system that has unique features, including instability of sport performance, a unique competitive balance between organizations, increased media exposure, and the resultant public analysis of player performance (Smith & Stewart, 2010). Consequently, sport organizations demonstrate a cultural-cognitive system of social responsibility that is unique compared to other areas of institutional life (Babiak & Wolfe, 2009, 2013). While it is taken for granted that winning, high media exposure, and a lack of direct competition (in the sense of competitive strategy) are within the remit of sport organizations, it is precisely these features that differentiate the social responsibility of the team sport cultural-cognitive system from other social and cultural systems.
Institutional, normative, and cultural-cognitive systems individually and collectively can act as a framework to guide future research directions. Institutional environments shape the manifestation of, for example, a team's responsibility to society via explicit regulative mechanisms (laws, regulations, and standards) and from multiple regulative bodies (governments, leagues, and associations). Heightened media exposure focuses normative pressures on organizations to behave in a manner that society sees fit. However, cognitive-cultural systems, or unconscious assumptions, vary significantly within a multistakeholder society. For sport organizations, the institutional level produces an environment in which the organization is required to respond to multiple actions simultaneously in order to fulfill its social responsibility.
Concepts of sex and gender in sport
By Berit Skirstad
Sex segregation is a core organizing principle of most modern sports and is deeply embedded in sport organizations. Physical education is the only school subject that is segregated in many countries. Sport is a male domain. As Meyerson and Fletcher (2000) have argued, men have generally made organizations for themselves, and this seems as truer of sport organizations as of any other kind of organization. Modern sports originate from the public schools in England in the nineteenth century. In some countries, traditional sport organizations were divided according to sex, resulting in separate male and female sport federations. The sports of shooting and sailing did not divide into classes by sex in the 1970s and '80s, but now they do. Equestrianism is the only Olympic sport that is not organized around sex segregation. In the Olympic disciplines of dressage, show jumping, and eventing, the women and men compete against each other and have done so for over 60 years (Dashper, 2012). There is formal equality in the sport situation, and they use the same equipment and clothing (Plymoth, 2012).
We must understand several key concepts in connection with gender and organizations. Sex is “a biological category associated with a person's chromosomes and expressed in genitals, reproductive organs, and hormones” (Ely & Padavic, 2007, p.1125). Sex is used to label the dichotomous distinction between females and males based on physiological characteristics that are genetically determined, whereas gender is used to label the psychological, cultural, and social dimensions of masculinity and femininity. The difference between sex and gender is meant to differentiate between the biological and the cultural (Hall, 1990). The main aim of gender studies in organizations is to fight the gender bias in practices and structures. To properly make this fight, one must understand this distinction, and that “in particular is among the most personally sensitive topics one may study” (Alvesson & Billing, 2009, p. 11).
Femininity and masculinity refer to the values, experiences, and meanings that are associated with women and men or that define a feminine or masculine image (Ely & Padavic, 2007). Concepts of femininity and masculinity change over time and across cultures (Alvesson & Billing, 1997).
In sport management research within the last decade, Adriaanse (2012), Adriaanse and Schofield (2013, 2014), and Adriaanse and Claringbould (2016) have drawn upon the sociologist Connell's conception of gender as a social structure involving a specific relationship with bodies. Connell (2009, p. 11) argues that “gender is the structure of social relations that centers on the reproductive arena, and the set of practices (governed by this structure) that bring reproductive distinctions between bodies into social processes.”
Gender is a social structure that differs from culture to culture and is multidimensional. It is not only about identity, work, power, or sexuality, but rather all these things simultaneously. These points will be explored later.
Relationship between technology and organizational structure
By Trevor Slack and Andy Miah
While the debate over whether technology determines the structure of an organization is unresolved, some important indicators can be found in the relationship between technology and the different elements of structure. This section reviews some findings on the relationship of technology to complexity, formalization, and centralization.
Technology and Complexity
Findings about the relationship between technology and complexity yield a mixed message. Technologies such as Woodward's mass-production technology, Perrow's routine technology, and Thompson's long-linked technology are generally associated with bureaucratic structures. Therefore, one can expect this type of technology to be related to high levels of task specialization and vertical differentiation. However, specialization as measured by the amount of professional training of the workforce is likely to be low (Hage & Aiken, 1969). When technology is nonroutine, as in Perrow's classification or Woodward's unit production technology, one is likely to find a more organic structure. Here task specialization and the number of vertical levels in the organization will be low, but complexity as measured by the amount of professional training of staff is likely to be high. These mixed results should not be construed as a product of weak or inadequate research. Rather, they serve to underscore a point made by Hrebiniak (1974, p. 408), that both structure and technology are multidimensional concepts and “that when dealing only with general categories of either concept [such as the notion of complexity] it might be unreasonable to assume clear relationships or empirical trends.”
Technology and Formalization
Notwithstanding Hrebiniak's caution about the problems of trying to relate technology to broadly based concepts of organizational structure, a clearer pattern emerges in regard to technology and formalization. Gerwin (1979) reviewed five studies (Blau & Schoenherr, 1971; Child & Mansfield, 1972; Hickson et al., 1969; Hinings & Lee, 1971; Khandwalla, 1974) that showed technology to be positively related to formalization. However, when he controlled for size the relationship disappeared. What Gerwin's review suggests is that the smaller the organization, the greater the impact of technology on formalization.
Technology and Centralization
While there are exceptions (Hinings & Lee, 1971), the majority of studies (Blau & Schoenherr, 1971; Child & Mansfield, 1972; Hage & Aiken, 1969; Hickson et al., 1969; Khandwalla, 1974) have shown a relationship, albeit often small and not statistically significant, between the level of technology within an organization and the extent to which decision making is decentralized. Generally speaking, organizations that employ routine technology will be more centralized; those with nonroutine technology are likely to be decentralized.
Multilevel approach for CSR and sport organizations
By Christos Anagnostopoulos and Jonathan Robertson
In a recent review on CSR, Aguinis and Glavas (2012) argued that multilevel and multidisciplinary approaches to examining CSR would offer a more complete understanding of the concept. In the following sections, we draw on this in order to structure our CSR discussion in relation to sport organizations. By so doing, the reader can form connections to the previously discussed theoretical perspectives (especially at the institutional and organizational level). In addition, we draw on sport and CSR literature with the purpose of inviting more questions rather than offering concrete answers for any of the following levels discussed. The goal for such an approach is to provide prospective sport scholars and practitioners with access points to key debates in CSR and sport literature.
Institutional Level
Scholarly activity on professional teams' social involvement has offered valuable insights into the environmental pressures that prompt organizations to engage in CSR practices. These pressures are amalgamated within both the institutional and organizational analysis levels. The institutional level addresses at least one element of Scott's (1995) three pillars of institutions, which are regulative, normative, and cultural-cognitive systems (Aguinis & Glavas, 2012; Godfrey, 2009). Hoffman (1997, cited in Scott, 2013, p. 59) described that “each pillar forms a continuum moving from the conscious and legally enforceable (for example, regulation), to the unconscious and taken for granted (for example, cultural-cognitive systems).” Guided by institutional and stakeholder perspectives, this section will focus separately on each pillar to elaborate on social responsibility systems at institutional level of analysis.
Changes in the regulative environment for sport organizations can come from a variety of sources, including governments, leagues, interest groups, unions or associations, and various other stakeholder groups. At the institutional level, changes in regulation can have significant impacts on the social responsibility of elite sport organizations. For example, in 2012 the NFL introduced new rules guiding how gridiron football teams must respond to player concussion. The change was initiated from player associations and medical groups that showed how players who had suffered severe concussions during their playing career had a higher chance of developing brain injury (chronic traumatic encephalopathy [CTE]) (Hanna & Kain, 2010). (For more information, see the Time Out “The NFL's Response to Concussion Injury.”) Another example of changes coming from government was the UK government's creation of the Football Foundation charity (Taylor, 2004). The change in the institutional environment led many English association football teams to create charitable foundations following the creation of the Football Foundation charity. The institutional environment in elite sport organizations is highly complex and subject to multiple regulatory regimes (e.g., laws of society, anti-doping, anti-corruption, governing body regulation specific to the sport). It is therefore imperative that organizations understand their external environment to avoid costly risks (noncompliance breaches) and capitalize on potential opportunities (changes in funding structures).
Normative systems occur simultaneously with regulative and cultural-cognitive elements at the institutional level. Scott (2013) described that normative systems are comprised of both values (desirable standards from which organizational behavior is assessed) and norms (the legitimate way society perceives things ought to be). Normative elements broadly conceptualize how society perceives certain obligations ought to be fulfilled. Often normative values are the precursor to society codifying laws and regulations and are therefore closely coupled with the above regulative systems (Carroll, 1979). Over the past century, several areas of institutional life have codified values and norms into laws and regulation in areas such as human rights, labor practices, fair operating practices, consumer issues, and more recently environmental issues (International Organization for Standardization [ISO] 26000, 2010). In sport organizations, a major shift has occurred in the area of environmental awareness. Trendafilova, Babiak, and Heinze (2013, p. 309) suggested that “scrutiny and regulation, and normative and associative pressures play a role in sport organizations' adoption of environmentally friendly behaviors. These forces seem to be working together and reinforcing one another, and often through the vehicle of the media, to create a broad trend around this [environmental] form of CSR.” As the chapter-opening scenario on the Philadelphia Eagles demonstrated, elite sport organizations are picking up on the environmental aspect of their social responsibility and even beginning to use opportunities strategically (Porter & Kramer, 2006, 2011). The changes in social norms regarding the environment have had widespread effect on sport organizations (Babiak & Trendafilova, 2011), college sport (Trendafilova, Pfahl, & Casper, 2013), major sporting events (Zhang, Jin, Kim, & Li, 2013), consumer perceptions of sport organizations (Walker & Mercado, 2013; Walker, 2013), and sport facilities (Mercado & Walker, 2012). Normative values have also begun to give way to regulative measures such as the 1995 Kyoto protocol that outlined mandatory targets for greenhouse gas emissions, millennium development goals to meet a broad range of social issues to improve the lives of the world's poorest populations, and increasing international regulation such as the ISO 14000 standard on environmental management that regulatesthe environmental behavior of organizations throughout the supply chain. For sport organizations, normative values around environmental practices are becoming critical to understanding broad social expectations at the institutional level.
Cultural-cognitive systems are unconscious assumptions of an area of social life and represent “shared conceptions that constitute the nature of social reality and create the frames through which meaning is made . . . where internal interpretive processes are shaped by external cultural frameworks” (Scott, 2013, p. 67). At the institutional level, such systems help explain what makes the social responsibility of sport different from other social institutions (e.g., commerce, religion, arts). Elite sport organizations represent an identifiable cultural-cognitive system that has unique features, including instability of sport performance, a unique competitive balance between organizations, increased media exposure, and the resultant public analysis of player performance (Smith & Stewart, 2010). Consequently, sport organizations demonstrate a cultural-cognitive system of social responsibility that is unique compared to other areas of institutional life (Babiak & Wolfe, 2009, 2013). While it is taken for granted that winning, high media exposure, and a lack of direct competition (in the sense of competitive strategy) are within the remit of sport organizations, it is precisely these features that differentiate the social responsibility of the team sport cultural-cognitive system from other social and cultural systems.
Institutional, normative, and cultural-cognitive systems individually and collectively can act as a framework to guide future research directions. Institutional environments shape the manifestation of, for example, a team's responsibility to society via explicit regulative mechanisms (laws, regulations, and standards) and from multiple regulative bodies (governments, leagues, and associations). Heightened media exposure focuses normative pressures on organizations to behave in a manner that society sees fit. However, cognitive-cultural systems, or unconscious assumptions, vary significantly within a multistakeholder society. For sport organizations, the institutional level produces an environment in which the organization is required to respond to multiple actions simultaneously in order to fulfill its social responsibility.
Concepts of sex and gender in sport
By Berit Skirstad
Sex segregation is a core organizing principle of most modern sports and is deeply embedded in sport organizations. Physical education is the only school subject that is segregated in many countries. Sport is a male domain. As Meyerson and Fletcher (2000) have argued, men have generally made organizations for themselves, and this seems as truer of sport organizations as of any other kind of organization. Modern sports originate from the public schools in England in the nineteenth century. In some countries, traditional sport organizations were divided according to sex, resulting in separate male and female sport federations. The sports of shooting and sailing did not divide into classes by sex in the 1970s and '80s, but now they do. Equestrianism is the only Olympic sport that is not organized around sex segregation. In the Olympic disciplines of dressage, show jumping, and eventing, the women and men compete against each other and have done so for over 60 years (Dashper, 2012). There is formal equality in the sport situation, and they use the same equipment and clothing (Plymoth, 2012).
We must understand several key concepts in connection with gender and organizations. Sex is “a biological category associated with a person's chromosomes and expressed in genitals, reproductive organs, and hormones” (Ely & Padavic, 2007, p.1125). Sex is used to label the dichotomous distinction between females and males based on physiological characteristics that are genetically determined, whereas gender is used to label the psychological, cultural, and social dimensions of masculinity and femininity. The difference between sex and gender is meant to differentiate between the biological and the cultural (Hall, 1990). The main aim of gender studies in organizations is to fight the gender bias in practices and structures. To properly make this fight, one must understand this distinction, and that “in particular is among the most personally sensitive topics one may study” (Alvesson & Billing, 2009, p. 11).
Femininity and masculinity refer to the values, experiences, and meanings that are associated with women and men or that define a feminine or masculine image (Ely & Padavic, 2007). Concepts of femininity and masculinity change over time and across cultures (Alvesson & Billing, 1997).
In sport management research within the last decade, Adriaanse (2012), Adriaanse and Schofield (2013, 2014), and Adriaanse and Claringbould (2016) have drawn upon the sociologist Connell's conception of gender as a social structure involving a specific relationship with bodies. Connell (2009, p. 11) argues that “gender is the structure of social relations that centers on the reproductive arena, and the set of practices (governed by this structure) that bring reproductive distinctions between bodies into social processes.”
Gender is a social structure that differs from culture to culture and is multidimensional. It is not only about identity, work, power, or sexuality, but rather all these things simultaneously. These points will be explored later.
Relationship between technology and organizational structure
By Trevor Slack and Andy Miah
While the debate over whether technology determines the structure of an organization is unresolved, some important indicators can be found in the relationship between technology and the different elements of structure. This section reviews some findings on the relationship of technology to complexity, formalization, and centralization.
Technology and Complexity
Findings about the relationship between technology and complexity yield a mixed message. Technologies such as Woodward's mass-production technology, Perrow's routine technology, and Thompson's long-linked technology are generally associated with bureaucratic structures. Therefore, one can expect this type of technology to be related to high levels of task specialization and vertical differentiation. However, specialization as measured by the amount of professional training of the workforce is likely to be low (Hage & Aiken, 1969). When technology is nonroutine, as in Perrow's classification or Woodward's unit production technology, one is likely to find a more organic structure. Here task specialization and the number of vertical levels in the organization will be low, but complexity as measured by the amount of professional training of staff is likely to be high. These mixed results should not be construed as a product of weak or inadequate research. Rather, they serve to underscore a point made by Hrebiniak (1974, p. 408), that both structure and technology are multidimensional concepts and “that when dealing only with general categories of either concept [such as the notion of complexity] it might be unreasonable to assume clear relationships or empirical trends.”
Technology and Formalization
Notwithstanding Hrebiniak's caution about the problems of trying to relate technology to broadly based concepts of organizational structure, a clearer pattern emerges in regard to technology and formalization. Gerwin (1979) reviewed five studies (Blau & Schoenherr, 1971; Child & Mansfield, 1972; Hickson et al., 1969; Hinings & Lee, 1971; Khandwalla, 1974) that showed technology to be positively related to formalization. However, when he controlled for size the relationship disappeared. What Gerwin's review suggests is that the smaller the organization, the greater the impact of technology on formalization.
Technology and Centralization
While there are exceptions (Hinings & Lee, 1971), the majority of studies (Blau & Schoenherr, 1971; Child & Mansfield, 1972; Hage & Aiken, 1969; Hickson et al., 1969; Khandwalla, 1974) have shown a relationship, albeit often small and not statistically significant, between the level of technology within an organization and the extent to which decision making is decentralized. Generally speaking, organizations that employ routine technology will be more centralized; those with nonroutine technology are likely to be decentralized.
Multilevel approach for CSR and sport organizations
By Christos Anagnostopoulos and Jonathan Robertson
In a recent review on CSR, Aguinis and Glavas (2012) argued that multilevel and multidisciplinary approaches to examining CSR would offer a more complete understanding of the concept. In the following sections, we draw on this in order to structure our CSR discussion in relation to sport organizations. By so doing, the reader can form connections to the previously discussed theoretical perspectives (especially at the institutional and organizational level). In addition, we draw on sport and CSR literature with the purpose of inviting more questions rather than offering concrete answers for any of the following levels discussed. The goal for such an approach is to provide prospective sport scholars and practitioners with access points to key debates in CSR and sport literature.
Institutional Level
Scholarly activity on professional teams' social involvement has offered valuable insights into the environmental pressures that prompt organizations to engage in CSR practices. These pressures are amalgamated within both the institutional and organizational analysis levels. The institutional level addresses at least one element of Scott's (1995) three pillars of institutions, which are regulative, normative, and cultural-cognitive systems (Aguinis & Glavas, 2012; Godfrey, 2009). Hoffman (1997, cited in Scott, 2013, p. 59) described that “each pillar forms a continuum moving from the conscious and legally enforceable (for example, regulation), to the unconscious and taken for granted (for example, cultural-cognitive systems).” Guided by institutional and stakeholder perspectives, this section will focus separately on each pillar to elaborate on social responsibility systems at institutional level of analysis.
Changes in the regulative environment for sport organizations can come from a variety of sources, including governments, leagues, interest groups, unions or associations, and various other stakeholder groups. At the institutional level, changes in regulation can have significant impacts on the social responsibility of elite sport organizations. For example, in 2012 the NFL introduced new rules guiding how gridiron football teams must respond to player concussion. The change was initiated from player associations and medical groups that showed how players who had suffered severe concussions during their playing career had a higher chance of developing brain injury (chronic traumatic encephalopathy [CTE]) (Hanna & Kain, 2010). (For more information, see the Time Out “The NFL's Response to Concussion Injury.”) Another example of changes coming from government was the UK government's creation of the Football Foundation charity (Taylor, 2004). The change in the institutional environment led many English association football teams to create charitable foundations following the creation of the Football Foundation charity. The institutional environment in elite sport organizations is highly complex and subject to multiple regulatory regimes (e.g., laws of society, anti-doping, anti-corruption, governing body regulation specific to the sport). It is therefore imperative that organizations understand their external environment to avoid costly risks (noncompliance breaches) and capitalize on potential opportunities (changes in funding structures).
Normative systems occur simultaneously with regulative and cultural-cognitive elements at the institutional level. Scott (2013) described that normative systems are comprised of both values (desirable standards from which organizational behavior is assessed) and norms (the legitimate way society perceives things ought to be). Normative elements broadly conceptualize how society perceives certain obligations ought to be fulfilled. Often normative values are the precursor to society codifying laws and regulations and are therefore closely coupled with the above regulative systems (Carroll, 1979). Over the past century, several areas of institutional life have codified values and norms into laws and regulation in areas such as human rights, labor practices, fair operating practices, consumer issues, and more recently environmental issues (International Organization for Standardization [ISO] 26000, 2010). In sport organizations, a major shift has occurred in the area of environmental awareness. Trendafilova, Babiak, and Heinze (2013, p. 309) suggested that “scrutiny and regulation, and normative and associative pressures play a role in sport organizations' adoption of environmentally friendly behaviors. These forces seem to be working together and reinforcing one another, and often through the vehicle of the media, to create a broad trend around this [environmental] form of CSR.” As the chapter-opening scenario on the Philadelphia Eagles demonstrated, elite sport organizations are picking up on the environmental aspect of their social responsibility and even beginning to use opportunities strategically (Porter & Kramer, 2006, 2011). The changes in social norms regarding the environment have had widespread effect on sport organizations (Babiak & Trendafilova, 2011), college sport (Trendafilova, Pfahl, & Casper, 2013), major sporting events (Zhang, Jin, Kim, & Li, 2013), consumer perceptions of sport organizations (Walker & Mercado, 2013; Walker, 2013), and sport facilities (Mercado & Walker, 2012). Normative values have also begun to give way to regulative measures such as the 1995 Kyoto protocol that outlined mandatory targets for greenhouse gas emissions, millennium development goals to meet a broad range of social issues to improve the lives of the world's poorest populations, and increasing international regulation such as the ISO 14000 standard on environmental management that regulatesthe environmental behavior of organizations throughout the supply chain. For sport organizations, normative values around environmental practices are becoming critical to understanding broad social expectations at the institutional level.
Cultural-cognitive systems are unconscious assumptions of an area of social life and represent “shared conceptions that constitute the nature of social reality and create the frames through which meaning is made . . . where internal interpretive processes are shaped by external cultural frameworks” (Scott, 2013, p. 67). At the institutional level, such systems help explain what makes the social responsibility of sport different from other social institutions (e.g., commerce, religion, arts). Elite sport organizations represent an identifiable cultural-cognitive system that has unique features, including instability of sport performance, a unique competitive balance between organizations, increased media exposure, and the resultant public analysis of player performance (Smith & Stewart, 2010). Consequently, sport organizations demonstrate a cultural-cognitive system of social responsibility that is unique compared to other areas of institutional life (Babiak & Wolfe, 2009, 2013). While it is taken for granted that winning, high media exposure, and a lack of direct competition (in the sense of competitive strategy) are within the remit of sport organizations, it is precisely these features that differentiate the social responsibility of the team sport cultural-cognitive system from other social and cultural systems.
Institutional, normative, and cultural-cognitive systems individually and collectively can act as a framework to guide future research directions. Institutional environments shape the manifestation of, for example, a team's responsibility to society via explicit regulative mechanisms (laws, regulations, and standards) and from multiple regulative bodies (governments, leagues, and associations). Heightened media exposure focuses normative pressures on organizations to behave in a manner that society sees fit. However, cognitive-cultural systems, or unconscious assumptions, vary significantly within a multistakeholder society. For sport organizations, the institutional level produces an environment in which the organization is required to respond to multiple actions simultaneously in order to fulfill its social responsibility.
Concepts of sex and gender in sport
By Berit Skirstad
Sex segregation is a core organizing principle of most modern sports and is deeply embedded in sport organizations. Physical education is the only school subject that is segregated in many countries. Sport is a male domain. As Meyerson and Fletcher (2000) have argued, men have generally made organizations for themselves, and this seems as truer of sport organizations as of any other kind of organization. Modern sports originate from the public schools in England in the nineteenth century. In some countries, traditional sport organizations were divided according to sex, resulting in separate male and female sport federations. The sports of shooting and sailing did not divide into classes by sex in the 1970s and '80s, but now they do. Equestrianism is the only Olympic sport that is not organized around sex segregation. In the Olympic disciplines of dressage, show jumping, and eventing, the women and men compete against each other and have done so for over 60 years (Dashper, 2012). There is formal equality in the sport situation, and they use the same equipment and clothing (Plymoth, 2012).
We must understand several key concepts in connection with gender and organizations. Sex is “a biological category associated with a person's chromosomes and expressed in genitals, reproductive organs, and hormones” (Ely & Padavic, 2007, p.1125). Sex is used to label the dichotomous distinction between females and males based on physiological characteristics that are genetically determined, whereas gender is used to label the psychological, cultural, and social dimensions of masculinity and femininity. The difference between sex and gender is meant to differentiate between the biological and the cultural (Hall, 1990). The main aim of gender studies in organizations is to fight the gender bias in practices and structures. To properly make this fight, one must understand this distinction, and that “in particular is among the most personally sensitive topics one may study” (Alvesson & Billing, 2009, p. 11).
Femininity and masculinity refer to the values, experiences, and meanings that are associated with women and men or that define a feminine or masculine image (Ely & Padavic, 2007). Concepts of femininity and masculinity change over time and across cultures (Alvesson & Billing, 1997).
In sport management research within the last decade, Adriaanse (2012), Adriaanse and Schofield (2013, 2014), and Adriaanse and Claringbould (2016) have drawn upon the sociologist Connell's conception of gender as a social structure involving a specific relationship with bodies. Connell (2009, p. 11) argues that “gender is the structure of social relations that centers on the reproductive arena, and the set of practices (governed by this structure) that bring reproductive distinctions between bodies into social processes.”
Gender is a social structure that differs from culture to culture and is multidimensional. It is not only about identity, work, power, or sexuality, but rather all these things simultaneously. These points will be explored later.
Relationship between technology and organizational structure
By Trevor Slack and Andy Miah
While the debate over whether technology determines the structure of an organization is unresolved, some important indicators can be found in the relationship between technology and the different elements of structure. This section reviews some findings on the relationship of technology to complexity, formalization, and centralization.
Technology and Complexity
Findings about the relationship between technology and complexity yield a mixed message. Technologies such as Woodward's mass-production technology, Perrow's routine technology, and Thompson's long-linked technology are generally associated with bureaucratic structures. Therefore, one can expect this type of technology to be related to high levels of task specialization and vertical differentiation. However, specialization as measured by the amount of professional training of the workforce is likely to be low (Hage & Aiken, 1969). When technology is nonroutine, as in Perrow's classification or Woodward's unit production technology, one is likely to find a more organic structure. Here task specialization and the number of vertical levels in the organization will be low, but complexity as measured by the amount of professional training of staff is likely to be high. These mixed results should not be construed as a product of weak or inadequate research. Rather, they serve to underscore a point made by Hrebiniak (1974, p. 408), that both structure and technology are multidimensional concepts and “that when dealing only with general categories of either concept [such as the notion of complexity] it might be unreasonable to assume clear relationships or empirical trends.”
Technology and Formalization
Notwithstanding Hrebiniak's caution about the problems of trying to relate technology to broadly based concepts of organizational structure, a clearer pattern emerges in regard to technology and formalization. Gerwin (1979) reviewed five studies (Blau & Schoenherr, 1971; Child & Mansfield, 1972; Hickson et al., 1969; Hinings & Lee, 1971; Khandwalla, 1974) that showed technology to be positively related to formalization. However, when he controlled for size the relationship disappeared. What Gerwin's review suggests is that the smaller the organization, the greater the impact of technology on formalization.
Technology and Centralization
While there are exceptions (Hinings & Lee, 1971), the majority of studies (Blau & Schoenherr, 1971; Child & Mansfield, 1972; Hage & Aiken, 1969; Hickson et al., 1969; Khandwalla, 1974) have shown a relationship, albeit often small and not statistically significant, between the level of technology within an organization and the extent to which decision making is decentralized. Generally speaking, organizations that employ routine technology will be more centralized; those with nonroutine technology are likely to be decentralized.
Multilevel approach for CSR and sport organizations
By Christos Anagnostopoulos and Jonathan Robertson
In a recent review on CSR, Aguinis and Glavas (2012) argued that multilevel and multidisciplinary approaches to examining CSR would offer a more complete understanding of the concept. In the following sections, we draw on this in order to structure our CSR discussion in relation to sport organizations. By so doing, the reader can form connections to the previously discussed theoretical perspectives (especially at the institutional and organizational level). In addition, we draw on sport and CSR literature with the purpose of inviting more questions rather than offering concrete answers for any of the following levels discussed. The goal for such an approach is to provide prospective sport scholars and practitioners with access points to key debates in CSR and sport literature.
Institutional Level
Scholarly activity on professional teams' social involvement has offered valuable insights into the environmental pressures that prompt organizations to engage in CSR practices. These pressures are amalgamated within both the institutional and organizational analysis levels. The institutional level addresses at least one element of Scott's (1995) three pillars of institutions, which are regulative, normative, and cultural-cognitive systems (Aguinis & Glavas, 2012; Godfrey, 2009). Hoffman (1997, cited in Scott, 2013, p. 59) described that “each pillar forms a continuum moving from the conscious and legally enforceable (for example, regulation), to the unconscious and taken for granted (for example, cultural-cognitive systems).” Guided by institutional and stakeholder perspectives, this section will focus separately on each pillar to elaborate on social responsibility systems at institutional level of analysis.
Changes in the regulative environment for sport organizations can come from a variety of sources, including governments, leagues, interest groups, unions or associations, and various other stakeholder groups. At the institutional level, changes in regulation can have significant impacts on the social responsibility of elite sport organizations. For example, in 2012 the NFL introduced new rules guiding how gridiron football teams must respond to player concussion. The change was initiated from player associations and medical groups that showed how players who had suffered severe concussions during their playing career had a higher chance of developing brain injury (chronic traumatic encephalopathy [CTE]) (Hanna & Kain, 2010). (For more information, see the Time Out “The NFL's Response to Concussion Injury.”) Another example of changes coming from government was the UK government's creation of the Football Foundation charity (Taylor, 2004). The change in the institutional environment led many English association football teams to create charitable foundations following the creation of the Football Foundation charity. The institutional environment in elite sport organizations is highly complex and subject to multiple regulatory regimes (e.g., laws of society, anti-doping, anti-corruption, governing body regulation specific to the sport). It is therefore imperative that organizations understand their external environment to avoid costly risks (noncompliance breaches) and capitalize on potential opportunities (changes in funding structures).
Normative systems occur simultaneously with regulative and cultural-cognitive elements at the institutional level. Scott (2013) described that normative systems are comprised of both values (desirable standards from which organizational behavior is assessed) and norms (the legitimate way society perceives things ought to be). Normative elements broadly conceptualize how society perceives certain obligations ought to be fulfilled. Often normative values are the precursor to society codifying laws and regulations and are therefore closely coupled with the above regulative systems (Carroll, 1979). Over the past century, several areas of institutional life have codified values and norms into laws and regulation in areas such as human rights, labor practices, fair operating practices, consumer issues, and more recently environmental issues (International Organization for Standardization [ISO] 26000, 2010). In sport organizations, a major shift has occurred in the area of environmental awareness. Trendafilova, Babiak, and Heinze (2013, p. 309) suggested that “scrutiny and regulation, and normative and associative pressures play a role in sport organizations' adoption of environmentally friendly behaviors. These forces seem to be working together and reinforcing one another, and often through the vehicle of the media, to create a broad trend around this [environmental] form of CSR.” As the chapter-opening scenario on the Philadelphia Eagles demonstrated, elite sport organizations are picking up on the environmental aspect of their social responsibility and even beginning to use opportunities strategically (Porter & Kramer, 2006, 2011). The changes in social norms regarding the environment have had widespread effect on sport organizations (Babiak & Trendafilova, 2011), college sport (Trendafilova, Pfahl, & Casper, 2013), major sporting events (Zhang, Jin, Kim, & Li, 2013), consumer perceptions of sport organizations (Walker & Mercado, 2013; Walker, 2013), and sport facilities (Mercado & Walker, 2012). Normative values have also begun to give way to regulative measures such as the 1995 Kyoto protocol that outlined mandatory targets for greenhouse gas emissions, millennium development goals to meet a broad range of social issues to improve the lives of the world's poorest populations, and increasing international regulation such as the ISO 14000 standard on environmental management that regulatesthe environmental behavior of organizations throughout the supply chain. For sport organizations, normative values around environmental practices are becoming critical to understanding broad social expectations at the institutional level.
Cultural-cognitive systems are unconscious assumptions of an area of social life and represent “shared conceptions that constitute the nature of social reality and create the frames through which meaning is made . . . where internal interpretive processes are shaped by external cultural frameworks” (Scott, 2013, p. 67). At the institutional level, such systems help explain what makes the social responsibility of sport different from other social institutions (e.g., commerce, religion, arts). Elite sport organizations represent an identifiable cultural-cognitive system that has unique features, including instability of sport performance, a unique competitive balance between organizations, increased media exposure, and the resultant public analysis of player performance (Smith & Stewart, 2010). Consequently, sport organizations demonstrate a cultural-cognitive system of social responsibility that is unique compared to other areas of institutional life (Babiak & Wolfe, 2009, 2013). While it is taken for granted that winning, high media exposure, and a lack of direct competition (in the sense of competitive strategy) are within the remit of sport organizations, it is precisely these features that differentiate the social responsibility of the team sport cultural-cognitive system from other social and cultural systems.
Institutional, normative, and cultural-cognitive systems individually and collectively can act as a framework to guide future research directions. Institutional environments shape the manifestation of, for example, a team's responsibility to society via explicit regulative mechanisms (laws, regulations, and standards) and from multiple regulative bodies (governments, leagues, and associations). Heightened media exposure focuses normative pressures on organizations to behave in a manner that society sees fit. However, cognitive-cultural systems, or unconscious assumptions, vary significantly within a multistakeholder society. For sport organizations, the institutional level produces an environment in which the organization is required to respond to multiple actions simultaneously in order to fulfill its social responsibility.
Concepts of sex and gender in sport
By Berit Skirstad
Sex segregation is a core organizing principle of most modern sports and is deeply embedded in sport organizations. Physical education is the only school subject that is segregated in many countries. Sport is a male domain. As Meyerson and Fletcher (2000) have argued, men have generally made organizations for themselves, and this seems as truer of sport organizations as of any other kind of organization. Modern sports originate from the public schools in England in the nineteenth century. In some countries, traditional sport organizations were divided according to sex, resulting in separate male and female sport federations. The sports of shooting and sailing did not divide into classes by sex in the 1970s and '80s, but now they do. Equestrianism is the only Olympic sport that is not organized around sex segregation. In the Olympic disciplines of dressage, show jumping, and eventing, the women and men compete against each other and have done so for over 60 years (Dashper, 2012). There is formal equality in the sport situation, and they use the same equipment and clothing (Plymoth, 2012).
We must understand several key concepts in connection with gender and organizations. Sex is “a biological category associated with a person's chromosomes and expressed in genitals, reproductive organs, and hormones” (Ely & Padavic, 2007, p.1125). Sex is used to label the dichotomous distinction between females and males based on physiological characteristics that are genetically determined, whereas gender is used to label the psychological, cultural, and social dimensions of masculinity and femininity. The difference between sex and gender is meant to differentiate between the biological and the cultural (Hall, 1990). The main aim of gender studies in organizations is to fight the gender bias in practices and structures. To properly make this fight, one must understand this distinction, and that “in particular is among the most personally sensitive topics one may study” (Alvesson & Billing, 2009, p. 11).
Femininity and masculinity refer to the values, experiences, and meanings that are associated with women and men or that define a feminine or masculine image (Ely & Padavic, 2007). Concepts of femininity and masculinity change over time and across cultures (Alvesson & Billing, 1997).
In sport management research within the last decade, Adriaanse (2012), Adriaanse and Schofield (2013, 2014), and Adriaanse and Claringbould (2016) have drawn upon the sociologist Connell's conception of gender as a social structure involving a specific relationship with bodies. Connell (2009, p. 11) argues that “gender is the structure of social relations that centers on the reproductive arena, and the set of practices (governed by this structure) that bring reproductive distinctions between bodies into social processes.”
Gender is a social structure that differs from culture to culture and is multidimensional. It is not only about identity, work, power, or sexuality, but rather all these things simultaneously. These points will be explored later.
Relationship between technology and organizational structure
By Trevor Slack and Andy Miah
While the debate over whether technology determines the structure of an organization is unresolved, some important indicators can be found in the relationship between technology and the different elements of structure. This section reviews some findings on the relationship of technology to complexity, formalization, and centralization.
Technology and Complexity
Findings about the relationship between technology and complexity yield a mixed message. Technologies such as Woodward's mass-production technology, Perrow's routine technology, and Thompson's long-linked technology are generally associated with bureaucratic structures. Therefore, one can expect this type of technology to be related to high levels of task specialization and vertical differentiation. However, specialization as measured by the amount of professional training of the workforce is likely to be low (Hage & Aiken, 1969). When technology is nonroutine, as in Perrow's classification or Woodward's unit production technology, one is likely to find a more organic structure. Here task specialization and the number of vertical levels in the organization will be low, but complexity as measured by the amount of professional training of staff is likely to be high. These mixed results should not be construed as a product of weak or inadequate research. Rather, they serve to underscore a point made by Hrebiniak (1974, p. 408), that both structure and technology are multidimensional concepts and “that when dealing only with general categories of either concept [such as the notion of complexity] it might be unreasonable to assume clear relationships or empirical trends.”
Technology and Formalization
Notwithstanding Hrebiniak's caution about the problems of trying to relate technology to broadly based concepts of organizational structure, a clearer pattern emerges in regard to technology and formalization. Gerwin (1979) reviewed five studies (Blau & Schoenherr, 1971; Child & Mansfield, 1972; Hickson et al., 1969; Hinings & Lee, 1971; Khandwalla, 1974) that showed technology to be positively related to formalization. However, when he controlled for size the relationship disappeared. What Gerwin's review suggests is that the smaller the organization, the greater the impact of technology on formalization.
Technology and Centralization
While there are exceptions (Hinings & Lee, 1971), the majority of studies (Blau & Schoenherr, 1971; Child & Mansfield, 1972; Hage & Aiken, 1969; Hickson et al., 1969; Khandwalla, 1974) have shown a relationship, albeit often small and not statistically significant, between the level of technology within an organization and the extent to which decision making is decentralized. Generally speaking, organizations that employ routine technology will be more centralized; those with nonroutine technology are likely to be decentralized.
Related Books
