International Perspectives on the Management of Sport

Trevor Slack, Milena M. Parent, Trevor Slack, Milena M. Parent

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2007
• ISBN:
  9781136393945
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Negocios y empresa
• Subtopic: Negocios en general

International Perspectives on the Management of Sport is the first multi-contributed book that addresses the various aspects of sport management by some of the most brilliant experts throughout the world. Drawing on the knowledge of international sport management gurus, this book provides cutting-edge ideas from those at the forefront of the industry. A particular emphasis is placed on the rapidly evolving fields of Organizational Theory and Economic Policy and their relation to sport.Contributors include Wladimir Andreff, Laurence Chalip, Jean-Loup Chappelet, Packianathan Chelladurai, Rodney Fort, Bill Gerard, Dennis Howard, Trevor Slack and many others.

1

Introduction

Milena M. Parent, Bill Gerrard, and Trevor Slack

Sport management research includes many areas: organizational theory, organizational behavior, strategy, finance/economics, marketing and sponsorship, law, ethics, policy, leadership, and education, just to name a few. The North American Society for Sport Management (NASSM) was created in 1985 to bring together researchers interested in sport management. Since then, the field has grown in size and quality of research.

This book presents the cutting edge research of two key areas of sport management, organization theory and finance/economics. Organization theory has evolved over the years from examining the role of organizations in society and who controls the organizations, to understanding organizational structures, processes, and activities in order to make the organization more efficient and effective (Clegg, Hardy, and Nord, 1996). Pugh and Hickson (1997) separate organization theory research into six main areas: the structure of organizations, organizations and their environments, management, decision making, people in organizations, and organizational change and learning. In turn, sport finance and economics cover a wide range of topics over and beyond how to do budgets. Examples of areas of interest include: team/club/league objectives, demand versus pricing, player labor markets, stadium funding and naming rights, economic impact analyses of events, economic impacts of such issues as television broadcasting and discrimination, economics of various amateur versus professional leagues, fundraising and sponsorship, and public versus private funding (Howard and Crompton, 2004; Sandy, Sloane, and Rosentraub, 2004).

This introductory chapter is structured as follows. First, we provide an overview of organization theory in the sport management literature and discuss what this book’s chapters add to this field. We do the same for finance/economics. Finally, we provide avenues for future research.

Organization Theory

Organization theory is an important aspect of research in sport management, as we all have to deal with various types of organizations in our lives. If we understand them, we can make them better and, in turn, make our lives easier. As mentioned earlier, organization theory deals with all that relates to organizations. As such, organization theory provides us with a macro view of organizations, as opposed to organization behavior’s more micro view. There are many perspectives and theories that fit within organization theory, such as network theory, institutional theory, population ecology, structuration theory, contingency theory, and critical perspectives. While organization theory research within the broader management literature has an extensive base—having concepts dating back to Adam Smith’s Wealth of Nation, first published in 1776—that is not the case within sport management, due in part to the relative newness of the sport management field (NASSM was only created in 1985 to help define and develop the field). The following provides an overview of our knowledge in sport management organization theory research, as well as what the chapters in this book contribute to that knowledge.

Organization Theory in Sport Management

Organization theory-related research in sport management started with the work of one of the coeditors of this book, Trevor Slack, and his colleagues (notably Bob Hinings, Lisa Kikulis, and Lucie Thibault). Slack began by focusing on a sport organization’s structural and design aspects. Kikulis, Slack, Hinnings, and Zimmermann (1989) and Kikulis, Slack, and Hinings (1992) offered a structural taxonomy of, and archetypes for, national sport organizations. Thibault, Slack, and Hinings (1991, 1993, 1994) examined more specifically the impact on the structure and operations of national sport organizations when increasing the number of professionals in the organization, as well as the types of strategies a national sport organization may choose. Slack and Hinings (1992, 1994) also began exploring change in national sport organizations, whereas Amis and Slack (1996) further explored the size-structure relationship in sport organizations. Amis, Slack, and Berrett (1995) took an organizational theory perspective to examining conflict in organizations, as did Kikulis, Slack, and Hinings (1995) in their study on decision making.

Other areas of organization theory have also been studied using sport organizations. Notably, Chelladurai and his colleagues examined goals and effectiveness of sport organizations. For example, Trail and Chelladurai (2002) focused on intercollegiate athletics goals, whereas Chelladurai, Szyszlo, and Haggerty (1987) offered a national sport organization effectiveness psychometric scale. Finally, Chelladurai and Haggerty (1991) focused on process effectiveness perception differences between volunteers and professionals.

As well, power and politics have been examined in sport organizations using an organization theory perspective. For example, Sugden and Tomlinson (1998) studied power in relation to the governance of football. Palmer (2000) explored the researching of elites in sport, whereas Hoye and Cuskelly (2003) examined board power and performance.

More recently, institutional theory, strategic alliances/partnerships, and critical perspectives have been areas of interest for sport management organization theorists (Parent, 2006). For example, O’Brien and Slack (1999, 2003, 2004) used institutional theory to examine deinstitutionalization processes, roles and strategic behaviors of organizational actors, and organizational change in the English Rugby Union. Institutional theory was also used by Silk, Slack, and Amis (2000) to examine organizational processes in the 1995 Canada Cup of Soccer. However, much remains to be done in relation to sport management and institutional theory, such as establishing institutionalization patterns within sport systems, examining (institutional) pressures from the environments and whether (and how) resistance to these pressures is possible, and examining institutional change within national and international, amateur and professional sports.

Another area of interest has been strategic alliances, partnerships, and networks. While these terms are often used interchangeably, they are distinct: a partnership is a formal or informal association of two or more actors (individuals, groups, organizations) formed for various reasons (outputs, learning, assistance, and so on), a strategic alliance is a formally negotiated partnership between two or more actors based on organizational learning, whereas a network is a skill-based partnership formed between more than two partners (cf. Child and Faulkner, 1998). Partnerships, strategic alliances, and networks have begun to be examined, especially structurally, within the sport management literature: Cousens and Slack (1996) examined antecedents of partnership formation; Glover (1999) provided partner selection guidelines; and Chadwick (2000) highlighted the importance of an actor’s position within a network. Nevertheless, basic concepts such as which form (partnership, strategic alliance, or network) is best for sport organizations have yet to be determined, as these are issues of the management and sustainability of such organizational relationships.

A third recent area of interest for sport management organization theorists is the use of a critical perspective. Critical perspectives are based on different combinations of one or more of the following developments in Western thought: 1) the complexity of the human project (e.g., Freud); 2) the issue of power/knowledge (e.g., Foucault, Nietzche); 3) socially constructed accounts of language and experience (e.g., discourse analysis); and 4) an historically-based social conflict theory (e.g., Marx and his critical theory). Critical theory is increasingly used by sport management researchers to examine social and economic trends in sport (e.g., Harvey and Saint-Germain, 2001) and to examine the quality of sport management research (e.g., Chalip, 1996). It is also used as a framework for examining different actor perspectives (e.g., King, 1997). Unlike many management researchers who stop at critiquing what is wrong in the world (using critical theory for example), sport management researchers are also using this perspective to improve the plight of various groups through action-research. For example, Frisby, Crawford, and Dorer (1997) used action-research to assist women in accessing local physical activity services, while Burden (2000) used action-research for examining community building and volunteering. While this is a good start, a wider variety of organizations and cultures should be studied as, by virtue of its nature, we cannot generalize findings from a critical theory-based study.

Contributions from this Book

When examining the organizational theorists’ contributions to this book, it is clear that they are making significant advances to the field. First, Skille and Skirstad (in Chapter 3) combine a current issue in sport, sport participation, with two increasingly popular theoretical perspectives, institutional theory and Bourdieu’s sociocultural theory of practice. This chapter exemplifies the theoretical advantages to using two perspectives, as well as providing practical reflections on supply and demand for sport participation. Second, Quatman and Chelladurai (in Chapter 4) argue for the examination of sport organizations from a network perspective. The authors explain how using such a perspective is not only useful for organizational theorists but also for practitioners. Third, Trendafilova and Chalip (in Chapter 5) address sport-related prevention and redress of environmental degradation using the “tragedy of the commons” and the Coase Theorem. The authors make the case for interventions to be targeted to sport subcultures in order to foster change in environmental values and norms. While this may be a slow process, the authors suggest regulations for more immediate impact.

Fourth, Kübler and Chappelet (in Chapter 11) examine the International Olympic Committee’s (IOC) governance in depth at five different levels and provide informed comments as to the IOC’s progress and potential. Fifth, unlike most research in sport management, which examines the individuals in the volunteer-professional (paid) staff relationship, Parent and Slack (in Chapter 12) take an organizational theory perspective and propose structural factors that can impact the relationship. Sixth, Thompson and Speed (in Chapter 13) distill the sponsorship literature in order to provide a typology of sponsorship activity, thereby allowing different sponsorship opportunities to be compared appropriately. The authors also provide both empirical and theoretical uses for the typology. Seventh, Byers, Henry, and Slack (in Chapter 14) examine conflict in a holistic manner in a type of organization poorly studied in this topic, voluntary organizations. They highlight the fact that while administrative, social, and self-control mechanisms may operate simultaneously, it is social and self-control mechanisms that had a more significant impact on the organizations’ members. Finally, in answering the dearth of technology-related research in organization theory, Friederici and Heinemann (in Chapter 15) explore the impact of the introduction and use of computers on sport club managers’ emotions. They link computer usage and emotions with organizational theory concepts such as structure, stability/change, authority, division of labor, formalization, and control.

Economics/Finance

Economics and finance provide a highly formalized approach to understanding the behavior of individuals and organizations. Economic and financial behavior is conceptualized as allocative choices in which individuals and organizations must resolve the fundamental dilemma of scarcity. In almost all real-world situations, the possibilities of alternative courses of action far exceed the available resources. So choices must be made. For example, professional sports teams have limited salary budgets to spend on players determined by their revenue streams. Teams must make hard choices on which current players to retain and which to cut, which rookies to draft and which free agents to recruit. The economic perspective is one of individuals and organizations continuously making decisions over how to allocate scarce resources between alternative possibilities.

Economics and finance adopt an instrumentalist notion of rationality in which the allocation of resources is the means (i.e., inputs) by which individuals and organizations seek to attain the end of maximizing their economic well-being (i.e., outputs). This conceptualization of individual and organizational behavior allows choice to be modeled mathematically as constrained optimization using the tools of differential calculus. This yields the general optimal condition that individuals and organizations should allocate resources to any particular use only up to the point at which the marginal benefit of allocating another (infinitesimally small) increment of resource equals the marginal cost of so doing. Ultimately, the application of economic and financial analysis involves defining appropriately and valuing the benefits and costs of alternative choices. In the case of goods and services that are traded on a market, valuations are directly observable in the form of market prices. When it comes to the costs and benefits associated with items that are not traded on a market, valuations can only be obtained indirectly as implicit prices inferred from observed choices.

The study of markets and the determination of observed market prices is a key aspect of economic and financial analysis. The basic theory of price determination is demand-and-supply theory that proposes that the market price of any traded commodity tends toward the market-clearing equilibrium level at which the total quantity required by buyers (i.e., demand) equals the total quantity offered for sale (i.e., supply). The market price shifts if either the demand conditions and/or the supply conditions change. Hence, it is crucial to understand the various factors that influence the demand for a commodity and the supply of commodity. It is also crucial to investigate the structure of the market. The demandand-supply theory of price only holds provided there are many buyers and sellers in the market with no individual or group of buyers or suppliers having sufficient market power to set the market price. If the supply side of the market is dominated by one seller (or a group of sellers acting together), then it can be profitable for the sellers to restrict the quantity traded in order to charge a higher price. This situation is known as monopoly power. Similarly, if the market is dominated by one buyer (or a group of buyers acting together), then the market price can be set below the market-clearing level to the advantage of the buyers. This is known as monopsony power. Typically, the regulatory authorities try to limit the extent of monopoly or monopsony power to prevent one side of a market from being exploited by the other side.

Economics/Finance in Sport Management

The application of economic and financial analysis in the management of sport has been a real growth area in recent years, particularly in the study of professional team sports. This is not surprising since the sub-discipline of sports economics has been an established area of research for many years. However, there is an i...