Professionalisation and governance in sports organisations: towards an integrated understanding
Authors: Stieger Raphael , Nagel Siegfried , Lang Grazia 
Published: January 2025

Introduction Sports organisations face increasing expectations and challenges from internal and external stakeholders. Therefore, more and more sports organisations are professionalising their structures and processes, such as establishing an executive office with paid staff, which may influence governance structures and processes. However, sports organisations may also undergo restructuring, such as reducing the board size, which can be seen as a step toward the professionalisation of governance. These examples show that professionalisation and governance are closely interrelated in practice. Sports management literature acknowledges this relationship. Shilbury and Ferkins (2011) use governance as a ‘lens’ to examine organisational professionalisation. Nagel et al. (2015) describe changes in governance structures and processes as “important consequences of professionalisation” (p. 418). The literature also calls to integrate professionalisation and governance concepts “to fully analyze the management of changes occurring within an organization” (Sharpe et al., 2018, p. 222). However, theoretical and conceptual work about the relationship of both concepts is missing to date. Therefore, this research aims to conduct a scoping review to examine the role of governance in the professionalisation of sports organisations. This study takes a first step toward a (more) integrated understanding of professionalisation and governance in sports organisations by identifying key research gaps and proposing five areas for future research. Sports practitioners are also encouraged to consider professionalisation andgovernance questions to deal with the complex relationship. This study builds on prior reviews of professionalisation (Dowling et al., 2014; Nagel et al., 2015) and governance (Dowling et al., 2018) research as its conceptual foundation.
Methods Scoping reviews aim to examine the extent and range of research in a specific area, determine the value of further reviews, summarise and disseminate research findings, and identify research gaps in the existing literature (Arksey & O’Malley, 2005). Scoping reviews are also used to gather fragmented research to develop an agenda for future research (e.g. Stegmann et al., 2023). This study adopts the methodological framework for conducting scoping reviews from Arksey and O’Malley (2005) to structure the review process. The research questions are: (1) To what extent are governance structures and processes causes of professionalisation? (2) What forms of governance are professionalised? (3) What are the consequences of professionalisation for governance structures and processes? An electronic database search was conducted in October 2023, which yielded 277 articles for further analysis. Based on post hoc devised inclusion and exclusion criteria, 57 articles are included in this scoping review.
Results Frequency analysis shows that most articles have been published in recent years, and half use qualitative methods. Thematic analysis shows that governance plays a role in the professionalisation of sports organisations, which is discussed in various ways. (1) Governance is generally described as a direction-setting mechanism that can initiate professionalisation processes. While poor governance structures can promote professionalisation processes, governance structures and processes may also hinder organisational professionalisation, such as rent-seeking by directors or democratic structures. (2) Professionalisation of governance structures and processes is discussed in manifold ways. In a narrow sense, the appointment of ‘governance professionals’ or the transfer of decision-making power from volunteers to paid executives is described. In a broader sense, shared or balanced governance/leadership, the board’s role, decision-making or the strategic capabilities of boards are discussed. (3) The consequences of professionalisation for governance structures and processes are discussed with a focus on the employment of paid staff and associated changes in governance. However, there is a lack of evidence that organisational professionalisation leads to ‘better governance’. Further results show that some governance guidelines are inadequate for small, voluntary sports organisations, and (design) archetypes generally symbolise the interdependence of professionalisation and governance concepts since they are used to better understand the professionalisation of sports organisations in some studies and to better understand the governance of sports organisations in other studies.
Discussion/Conclusion The review process revealed key research gaps. On this basis, we propose five areas and recommendations for future research to advance an integrated understanding of professionalisation and governance in sports organisations. First, professionalisation and governance literature highlight the importance of stakeholders. However, there is limited research focussing on the role and perspectives of stakeholders during professionalisation processes, which bears potential for future research. Second, sports management literature agrees that the increasing professionalisation influences the governance of sports organisations. However, there is a lack of evidence about the outcomes of professionalisation for organisational governance. In this context, the relationship between professionalisation, governance and performance needs further analysis. Third, the analysis showed that professionalisation and governance in sports organisations are discussed with a focus on the employment of paid staff and associated changes in governance. However, it is still unclear what the consequences of the increasing influence of paid executives – and the decreasing influence of the board – are for sports organisations. Fourth, professionalisation and governance research is interested in the decision-making of sports organisations, which offers a research area to integrate both perspectives. In this context, using (design) archetypes to better understand decision-making processes in sports organisations is recommended. Fifth, the analysis showed different forms of professionalising governance structures and processes. However, examining the governance of professionalisation processes may complement the perspective of this study and enhance an integrated understanding of both concepts. This scoping review shares some limitations with other scoping reviews, such as not being fully exhaustive or not (formally) assessing the research quality (Arksey & O’Malley, 2005). Additionally, this study focuses on the role of governance in the professionalisation process of sports organisations, excluding other perspectives to drive an integrated understanding of both concepts. To conclude, this scoping review does not fully answer how to integrate professionalisation and governance concepts in an organisational context but identifies relevant research gaps and related areas for future research. We also encourage practitioners to think about questions of professionalisation and governance, when, for example, establishing an executive office with paid staff. Sports practitioners aware of the complex relationship between professionalisation and governance concepts may manage future organisational change processes more successfully.
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