title: Governance of Olympic Elite Sport and Professional Football in China : Studies on the National Games of China and the Chinese Super League
Creators: name: Ma, Yang
Publisher: name: University of Bayreuth
Year: 2020
Subjects: subject: Olympic elite sport
subject: sport policy
subject: sport governance
subject: commercialization
subject: professional football
subject: soccer
subject: Chinese sports
subject: National Games of China
subject: institutional theory
subject: organizational change
subject: agency theory
subject: 300
subject: 320
subject: 330

description: This publication-based PhD thesis seeks to better understand the recent shift in the Chinese elite sport policy initiated by directives of the central government. Since the first policy guideline in 2014, Chinese elite sport governance has been increasingly separated into two divergent logics, i.e., the centralized, publicly controlled model of sport governance and the more liberal, commercialized model of professional sports with elite football being the leading spectator sport. The focus of the PhD thesis is to analyze the institutional structures and dynamics of these distinct sport governance models. The guiding questions of this research program are: (1) whether the politically-led reforms of Chinese elite sport development induce an increase in the effectiveness and efficiency of national sport governance; and (2) whether the divergent directions of sport governance models are viable for the future of Chinese elite sport. The PhD publications build upon a growing international literature on the policy, governance, and history of the Chinese elite sport system since the past two decades. However, many of these contributions tend to be inductive and explorative or lack a sound theoretical approach in social and economic sciences. Therefore, basic institutional mechanisms that drive the system of social and political relationships in Chinese elite sport are not well understood. In contrast, this research follows well-defined theoretical approaches in an effort to reconstruct and explain governance structures and processes. A key starting point is the socioeconomic approach to sport governance systems proposed by Kurscheidt, Klein, and Deitersen-Wieber (2003) and Kurscheidt and Deitersen-Wieber (2011) which combines sociological systems theory with microeconomics as well as institutional economics and political economy. For Study 1 within the PhD research, this approach is applied to the traditional Chinese Olympic elite sport system and the National Games of China, resulting in a heterodox static model. Study 2 focuses on the other governance logic of professional team sports and analyzes the commercialization process of elite football in China in a dynamic model following the framework of Gerrard (2004). The extension of this framework allows a systematic comparison of football commercialization in China versus the structures in Western countries. Study 3 deepens the insights of Study 2 by a more detailed institutional analysis of the Chinese Super League as the top-flight division of professional football in China based on the integrative change model of Cunningham (2002). The qualitative empirical approach throughout the three publications relies basically on a thorough thematic document analysis of peer-reviewed journal articles in Mandarin complemented by primary policy and media sources, while applying Berger’s (2015) process of reflexivity in the data analysis. The findings, first, demonstrate that Chinese elite sport governance is characterized by particularly complex multiple-agency, triangular relationships of the Provincial Sport Bureaus with the Provincial Governments and the General Administration of Sport of China which is controlled by the central government, the State Council. Regarding commercialized team sports, second, it is unveiled that the organizational change of professional football follows a politically-led ‘Chinese way’ that differs from the Western governance model. Third, it is shown that the Chinese Super League is still governed by a model of publicly ‘restricted capitalism’ found in previous research. Finally, the discussion provides theoretical explanations of the institutional problems in Chinese elite sport and proposes strategic solutions to revive the organizational change process of Chinese elite sport governance.