This article examines the current state of sport governance research within the field of sport management. In adopting Arksey and O'Malley's (2005) framework, a scoping review was conducted involving a comprehensive search of all published literature between 1980 and 2016.The process involved searching four electronic databases and a manual search of sport management journals. The search identified (n=243) journal articles that examined sport governance related issues. Findings are presented as a frequency and thematic analysis. The frequency analysis reveals a notable increase in sport governance research in recent years with a large number of non-empirical studies focused on the not-for-profit sector. The thematic analysis draws upon and extends Henry and Lee's (2004) three notions of governance and identifies sport governance-related topics, research contexts and social issues. Findings indicate that all three forms of governance (organizational, systemic, and political) have contributed to our understanding of sport governance but more empirical and theoretically driven research is needed.Keywords: sport governance, research methods, sport organisation governance GOVERNANCE IN SPORT: A SCOPING REVIEW Governance in Sport: A Scoping Review Governance in sport has become a central concern to sport management academics and practitioners in recent years as evidenced by the number of keynotes (e.g., Shilbury, 2015), special issues (e.g., Dolles & Söderman, 2011), and books (e.g., Hoye & Cuskelly, 2007;King, 2017) dedicated to examining sport governance issues. This interest has emerged, in part, from broader societal concerns surrounding governance (e.g., Enron scandal and the global economic crisis) but also due to recent high profile failures specifically within the context of sport (e.g., Fédération Internationale de Football Association (FIFA) and the Russian doping scandal). In general, the application of governance to the sport context sensitizes us to how sport organizations and systems are steered and controlled. Central to the concept of governance is the notion of power, where power lies within sport organizations and systems, and the extent to which power has shifted.Yet despite governance being recognized as a "paradigm-generating concept" (Bellamy & Palumbo, 2010, p. xii) that "has spawned a veritable cottage industry of its own" (Grix & Phillpots, 2011, p. 6), there has been no systematic attempt to capture the extent of this burgeoning literature base by either public administration, management or sport management scholars. It is also evident that despite much academic and practitioner interest in the concept of governance, definitional agreement within the broader public administration and management literature remains problematic. The concept of governance has been described as confusing (Kjaer, 2004), elusive (Pierre, 2000), and fuzzy (Colebatch, 2014), with its application to date being imprecise (Bevir, 2012) and with "too many meanings to be useful" (Rhodes, 1996, p.
660).Furthermo...
