For ‘Love’ and Money: A Sports Club’s Innovative Response to Multiple Logics

Abstract

This article builds on prior theory and research on institutional logics and shows how a multisports club changes during its organizational life from an all amateur or voluntary logic to embody multiple logics simultaneously with different subunits being aligned with different organizational fields. The emergence of the professional logic for elite soccer in the presence of a volunteer logic caused a change in the structure of the club whereby all the units in the club became economically and legally autonomous. Soccer was divisionalized into soccer for everybody and soccer for the elite. The creation of a shareholding company and the use of an investment company which introduced the commercial logic were the next steps. This paper extends the literature by suggesting that different and opposing institutional logics such as the amateur, the professional, and commercial logics can coexist within a multisports club or, to put it another way, that the multisports club may belong to several organizational fields.

Which wider social roles? An analysis of social roles ascribed to voluntary sports clubs

“…It could be possible that VSCs increasingly perceive societal roles ascribed to them as appropriate for their organization. If this is the case, the public logic has begun to compete with the dominant associational logic in sport that focuses on amateurism and competitiveness (Skille, 2011;Skirstad & Chelladurai, 2011). However, based on findings by Karp, Fahl en, & L€ ofgren, (2014) and Skille (2011) it remains to be seen if and how VSCs will internalise these externally identified social roles.…”

“…In their research on Canadian sport organizations they highlight the influence of external developments, especially changes in government funding as regulative pressures, on internal organizational arrangements. In Europe, this body of literature has been developing steadily, most notably in the UK and Scandinavia (Nichols, Taylor, James, Holmes, King, & Garrett, 2005;O'Brien & Slack, 2003;Skille, 2011;Skirstad & Chelladurai, 2011;Stenling, 2014;Stenling & Fahl en, 2014). Most of these studies focus on the organizational field (Scott, 2008) as the level of analysis.…”

“…Skirstad and Chelladurai (2011) offer a detailed account of a Norwegian football club, concluding that diverse institutional logics (amateur, professional, commercial) coexist within the studied sports club. They further argue that, as a result of the coexisting logics, the club belongs to different organizational fields (for the concept of organizational fields, see Scott, 2008).…”

“…Skille (2011) and Skirstad and Chelladurai (2011) offer clear reviews on institutional theory and use it as a theoretical framework for empirical analysis. Skirstad and Chelladurai (2011) offer a detailed account of a Norwegian football club, concluding that diverse institutional logics (amateur, professional, commercial) coexist within the studied sports club.…”

How skateboarding made it to the Olympics: an institutional perspective

“…This concept is underpinned by the differentiation view of the culture of an organisational field, which suggests that organisations can fulfil multiple purposes and embody multiple logics (Kraatz and Block, 2008). The possibility of the coexistence of various institutional logics has emerged as a result of studies in sports by Fahlen (2006), , , and Steen-Johnsen (2008) and Skirstad and Chelladurai (2011).…”