Characteristics of successful grass-root sport club's governance: a case study Jyväskylän Naisvoimistelijat

Abstract

Grass-root sport clubs have a substantial role of delivering services for people of all ages, as well as a deep-rooted traditions and history in national competitive sports in Finland. Hence, voluntary boards that govern the clubs have a pivotal role of ensuring the quality of delivering the clubs’ services to consumers, through governance. Therefore, the aim of this qualitative case study is to depict what good governance practices can be found from a successful Finnish grass-root sport club’s board’s practices and operations that make the whole organization successful, as well as to provide suggestions for the particular board how to improve its towards higher quality governance.

The main theoretical framework leans on a research on NSOs’ boards’ strategic capability by Ferkins and Shilbury (2012). Additionally, contemporary sport management research and literature were used to compliment the strategic capability signposts in mapping out the good governance practices of Jyväskylän Naisvoimistelijat’s board. The data was collected in December 2015 with seven semi- structured interviews on the club’s Board Members and the Executive Manager. The seven informants were interviewed once. After all interviews were completed, they were immediately transcribed verbatim and analysed with ATLAS.ti software, respectively.

The Board consisted of people that were capable of executing the tasks trusted upon them, and understand their legal obligations. The Board utilized the annual action plan as their frame of reference, but were in the midst of formulating a long-term plan, a strategy. The Board was overtly engaged with the operational section of the club, but also aware of its responsibilities regarding the club’s budget. The Board’s processes were mainly sound, but undocumented. Atmosphere was a significant factor that affected positively, not only the Board’s functionality, but also individual Board Members’ voluntary effort. Another significant factor that affected the entire operation of the board as well as individual Board Members was information, which shifted power relations and thus influences decision-making. Information related issues also hindered the overall operation of the board through decision-making process.

The results suggest that the board adheres mostly to good governance practices, which influences the overall functionality of the board and thus the club. However, there are practices and habits in place that consume the precious time and human resources of the voluntary board.