Understanding sport federation professionalization: evolution, challenges and opportunities

Josephine Clausen, Emmanuel Bayle, Siegfried Nagel and Grazia Lang

Chapter 4 in Sport Management in Europe, 2025, pp 43-59 from Edward Elgar Publishing

Abstract: Professionalization commonly refers to the employment of paid staff. However, scholars and practitioners in non-profit sport management also use the term to describe a variety of transformations of non-profit sport organization processes, including rationalization, bureaucratization, managerialization and becoming more business-like. This chapter aims to provide a clear understanding of the concept and process of professionalization. To this end, we differentiate between occupational, organizational and systemic professionalization and look at professionalization both from a horizontal perspective, that is, across organizational areas (sport, administration, development), and from a vertical perspective, that is, between different levels of sport federation (international, continental, national). Using athletics as an example, we also provide an overview of the challenges and benefits the professionalization process brings to international and national sport federations. The chapter concludes with a brief discussion of sport federation professionalization's implications for current and future sport managers.

Keywords: Challenges; Process; Professionalization; Sport federations (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2025
ISBN: 9781035333134
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