The psychological contract of women athletes in semi-professional team sports

ABSTRACT

Within the dynamic landscape of women’s semi-professional and professional leagues, athletes and their employers are negotiating their employment relationship parameters. Positioning our research in a postfeminist sensibility, we explore both parties’ expectations and obligations through psychological contract (PC) theory. We conducted interviews across two semi-professional sports leagues, with 30 athletes, 20 coaches and managers and two league-level representatives. The data analysis identified three themes: 1. Obligations, commitment, and choice; 2. Expectations of conformity and power relations; 3. Fulfilling organisational goals. Many athletes spoke about power imbalances in the PC with employers “exploiting” athletes’ desire to be play in the league at almost any cost. Athletes felt they had little choice but to accept the current state of employment, endure sacrifices and hope for a better future where they could reach their potential through viable career pathways and a living wage. Our research provides a better understanding of the PC employment relationship and associated implications. Greater knowledge about PCs could be used to develop work practices and relations that enhance and benefit athletes and employers.

KEYWORDS:

• semi-professional
• women’s sport
• psychological contract
• gendered workplaces

Introduction

In many nations women have been entering into semi-professional and professional sport leagues that have traditionally been the domain of men. This rapidly evolving landscape has resulted in a burgeoning body of research (Bowes & Culvin, 2021; Culvin, 2021; Fujak et al., 2021; Pavlidis, 2020; Sadeghi et al., 2018; Taylor et al., 2020) that previously drew little scholarly attention (Allison, 2016). Our research explores the changing nature of semi-professional sports in highly gendered workplaces (Allison, 2016; Pape, 2020; Pavlidis, 2020). Semi-professional leagues are now found across Europe, Australia, New Zealand, Asia, South America, and the United States. Semi-professionalism is markedly prevalent in women’s team sports as women’s sport leagues emerge, develop and mature with a goal of self-sufficiency and full professionalisation and gender pay equality (Taylor et al., 2020). Many of these leagues operate alongside long-established men’s competitions, and in some cases, such as in Australia, are typically overseen by the same national governing body. Situating our work within the context of gendered organisations (Acker, 1992) and bringing in a postfeminist sensibility we draw on psychological contract (PC) theory to explore the perspectives of women athletes and their employers (the club/league).

Psychological contract theory considers the non-contractual (legal) implicit obligations between employer and employee, with these obligations being shaped by the terms of an exchange agreement (D. M. Rousseau, 1995). D. M. Rousseau et al. (2018) position PC as an implicit contract framed by a system of beliefs, representing perceptions of an employee’s obligations to their employer, and an employer’s obligations to their employees, comprising “duties or responsibilities one feels bound to perform” (2018, p. 72).

Except for Rayner (2018), little research exists on psychological contracts in professional or semi-professional sport; and no work has explored the gendered context of the mutuality within traditionally highly masculinised sport workplaces (Fujak et al., 2021). While extant literature argues that more generally sport organisation workplaces are framed through gendered logics that “accommodate” women “leaving existing gendered structures, practices, and values intact” (Pape, 2020, p. 82), this premise is yet to be fully explored in women’s semi-professional sport research.

Our aim was to explore how semi-professional sportswomen experience and interpret their employer’s expectations and obligations. Three research questions guided our study:

1. How do semi-professional women athletes perceive and experience exchange-based employment promises (psychological contracts)?

2. What are employers’ expectations of these women athlete employees?

3. What are these women athletes’ expectations of employers?

Context

Women’s semi- and professional sport are often positioned in ways that connect their gender equity and inclusion agendas (Allison, 2016). For example, in her research on the Australian Rules Football League – Women (AFLW), Morgan (2019) found that organisations were motivated to be sponsors in order to promote gender equality in organisations, industry sectors and society. Following from Cricket Australia boosting women’s pay in 2021 (Dixon, 2021), 2022 announcements of pay parity in women’s cricket in New Zealand were touted as “a landmark agreement” (Devine, 2022; Guardian Sport, 2022), and a pay equity policy for women cricketers in India was lauded as historic and ushering in a new era of women’s sport (Karhadkar, 2022). Also in 2022, AFLW players received a pay rise in their Collective Bargaining Agreement, which averaged at 94% across all four of the league’s payment tiers, and recognised previously unpaid hours committed to maintaining fitness, recovery, travel etc. (Black, 2022). It is in this evolving sport landscape that we situate our PC research on women athletes’ perceptions of their workplaces and the conditions under which they operate.

The entry of women into semi-professional and professional leagues brings expectations and obligations for athletes and their employing organisation. Notwithstanding the pay parity agreements in cricket noted earlier, generally women athletes face a number of challenges including: inequitable remuneration and treatment (Andersen & Loland, 2017; Fujak et al., 2021; Hendrick, 2016; Taylor et al., 2020); the tenuous and precarious nature (job security) of their contracts (Pavlidis, 2020; Willson et al., 2018); and uncertainty about the long-term sustainability of their sport leagues (Fujak et al., 2021). Allison (2016) suggests that women’s leagues mainly operate within a commercialised and commodified masculine model of professional sport which makes a more gender inclusive model of sport at this level difficult to achieve, noting, “inequality is primarily a matter of negative individual attitudes best re-dressed through changes in occupational aspirations and feelings of self-confidence” (p. 259).

Adding a further layer of complexity to gendered understandings of women’s semi-professional leagues, is that women’s teams often compete under the same brand as their male counterparts (Doyle et al., 2021). Gill et al. (2017) argue that when women enter male dominated workplaces, rather than becoming more inclusive, it is women who must change to fit in with the existing dominant masculine culture. In this way the responsibility for either fitting in or producing change rests with women. This is particularly relevant for our research as, within the Australian context, most of the women’s semi-professional sport leagues currently are, or were initially, extensions of the existing men’s leagues. Examples include the AFLW, National Rugby League Women’s (NRLW), Super W (rugby union), W-League (football/soccer), Women’s National Basketball League (WNBL) and Women’s Big Bash League (WBBL) (cricket) (Kunkel & Biscaia, 2020).

In the current research we seek to identify the nature of women athletes’ workplace responsibilities, expectations, and obligations. We explore the complex ways that women athletes, as employees, interpret and experience expectations and obligations of their employers from a PC perspective and their employer’s expectations of them.

Conceptual approach

We situate our research within the context of a post-feminist sensibility considering how the “dynamics of power and inequality” (Gill et al., 2017, p. 227) are enacted within a psychological contract. As mentioned earlier, PCs have been used as a lens to examine the relations between an organisation and individuals within the workplace, but with limited feminist applications which elucidate the gendered workings of organisations.

Two major types of PCs exist in the workplace: transactional contracts, which focus on short-term and revenue-related (economic) exchanges; and relational contracts, where socio-emotional loyalty and commitment are exchanged, together with economic services (D. Rousseau, 2001). A balanced (hybrid) contract combines features of both where the employer commits to developing employees and, in exchange, expects workers’ commitment (D. M. Rousseau, 2004). Relational and balanced contracts provide higher levels of employee engagement, while transitional and transactional contracts lead to lower levels of employee engagement (Soares & Mosquera, 2019).

PCs comprise individuals’ expectations, beliefs, ambitions and obligations, as perceived by both the employer and the employee (D. M. Rousseau, 1995). Explicit obligations are shaped around transactional elements, such as an economic or monetary exchange, and are framed as an instrumental connection to the organisation (Taylor et al., 2006). In sports where women are still struggling to be considered as fully professional athletes the explicit requirements in their employment contracts are evolving and largely derivative of the contractual exchanges of their male counterparts (Fujak et al., 2021). Contractual inclusions that acknowledge women have specific employment needs, for example pregnancy and maternal obligations, and flexibility of combining family responsibilities with employment reflect the gendered nature of women’s contributions (Protchenko, 2019). However, there is a paucity of research into PCs’ gender issues and a clear need for more in-depth investigation (Tortia et al., 2022).

Implicit PC obligations involve subjective and interpretive relational elements and, as such, are socioemotional exchanges, which can result in implicit understandings often being more influential than explicit obligations for employees in everyday contexts (Baruch & Rousseau, 2019; Cullinane & Dundon, 2006). For the individual, the exchange agreement also implies that there is a mutuality, or shared understanding between employer and employee (D. Rousseau, 2001). The feminisation of professional and semi-professional team sport has been characterised by its precarity (Bowes & Culvin, 2021), heavily dependent on women contributing efforts that go beyond what they are directly remunerated for, as well as needing parental, familial or spousal income and support (Fujak et al., 2021). Women athletes with young children note that they require extra-familial and less formalised means of support, such as collective childcare provision and/or child-minding services, to meet their family obligations (Marshall et al., 2022) when these are not provided by their employer.

D. M. Rousseau and Tijoriwala (1999) note that unmet obligations are more likely to have a detrimental impact than unmet expectations. Nevertheless, expectations can also produce a detrimental effect through the offer of hope for equality, belonging, and that efforts in the present will result in a more promising future for the employee through demonstrating worth and value (Francombe-Webb & Silk, 2016). In spheres of work such as women’s semi and professional sport, an example would be where the athlete’s labour is appropriated through their willingness to perform duties/hours in excess what they are being directly paid for, such as school visits or media appearances. This “additional” contribution is considered, by both parties, as a necessary investment to establish and develop the women’s league, and as a necessary step toward full professionalisation (Marshall et al., 2022). Thus, women semi-professional athletes are presented with forms of relational labour that provide precarious employment conditions (e.g. per match payments versus full year contracts) that induce these women to embrace economic risk, but without any guarantee of effort being fully rewarded or obtaining employment security.

Breaches in the PC occur when obligations are unfulfilled, or when employers and employees have differing understandings of promises made (Coyle-Shapiro & Kessler, 2000). This is particularly so when trying to achieve a balance in relations of mutuality and reciprocity in a dynamic interchange, where employee rewards are aligned with individual and organisational performance (Botha & Steyn, 2021). For many semi- and professional women athletes, the lack of alignment between expectations and rewards is coupled with uncertainty about whether contracts will be continued, whether new leagues will be successful and sustainable, and if hoped for improvements in employment conditions will eventuate (Taylor et al., 2022).

We suggest that these PC exchange beliefs should be considered in concert with the gendering of organisations and ways in which workplaces perpetuate inequality regimes through dominant masculine logics (Acker, 2006) and persistent patriarchal norms (Chowdhury & Gibson, 2019). Notably, gender differentials have been found to be particularly evident in sports organisations (Allison, 2016). Drawing on post-feminist sensibilities, that is, individualistic notions of agency, choice and socio-economic self-empowerment (Gill et al., 2017), assists us to scrutinise influences on choice, obligations and expectations, and how these interact in the PC exchanges of organisational agents (coaches and managers) and employees (athletes), and discern “implications and consequences of unmet and unspecified expectations and obligations” (Cullinane & Dundon, 2006, p. 125).

Method

A purposive case study approach was used to gain a deep understanding of the phenomenon in its real-life context (Merriam, 1997; Stake, 1995), in this instance the PC of semi-professional women athletes and their employing organisations/clubs. The approach taken was a single case study design with two units of analysis (Yin, 2014), that is two different women’s team sport leagues. The theoretical basis of the case study criteria that informed selection included: relevance to the focus of inquiry; offering multiple viewpoints; and allowance for the postfeminist paradigmatic stance of the researchers (Merriam, 1997). The criteria for each of the sports were having: a women’s team sport national league competition; contractual arrangements for league-based employment; some form of financial remuneration for athletes; an existing men’s national competition; and sport governing body control of overarching enterprise agreements.

After receiving Human Ethics Research approval from each of the researchers’ universities (details to be added post review), we contacted five sports that met these criteria and invited them to engage in the research project, which entailed contacting each of their league’s teams/clubs to request involvement of athletes, managers, and coaches as interview participants. Three sports agreed to be involved. Each of these sports distributed information explaining the purpose of the study and an invitation to participate in all their league’s team/club managerial primary contacts. The latter then communicated with their respective coaches and athletes, and those interested in participating contacted the researchers directly to arrange an interview. Each interested party was sent a project background information sheet and an informed consent form to complete before interviews were conducted. The participants were given the choice for their interviews to be conducted in person, by telephone or on internet platforms. All interviews were digitally recorded, transcribed, and de-identified. Field notes and reflections were kept by each of the researchers. Data collection took place over eighteen months. A comprehensive dataset for each league was built until data saturation was reached (Patton, 2015), whereby the information gathered in the interviews was not yielding further or different observations. At this point we chose to delimit the PC research to two leagues (A and B), as, despite multiple attempts to recruit further participants, we were unable to secure the breadth of interviews required from each of the teams in the third sport. Both leagues A and B are governed by their respective national sport body which set the enterprise level employment conditions for their sport’s athletes. The teams/clubs operate within these parameters when employing athletes for the league.

The current format of League A’s national competition commenced in 2018, replacing a fully amateur national championship. At the time of this research there were five teams, each operating alongside a men’s team in the same club. The women athletes were paid match fees but were not provided with annual or longer-term contracts. Due to its short season and limited salary provisions, athletes typically held other full-time employment or study.

League B has been operating for 15 years, has eight city-based franchises branded identically to the corresponding men’s league teams, and plays the same format of the sport. Teams comprise domestic athletes and up to three overseas marquee players. The league originally ran alongside its men’s counterpart before moving to a fully standalone schedule. Some athletes are contracted to the league and other domestic competitions, and/or the national team operated by the national governing body.

Interview guide and participants

Interviews were conducted with a targeted sample of women athletes, team coaches and managers, and league representatives. This configuration allowed us to develop an overarching case study and two units of analysis (leagues) through selection of equivalent playing, managing and governance roles. This resulted in 30 semi-structured athlete interviews, League A (17) and League B (13), with at least one participant from each team in the respective sports’ national league. The managers and coaches were from League A (n = 12), and League B (n = 8), with one key informant involved in the league’s governance from each sport (both were women). The gender of the non-athlete participants is notated in the analysis. All athletes interviewed identified as female.

The semi-structured interview guide was developed to explore the expectations of and by women athletes in the two semi-professional sport leagues. The athlete interviews explored perceived organisational expectations and obligations (Botha & Steyn, 2021; Cullinane & Dundon, 2006; D. Rousseau, 2001; D. M. Rousseau, 1996). We commenced each interview with questions about the athlete’s sport participation history, pathway to receiving payment for playing and what it means to have a semi/professional career in sport, before moving into questions regarding their employment contracts and conditions and an in-depth examination of workforce management dimensions (club and league). The interviews with the coaches, managers and league representatives explored organisation/employer expectations of their athletes, covering both transactional and relational expectations (D. Rousseau, 2001; D. M. Rousseau, 1996).

Approach to analysis

Data analysis was initially guided by inductively and deductively developing coded concepts. These concepts were then explored in more depth to understanding workplace practices that organisations employ to manage their women athletes. Braun and Clarke (2006) suggest that thematic analysis can be situated within different theoretical approaches. Foregrounding this suggestion, we employed psychological contract theory as a way to gain an insight into the “complicated story” (Braun & Clarke, 2006, p. 93) of athlete’s expectations and obligations. It was at this stage we recognised that while psychological contract literature might be useful to explore the obligations and expectations surrounding women’s experiences in the workplace, it did not fully address gendered aspects of organisational culture. Drawing on postfeminist sensibility allowed us to look at the patterned features that have informed contemporary understandings of gender, particularly in relation to workplaces.

We then framed our analysis around the concepts of the PC using NVivo to group themes which were shared, debated and confirmed between research team members as a form of inter-rating check, moving from a “descriptive level to an interpretive level” (Braun & Clarke, 2006, p. 93). It was through an iterative process of writing, thinking with the theory and revisiting the data, that we refined and developed our analysis. This process also allowed us to narrow our research questions, to consider the interplay between obligations, expectations and the choices athletes, as active postfeminist subjects, made on their commitment to their workplaces.

Findings and discussion

As previously noted, in both sports the League and the overarching scope for contractual employment conditions is governed by the national sport body, and athletes are contracted to a given team/club. For the purposes of the analyses, the employers are the combination of both entities (club and league) with differentiations made between the two where relevant. The interview data analysis identified three themes: 1. Obligations, commitment and choice: athletes felt obliged to deliver a professional product and employers expectations athletes escalated with salary/payment increases. 2. Expectations of conformity and power relations: athletes were compelled to act in ways that showed gratitude and employers asked that athletes adopt “professional” behaviours. 3. Fulfilling organisational goals: athletes built relationships that would contribute to the league’s success; and employers expected athletes to build the league through stakeholder engagement. An integrated findings and discussion section follows.

Obligations, commitment and choice

In this section we examine how athletes interpreted organisational expectations, and thus their obligations in the production of a professional product. Athletes generally indicated they either were grateful to play in the league or they believed their employer thought they should be appreciative of the opportunity to be employed. Given the unequal balance of power between management representatives (e.g. coaches, administrators) and athletes, many athletes were uncertain how to resist and/or react to employer requests. As they were expected to be grateful, athletes felt they had limited room to negotiate the professional product expectations of their employer.

Performance and pay

Formal contractual requirements and informal expectations, commitment, obligations are evidenced in transactional and relational PCs. The balance of expectation and reward is complex in sports where professional standards are expected yet women athletes are not given “appropriate benefits and protections one would expect in employment” (Bowes & Culvin, 2021, p. 10). Expectations begin to rise with payments, “As soon as you start to pay a player, the club then expects more time and effort” (League A, Manager 3, Male).

League A had recently introduced short-term contracts providing athletes with a base level payment, not sufficient to be considered as a living wage but moving the league further towards professional status. In return, the League expected the women to commit more time, more effort and act “professionally”. However, as one athlete observed about her teammates “.they’re not used to having to behave professionally. players need to be accountable to their program . coaches and managers and to (sport A)” (League A, Athlete 12). As Culvin (2021) noted in her research with women footballers, the professionalisation journey has resulted in women athletes accepting precarious work from employers who expect them to be “grateful” for the opportunity to put in more time to improve performance levels, time which is not necessarily adequately or equitability recompensated.

When women athletes enter into paid employment their employer will typically have resource-based psychological contract expectations (Cullinane & Dundon, 2006). As a coach from League A explained, payment to athletes bring accompanying expectations: “ … the girls (sic) are basically expected to be this professional product … now we’ve got more expectations of them, on and off the field” (League A, Coach 3, Male).

While it is not unreasonable for organisations to have specific expectations of athletes getting remuneration, increasing payments also raised performance expectations and created a layer of demands that resulted in athletes feeling that they were asked to make a time and workload commitment above their level of remuneration. Athletes spoke about choices, commitments and obligations which required making sacrifices and trade-offs “It means you’ve got to have sacrifice, save up work so that you can get to training, finishing shifts early, days off (your day job) so that you can travel [to play a match]” (League B, Athlete 2). Athletes spoke about having to make choices that cost them financially or compromise their other work commitments:

We’re expected to take a few days off (paid work) for travel to make games. For example, this weekend we have our last game in New South Wales, and they expect us to take Friday off work. For some it might not be an issue; I know for myself it is an issue. There’s little things like that where the competition is still, I guess, in its early stages where we’re not (fully) professional yet and there’s a lot of grey area. (League B, Athlete 4)

These comments reflect the semi-professional nature of League A and are consistent with studies of Australian women’s National Rugby League (Taylor et al., 2022) and Australian Women’s Basketball, where athletes have indicated they are not paid a living wage but are expected to be full time athletes (Marshall et al., 2022).

In League B athletes are more highly paid with longer term contracts, thus expectations of both athletes and the employer were slightly different from League A. Nevertheless, these athletes still spoke about the need to have dual careers, “the hours we technically work isn’t the same . as to what we’re actually getting paid . so you need to work part-time” (Athlete 8). Despite higher salaries they still need to make sacrifices:

I think that’s going to be the constant barrier as women’s (sport) continues to grow they expect more from you, but I struggle to see where they can ask for the time when people still have to work. (Player’s name) has been in a job for eight years, but the crap she has to go through the get the time off and their rosters get done so far in advance . we only got told a couple of weeks ago (about a change). And her roster’s done three months in advance, now she’s had to ring the lady and say she pretty much needs 10 weeks off because she can’t work for two weeks … So she’s got to not work for two weeks leading in, then the five weeks, then if we have to quarantine (for COVID) for the two weeks when we come home. (League B, Athlete 2)

While the situation noted above was unique due to COVID-19 border closures and a change of the original schedule with all league teams moved to one location at the start of the season, it does speak to the constant challenges women face when juggling non-sport work with their league commitments.The need to have different sources of income was a common refrain, “I was working washing cars because I needed a job that was flexible (to accommodate training and playing) it was just enough to keep me to survive” (League B, Athlete 3). As Balk et al. (2020) found in their study of elite sport, increasing professionalisation has meant athletes experience greater physical, emotional and cognitive stress.

Being grateful

Despite often challenging situations, athletes’ aspirations for a professional career were repeated in terms that reflected their gratitude to be employed in being able to play semi-professionally: “there’s so many women out there who want to play (sport), and I know that … I’m very lucky … I earn enough money to break even every week (but) it’s definitely something that needs to grow, and hopefully we can eventually get equal pay” (League B, Athlete 2). In League B one manager described the willingness of athletes wanting to be involved despite the hurdles “whereas girls are just doing it from … it usually comes from a place of, ‘I just want to be a part of it’, because you never played for anything other than ‘I want to play’” (League B, Manager 7, Male).

Interestingly, an athlete whose partner works in the men’s program observed (in relation to male players), “I see sometimes how ungrateful they are. It really gets under my skin a bit. It’s not that hard to say thank you. I think that we’re very good at making sure that we’re grateful for what we have” (League A, Athlete 3). Another athlete observed that “In terms of access to facilities, number of training days or those sort of things it’s hard to say because you’re grateful for the opportunities you go get but … things like that don’t happen in the men’s league” (League A, Athlete 2). This is consistent with feminist scholarship examples of women being grateful for being given work opportunities (Lewis et al., 2017). Furthermore, as League B coach observed about the athletes who have lived through the positive changes in the league: “they’re genuinely so grateful for the support they’ve received . that core group have seen it go from amateur (and) want to make sure the current and next generation (benefit) as a result” (League B, Coach 3, Female). This reflection illustrates the way women athletes invest in future generations and success of their sport (Chahardovali & McLeod, 2022) and express real gratitude for improving employment conditions.

Athletes felt an implicit expectation to continue to contribute more in terms of time, effort, sacrifice and gratitude. Athletes referred to themselves in terms of a product reflecting the hypercommodified terrain that typifies masculine models of professional sport (Allison, 2016). Performance pressures were recast through discourses of gratitude, similar to other findings of women’s sport at the semi-professional level (Culvin, 2021; Marshall et al., 2022; Taylor et al., 2022). Choice was also positioned as an individualised notion that resulted in athletes feeling unsure how to contest organisational expectations and obligations. Relations of mutuality were compromised in some instances as the gendered context of women’s lives were overshadowed by imperatives to produce a professional product (Allison, 2016).

Conformity and power relations

Athletes’ conformity to performance expectations was evidenced by how they initially accepted their male counterpart’s league/club structure and season timetable. When both the women’s leagues commenced they ran concurrently with the men’s league, thus the women’s league experienced head-to-head competition for facilities, media coverage, training resources and support personnel. Complementary scheduling was a strategic choice taken by League B to create legitimacy for the women’s competition through “. cross-promotion with the men’s league …if you were thinking of the men you were thinking about the women . that brings legitimacy to the women’s competition” (League B, Coach 3, Female). This initial reliance on the popularity of the men’s competition was reinforced by one of the managers, “There’s no doubt being able to leverage the positive momentum that surrounds the men’s game was a factor” (League B, Manager 1, Male).

As the leagues evolved the women’s playing season was changed so they did not directly compete with the men’s league and they started to create their own identity. The latter and the growing acceptance of the league by the public was linked to the women being “ … down to earth … we don’t have the big egos that go with it [success] which is quite family friendly and people adore that about the girls within the competition” (League B, Athlete 2). Ensuring the women retained the positive aspects of their approach to playing, was posited a as form of resistance, “it’s generally faster than the men’s game, it’s a lot more free flowing and it’s not dominated by physicality … it’s very skill oriented and I think it should remain that way and … not fall into the trap of trying to mimic the men’s … that won’t attract the kind of audience that you want of the kind of sponsorship that goes along with it” (League A, Coach 2, Male).

Many of the athletes we interviewed felt that some expectations of conformity were appropriate, such as being on time for training sessions and matches. Other expectations about the scope of work commitments, such as running training sessions for school groups and being called on for non-match day media appearances, extended beyond what they viewed as a reasonable expectation for what they were being remunerated. However, the power differentials between employer and employee (Cullinane & Dundon, 2006) led many athletes to agree to these requests even when these were viewed as unrealistic, “With terms and conditions, I feel that they [the league] need to be more supportive and be realistic to a female’s schedule” (League B, Athlete 8).

While it was really hard and you weren’t getting enough to survive . you had all these expectations like “we’ve made them professional and we’re putting them into nutritional workshops or all these things so they know how to behave like a professional athlete” yet our salary didn’t reflect an income where we could afford to nutritionally put into place what we just learned … [but] no one was going to turn down an opportunity to become a professional” (League A, Athlete 12).

When there is little power to reject terms of exchange, the psychological contract agreement of mutuality is compromised (D. Rousseau, 2001). The level of athlete commitment expected often placed an onerous burden on athletes who received insufficient monetary compensation for training, playing and ancillary time commitments. These athletes discussed the need for a higher level of support to transition to becoming “professional sportswomen”:

I think resources to assist with player welfare. Mental health, massive. Particularly, if you’re going compromise someone’s performance or not cater for finance. So, females I find will be placed automatically under extra stress for the fact you [sic] got to fit in professional essentially, or mimic a professional attitude and commitment level. (League A, Athlete 12)

While still needing improvement, the decision making by the governing bodies and the league about how to support the women athletes was generally seen as having a positive progression, by both athletes and coaches/managers. “There’s things in life you have to conform to . and yeah I think definitely over the last couple of years that’s sort of picked up and so has the salary the expectations are higher upon the players when they get paid more” (League B, Athlete 6); and as one coach observed “there’s definitely marked improvement … but still poor in comparison to where it could be” (League A, Coach 2, Male). Further, a senior manager noted:

My view is that the women’s game is not treated equally to the men’s . there are lots of people, particularly men [who say] “I’ll respect the women’s game when it generates income” … it’s not going to happen in the short term we’ve got to keep growing and heading in that direction. (League B, Manager 1, Male)

As another manager observed, “unfortunately, more broadly, there’s still too many men governing the sport and therefore making a lot of the decisions” (League A, Manager 1, Female).

Feeling the pressure

High-level pressure on athletes to conform to performance expectations was created due to “professionalisation and expectations” (League A, Athlete 9). Lack of balance between transactional and relational PCs meant some athletes were struggling to meet their employer expectations and achieve optimal performance:

I’m a stay at home mum, so the only income I have is for my children, so I don’t have that extra cash to see the physios outside of the game. Especially now that the season’s finished and things are now out of pocket, I’m still struggling with that. If I had just that little bit of support in that area to be at my best, I know it would have done wonders. So, this season that was one of the barriers that I had, with the financial side of things. (League A, Athlete 11)

Many athletes noted that time commitments expected to for training, playing and supporting off- field activities were becoming challenging. “I do find that it gets too stressful for professional athletes, especially women being able to balance they’re sporting career with their family, with work [it’s] … too overloading” (League B, Athlete 7).

A lack of reciprocity was noted with many athletes pleading for an increase in the level of employer support in return. “[We] want to play professionally, and as a career … where [we] can dedicate time . and actually mentally and physically switch on for [sport]” (League B, Athlete 8), through being provided with financially viable terms and conditions. However, as League A, Athlete 1 noted, success and better pay can lead to other support requirements:

we’re becoming more professional, spending more time away from our general support networks. Everyone from the outside always thinks that being an elite athlete’s this incredible life. Everyone would love the opportunity to travel around and be in hotels and think it’s all luxury, but it’s actually really, really challenging. It’s amazing as well, don’t get me wrong, but the fact that, for example, last year I went home from Christmas for the first time in five years. … That side of it’s really challenging, so I think having the support in and around the mental health space is very important.

Concerns around mental health and the negative effects that might arise as a consequence of expectations and pressures to perform were seen at times to be aligned with increased remuneration: “ … when you start paying athletes they put pressure on themselves to perform and then you open up the whole performance anxiety … ” (League A, Coach 1, Male). Implicit expectations and obligations meant athletes put pressure on themselves to develop the league and the sport. As active postfeminist subjects (Gill & Orgad, 2018), athletes took on the hard work that they felt would prove their worth and value to the league, and the sport. Women’s passion for their sport was also co-opted as an implicit obligation that positioned women where, to an extent, their value and worth were tied to their capacity to remain positive and accepting of the employment conditions that allowed them to forge a career at the highest level of their sport.

Fulfilling organisational goals

In discussing what would success and sustainability look like, both sports’ representatives spoke about having goals to not only further develop their leagues, but also to grow participation in the sport. Success was articulated as, “ … inspiring the current generation or next generation of girls to play . getting to a situation where the sheer amount of participation at club level [ensures] there’s enough depth and quality that underlying competition and systems are really flourishing” (League B, Coach 3, Female). League A similarly coach “success is growth every year . more games played, a longer competition, pathways that flow through” (League A, Coach 3, Male).

Athletes told us that they felt a sense of responsibility for the success of their respective league and that the organisation was, to a degree, trading off their willingness to make sacrifices such as participating in community coaching clinics to inspire growth in community participation in their sport. Athletes’ passion for their sport was often co-opted by the organisations when obligations for sport development were shifted to the athletes. Athletes expressed an assumption that their current hard work and sacrifice would eventually lead to the success of the leagues and more support from their respective employer. For example, an athlete in League A suggested that women’s sacrifice and hard work had already contributed significantly to the success of the sport.

I reckon it’s gone down to the hard work of the female athletes. I think, from their point of view, they’ve had to sacrifice a fair bit to be able to play in that space. … [pay] probably isn’t quite where it needs to be. So, I think there’s been a lot of sacrifice from the athletes’ perspective (League A, Athlete, 17).

These aspirational aspects reinforced athletes’ percpetions of value and worth. Yet, as Cullinane and Dundon (2006) note, psychological contracts can often be conceived in terms that imply the organisation owns the employee’s time and labour. As noted above, some athletes expressed a view that their commitment and labour were not fully remunerated, thus perceiving the exchange process as uneven.

In League B an informant suggested that “a lot of hard work is still to come and that they [athletes] need to make sure that they’re exemplarily examples on and off the field to make sure that we don’t stuff up the opportunity that we’re getting” (League B, League Representative 1, Female). Organisational agents also indicated that they thought athletes expressed demonstrated a sense of responsibility to develop their sport. As post-feminist subjects, athletes deployed inspiration as a mechanism through which to illustrate their sense of obligation to the league and to contribute to the governing bodies’ goal to grow participation in their respective sports. In doing so athletes took on the responsibility to inspire young athletes at a grassroots level to become involved in the game, “.it’s all about just trying to get more girls and young people to play [League A] in general. If they’re watching our game and are inspired to play the game and we get more numbers from a grassroots perspective” (League A, Athlete 17).

The growth of the league and sport was in this way tethered to women performing as positive role models and invested inspirational labour (Chahardovali & McLeod, 2022). Gill and Orgad (2017) note that inspiration can deflect negative feelings, transposing them into the positive. As a coach explained, athletes felt involved in a movement that was “ … part of something bigger. They feel like they are part of something really special” (League A, Coach 1, Male). Being a role model was seen as a positive:

I find it really find it exciting. I think it’s part of a part of a lifestyle the way that makes up a big part of your day. It means that you get to go out and be fit and active and you get opportunity to do that in front of friends and family at incredible venues. You get the opportunity to travel to do that. And it’s all those things you love, you can be a role model to younger generations or for people who are not even younger, just other people who love the game or love the sport. (League B, Athlete 3)

Inspiration also worked through the co-optation of athletes’ passion for their sport: “The female side of things, I think we’re all pretty passionate and interested in developing something that’s going to keep the best athletes playing for as long as possible, because that’s what it’s about” (League A, Athlete 15). In complement a coach suggested that women athletes wanted to leave the sport in a better position than when they first began playing:

They have a very holistic approach to that aspect of the game, of working at growing the game. So whilst we have individual goals within the squad, no matter who you talk to they all seem to have that same wanting to leave the product in a better position than they found it, which doesn’t generally rate that highly on the radar in the men’s game. (League B, Coach 2, Male)

As active postfeminist subjects, these athletes are seemingly choosing to work on the sport product (the league), in order to improve and transform it and in doing so are also exhibiting their value through their hard work. Women often exhibit their worth by displaying positive and affirming dispositions (Francombe-Webb & Silk, 2017), in this case as passionate athletes. While taking on the responsibility for the league’s success could be an act of agency, it has the added dimension of positioning this work as the athlete’s obligation that limits their “right to ask for employment terms deemed to be in his or her interest” (D. Rousseau, 2001, p. 536).

In the face of other leagues/sports offering better employment conditions a sense of responsibility combined with passion was channelled into building up the league:

It will come down to the girls and really wanting to build the sport and the league … you’ll get some girls that are actually really passionate about [League B] in that are staying, trying to maintain the possibility. The grassroots of it as well. I know that they’re actually starting to with the grassroots, but it’s not enough to be able to build those girls for international circuits and stuff like that. (League B, Athlete 6)

Passion is both an inspirational and positive display that overlooks the inequalities that women may face as they attempt to demonstrate their worth through building the sport.

Conclusion

In this article we have drawn on psychological contract theory and a postfeminist sensibility to examine semi/professional sports women in two sports in Australia to explore the patterned ways that gender impacts the workplace of semi-professional women’s sport. These patterned features also allow us to advance current PC theorising through examining the persistence of gendered subtexts, and the ways that women athletes perceived implicit and explicit expectations of organisations and the gendered logics that persist and change (Gill et al., 2017) within sports organisations employing women semi-professional athletes in leagues. The women athletes’ passionate attachment to their sport acts to facilitate their current employment conditions which are characterised by a degree of precarity of work that appears to be accepted and relied on as a way to support the growth of professionalisation.

We commenced this research with three questions, 1. How do semi-professional women athletes perceive and experience exchange-based employment promises (psychological contracts)? 2. What are employers’ expectations of women athlete employees? 3. What are women athletes’ expectations of employers? Data indicated that choice and gratitude were enmeshed in the obligations and expectations that these athletes experienced in their workplace in complex ways. With respect to how athletes perceived the PC, both transactional and relational exchanges were often accompanied by a lack of organisational reciprocity, as athletes negotiated increased demands on their time while not receiving any additional compensation. Relational PC obligations require a significant investment in and by women athletes, who when in turn feel they are supported, reciprocate by investing back into their workplace. The women athletes who expressed hope and possibility of a better future had decided to shape this future by developing the league’s growth to enable future athletes to receive better remuneration and employment conditions.

Implicit within the PC is a sense of mutual obligation, many athletes felt their employers were taking steps towards equality, in some cases more slowly than in other instances. This resulted in some athletes noting that entrenched masculine values persisted and the line of least resistance was for women to adapt to fit the masculine organisation. However, in both Leagues women were generally positive about shifts towards equality. Even where these appeared to be predicated on the continued growth of the women’s game, and dependent on the organisation’s commitment to further develop the women’s leagues and value the status of women’s team, with a cross-subsidy from the revenue generated by their male counterparts. Our analysis suggests a persistent masculine culture exists in these sports organisations, with women having needing carve out a legitimate place both on and off the field. Challenging the masculine organisational processes was viewed as pivotal to positive change and improving the positioning of the women’s league, and its female employees. Organisation-wide commitment to equality, along with better financial investment, is required.

Addressing systemic gender inequalities can be a challenge, given the complexities of gender equality change within organisations (Lewis et al., 2017). Women athletes who wanted to compete in the premiere national league in their sport accepted the attendant employment conditions, but many held the view that future gender equity was achievable. A PC is often characterised by conflicting issues of respect and trust, with employer decisions that erode these impacting negatively on employees (Cullinane & Dundon, 2006). Lack of trust also precludes relations of mutuality within the PC (D. Rousseau, 2001). Athletes’ trust can be eroded by a lack of organisational level decision-making transparency about resources allocated to women athlete employees. In turn, this impacts reciprocity and respect.

Being wary about how obligations to the organisation are reciprocated elicits feelings of being undervalued and eroded trust. Distrust in a PC can lead to feelings of “apathy, begrudging compliance or resistance” (Cullinane & Dundon, 2006, p. 121). The potential therefore arises that these unmet expectations may result in breaches of the PC by the employer. On the other hand, when women feel respected, valued and taken seriously as athletes by the organisation, not only was a positive relational PC an outcome, it also equated to improved on field performance.

The structuring of workplaces has persistently occurred around male norms (Acker, 2006) in which implicit and explicit sexism are still dominant (Chowdhury & Gibson, 2019). Women athletes who enter these workplaces are positioned as agents of positive social change while at the same time expressing gratitude for being afforded the opportunity to play in their sport’s national league. This gratefulness is evidenced in athletes taking on responsibilities to ensure the leagues are successful. In doing so they hope for greater acceptance of the positioning of women in semi and professional sport.

The complexity of athlete and employer exchanges can lead to intended and unintentional breaches in the PC (Baruch & Rousseau, 2019). Organisational agents, such as coaches and managers, also have their own interpretation of expectations and obligations. When imbalances occur, it is suggested that individuals may attempt to rebuild the relations through changing how they interact with the organisation, either in a positive or negative manner. This implies that employees have the capacity or power to impact how the organisation enacts their obligations, intersecting postfeminist critiques of neoliberal discourse with its focus on individual empowerment and self-management (Chowdhury & Gibson, 2019). Assumptions of empowerment within the PC imply that employees are able to manage deficits in reciprocity through improved job resources and relational motivations, and by addressing stressors related to workload demands (Tortia et al., 2022). Through challenging entrenched gendered power structures and decision-making processes, and excessive job demands women can build sustainable careers as professional athletes. Allison (2016, p. 257) remarked that women in professional sport “are caught between strategies of sameness and difference” and opined that regardless of which path they chose would never gain full legitimacy.

Recent changes and developments in the growth of women’s leagues suggest positive progress. For example, Cricket Australia substantially increased pay rates for women, although these are still below the base retainer for men (Dixon, 2021). New Zealand Cricket similarly announced a deal that allowed women to receive the same pay as men, yet there remains a huge disparity between the retainers men and women are paid (Devine, 2022). The AFL in Australia has also announced an increase in AFLW pay structures, with the aspirational goal of year-round professional women athletes by 2030 (Black, 2022). These offers signal organisations are working towards lessening the gap and in the future achieving parity in pay and conditions for women. There is a complicated and interwoven narrative emerging in the implicit and explicit expectation and obligations the women interviewees felt they had to enact within their gendered workplace, with transactional and relational features of the PC also further confounding relations of mutuality. However, in exploring how women access professional sport, we could also ask whether women’s sport should be looking to create a new postfeminist gendered way of doing and being professional athletes.

Our research provides a narrative about employment relationship between athletes and their employers in semi-professional leagues, with acknowledged limitations. The selection of two Australian sport leagues restricts the generalisability of the results in similar contexts. There may also be bias as recruitment of participants was facilitated through the national sport governing body. Furthermore, the structure and form of many women’s sport leagues is dynamic, and indeed both sports in this study have recently made changes to the terms and conditions of athletes’ legal contracts, which will inevitably impact the PC. Therefore, this research presents the PC at one point in time.

We suggest that knowledge about PCs could be used to introduce improved work practices that enhance athlete and organisation relations, creating positive performance cultures, experiences and successes for all involved. Future research using the PC framework could extend this avenue of investigation to other women’s sports, to different countries and cultural contexts, to semi-professional athletes more generally, and/or to semi-professional athletes in individual sports.

Highlights

• Women athletes in semi-professional sport teams emotional investments go well beyond their financial compensation

• In exchange for producing a professional product, athletes expect their employers to provide good quality facilities, coaching, and psychological support

• Coaches and managers respected athletes’ contributions, commitment, and passion; leveraging these to drive benefit for the league

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

The work was supported by the Australian Research Council [DP190101722].