The impact of governance principles on sport organisations’ governance practices and performance: A systematic review

Figures & data

Figure 1. PRISMA flow diagram

Table 1. Pre-selected inclusion and exclusion criteria for the systematic review

Inclusion criteria	Exclusion criteria
Journal articles and review articles Academic books Academic book chapters Conference abstracts Theses Grey literature (reports, white papers, etc.) Empirical studies (qualitative or quantitative or mixed methods) No start date until date of search Includes search term in research question, keywords, title or body of text In English Up to and including day of search (no lower date limit)	Theoretical works Works that only discuss governance principles or guidelines without discussing the impact on organisational practice and/or performance Non-sport articles

Table 2. Summary of extracted data from studies included in quantitative synthesis

Source or University (if thesis)	Authors (Date) Country of study	Research question	Governance principles or guidelines considered	Theoretical framework	Method	Level of analysis	Findings	Limitations/reviewer comments
Journal of Sport Management	Adriaanse and Schofield (2014) Australia	(a) What is the impact of gender quotas on the gender relations that characterize the composition and operation of sport boards in terms of a gender-regimes approach? and (b) What is the impact of gender quotas on gender equality in sport governance?	Board diversity in non-profit governance.	Organisational management and gender dynamics.	Comparative case study of five NSOs using interviews.	NSOs	There is still resistance to gender quotas; Lack of clear progress to advance gender equality; evidence that gender-balanced boards are “better”; None of the quotas examined specify absolute parity; Quota is important for numerical presence of women on boards, but this does not result in increasing power or impact of women on governance and strategic direction; “the implications for policy and practice are that the adoption of a gender quota is effective for gender equality in governance only if it is used in conjunction with other measures. They include directors’ adoption of gender equality as an organisational value (symbolic relations), the allocation of women directors to influential board roles (production and power relations), and the promotion of a cohesive team environment on the board (emotional relations).” (p. 495)	Small number of NSOs in one country; Study conducted in the absence of a mandated gender equality principle in the country at the time of the study, but the results of the study indicate that this may help overcome the resistance and improve governance performance.
University of Sydney Thesis	Adriaanse (2013) Australia	(a) What are the gender relations that characterise the composition and operation of sport boards in NSOs in Australia in terms of a “gender regimes” approach, that is, one that draws on categories associated with the gendered organisation of production, power/authority, emotional attachment and symbolic relations? (b) What are the implications or prospects for gender equality on these boards in terms of the barriers and opportunities created by the specific configurations of gender relations and dynamics?	Board diversity in non-profit governance	Organisational management and gender dynamics; Kanter (2002), Connell (1987, 2009)	Stage 1: Quantitative audit of 56 NSO boards Stage 2: Qualitative interviews with 5 Olympic NSOs.	NSOs	Women remain underrepresented on boards, holding 10–33% of board positions, which is also lower compared to the percent of women participating in those respective sports; Horizontal and vertical gender segregation still holds in Australian NSO governance; Gender dynamics are not uniform (three different gender regimes found—masculine hegemony (the most common and least gender equal), masculine hegemony in transition, and gender mainstreaming in progress), often creating tensions, and demonstrating gender parity has not yet been reached; The gender regimes set the opportunity and constraint structures within the organisation Adopting gender quotas can be an effective strategy to achieve gender parity in organisations, especially when a minimum (not maximum) is prescribed; Women need to occupy leadership positions, not just be board members; Board members need to understand gender inequality and related dynamics and demonstrate proactive commitment to achieving equality; It is the responsibility of men and women.	One country; Study conducted in the absence of a mandated gender equality principle in the country at the time of the study, but the results of the study indicate that this may help overcome the resistance and improve governance performance; Women need to be in leadership positions, not just be board members.
International Journal of Public Policy	Bayle (2005) France	Explore how changes in the environment influence relationships in a given organisational field—the French sporting sector—in order to understand modes of governance, decision-making and implementation as regards public sporting policies.	Stakeholder presence in the system; interorganisational linkages; regulatory structures.	Organisation theory (neo-institutional theory, Bourdieu, drivers of change).	Secondary data (documents, previous studies), participant observation, and 14 interviews.	NSOs and professional sport teams, French government, national Olympic committee, regional and local level managers.	Structures, processes and modes of action in the French sport system have been homogenizing due to: NSO dependence on the French government, ambiguous objectives, uncertainty, and extent of professionalization; Strategic repositioning by NSOs done within zones of uncertainty; The environment (number of stakeholders) has increased in complexity over the years, leading to greater inter-organisational relationships and the need to consult multiple decision-making bodies; The public-private model of governance in French sport remains, despite these changes in the environment; Network governance approach seen in the French government now.	Multi-level data collection, but focus on NSOs; Despite numerous changes in the environment and in the French government’s governance of the system, the basic French NSO governance model remains.
European Sport Management Quarterly	Bayle and Robinson (2007) France	Propose a framework that uses strategic and operational factors to explain the performance of French NSOs.	Organisational performance	Organisation theory and performance	Longitudinal data of documents, surveys, and interviews focused on 11 NSOs; 100 interviews with the 11 NSOs and their stakeholders were conducted.	French NSOs	The strategic performance mix includes the system of governance, the quality of the operating network and the position of the NSO system within the industry; The operational performance mix includes factors facilitating operational performance (forms and levels of performance, presence of a participatory organisational culture, and adoption of a partnership approach), factors inhibiting performance (deficient information systems, inappropriate incentive mechanisms, absence of control mechanisms, and political sclerosis).	Extensive mixed methods dataset that demonstrates the multidimensional nature of organisational performance.
Corporate Ownership & Control	Bradbury and O’Boyle (2015); New Zealand	Examine the independent board structure adopted by New Zealand Cricket and to provide insights into the major challenges of this approach.	(Independent) board structure, role, calibre	Corporate governance and sport governance	Case study using interviews (six) and documents (unknown number) of New Zealand Cricket.	NSO	Governance can be improved through independently appointed board members with appropriate skills, instead of elected members from within the sport whose skills are not guaranteed. Benefits of this includes: increased revenue generation, skills matrix creation to help in board member appointment, introduction of board member remuneration, high calibre board, increased consultation and engagement with regional associations; Commercial expertise is needed on the board.	One case study in one country, but it demonstrates link between board composition and organisational performance.
University of Pretoria Thesis	Burger (2004); South Africa	Three research questions, two of which apply for this review: (a) Describe the governance principles best practices; (b) Measure the level of non-adherence to the governance principles by South African sport bodies.	Accountability, responsibility, transparency, social responsibility, independence, fairness, and discipline.	Corporate and best practice governance systems.	Survey of 21 NSOs (out of a possible 90)	NSO	73% or more of NSOs surveyed adhered to all examined governance principles (some principles adhered to by over 80%), and the degree of adherence ranged from 3.54 out of 5 (discipline) to 3.96 out of 5 (accountability). Concerns are raised about the relatively low compliance with the overall good governance of independence, which highlights a problem with autonomy, ability to take fair actions, and transparent fund administration; Formalized guidelines at the national level are recommended to improve good governance within the NSOs; Notes that sub-standard performance in one good governance pillar will affect other pillars; Recommends separation of powers between the board’s governing role and the CEO/staff’s managerial roles for NSOs; Recommends between five and nine board members selected based on their skills and abilities, but external appointments should be limited; Recommends free and fair election of board members, with nomination guidelines and biographical information about officers; Recommends a code of ethics defined by the board and implemented by the CEO, and to include how to hand conflicts of interest; Recommends auditor independence.	Demonstrates intertwined nature of governance principles, but does not actually measure the organisation’s performance as a result of compliance or non-compliance with the governance principles.
Management Research Review	Dimitropoulos (2014); Europe	Examine the impact of corporate governance quality on the capital structure of European soccer clubs and specifically on the level of debt that soccer clubs decide to issue.	Board size and independence, ownership and capital structures.	Corporate governance and agency theory	Documents (annual reports, financial statements) from 67 soccer/football clubs in 10 European countries over the 2005–2009 years.	Professional soccer clubs	Increased board size and independence, as well as separation of the roles of board chair and CEO roles, reduces leverage level and risk of financial instability; Managerial and institutional ownership (i.e., reduced ownership concentration between managers and institutional investors, and increasing ownership dispersion) contribute positively to leverage level and improve capital structure.	Board independence and ownership dispersion positively affect financial performance, but study findings are limited to soccer’s particular corporate identity and to limited liability and publicly listed companies.
Journal of Sport Management	Ferkins et al. (2009); New Zealand	Investigate the strategic capability of NSO boards.	Board strategic function and involvement in strategy, and shared leadership between the board and CEO.	Agency theory, stewardship theory and managerial hegemony theory, corporate and sport governance literature.	Longitudinal (18-month) case study of New Zealand Football (soccer) using an action research approach with interviews, focus groups, documents, participant observation, reflective journaling, and memoranda.	NSOs	Board-CEO shared leadership enhance a board’s strategic capability; There is a dynamic and complex relationship between the board and CEO (linked to leadership paradox), which can impair board strategic capability if not examined by organisational members; The volunteer nature of the board can impact the board’s ability to influence and control—though boards should be more involved in the organisation’s strategic development, this results in more time, expertise, and intellectual commitments from the board members; Volunteer boards struggle with increased organisational sophistication introduced by CEOs, even if board members have the proper experience and education for their positions; The CEO remains the pivotal position in the organisation, controlling information flow and potentially the board’s strategic functioning, but increased collaboration between the board and CEO can lead to increased board strategic function. This may require board compensation for their increased time and commitment.	Shared leadership and collaboration between the board and CEO are important for proper board and organisational performance. But, the study highlights the paradox of increasing volunteer board sophistication or professionalization to increase strategic functioning and good governance, but this comes at the cost of volunteers’ time and commitment, thereby pointing to a potential need to compensate board members for their work for the organisation. The action research is a lengthy process, but one that derives rich data needed to get at organisational governance and performance.
Loughborough University Thesis	Garcia (2008) Europe	Four research questions, one of which applies for this review being: What has been the impact of EU policies and decisions in the governance structures of football?	Structure	Agenda setting, multi-level governance	Inductive, qualitative research based on interviews (44) and documents extending over 18 years.	Continental government, soccer/football clubs, national and continental associations, footballer’s trade union and football supporters, academics and lawyers, minor focus on IF.	The sport’s increasing commercialisation put it on the EU institutions’ systemic agenda; EU intervention in football has contributed to a transformation of football’s pyramid structure towards a more crowded environment and horizontal stakeholder network governance structure; EU policies have undermined the sport’s traditional vertical authority channels, helped contest the legitimacy of governing bodies, and favoured the emergence of new stakeholders in the governance network.	Broad analysis of a sport’s governance system, highlighting the potential impact of new policies on facilitating new entrants into the system and changing governance structures.
International Journal of Sport Policy and Politics	Geeraert et al. (2014) International but mainly from Europe	Empirically determine whether the lack of good governance is widespread in international sport organisations.	Accountability, democracy, checks and balances, independence, decision-making power, representation (by country and gender), member tenure, power concentration.	Good governance, corporate governance, democratic governance, and good sport governance.	Analysis of publicly available data.	International sport governing bodies (IFs) of the 35 Olympic sports	Demonstrates that recent corruption scandals were institutionally induced; Sports’ autonomy has had a negative impact on the quality of sport governing bodies’ self-governance; Accountability problems hinder the impetus for change to improve governance; Watchdog organisations’ efforts are undermined by the absence of objective criteria and transparent funding distribution to members; Lack of independent ethics committees found; Though athlete representation is often present, the study finds athletes lack decision-making power within their sport governing body; Dominance of European and male representation in executive body membership; General lack of term limits was found, which results in a concentration of power.	Highlights the lack of a broadly agreed upon and objectively measurable list of good governance principles; Suggests that pressures from outside sport is the most likely way to improve sport governing bodies’ governance; Study limited by publicly available data, but study also finds transparency is problematic in these organisations.
International Journal of Sport Policy and Politics	Grix (2009) United Kingdom	(a) To analyse the impact that the government’s modernisation drive has had on government sport policy in general and on the national governing body for athletics; and (b) to determine the impact of governance of UK Athletics on its own demise in performance.	Accountability	New Managerialism	Single organisational case study using documentary analysis and interviews.	NSO	The hierarchical chain of power from government to NSOs has effectively strait-jacketed UK Athletics into delivering a narrow, Olympic driven sports policy to meet government set targets, while mass participation rates have declined. This is due to UK Athletics taking on the New Managerialist culture. Due to this, the authors argue the professionalization of UK Athletics has been taken too far into the realm of for-profit organisations; trust between the sport governing body and the grassroots of sport could be affected.	One of the few studies to investigate the link between government policy, expectations of performance and influence over NSO governance and the subsequent impact on performance of an NSO.
Sport Management Review	Parent (2016) Canada and Scotland	(a) How different event stakeholders view the principles associated with democratic governance in relation to planning for major sport events; and (b) how informative democratic governance principles are for studying major sports events.	Performance; Transparency; Accountability; Stakeholder participation in decision making.	Democratic governance	Exploratory study using interviews from stakeholders of three major sport events.	Organising committee of a major sport event and its stakeholders (including IFs, government, sponsors, media, etc.).	Stakeholders involved in planning and delivering major sport events held similar views of the meaning of democratic governance principles; Democratic governance has merit as a framework for the study of major sport events.	Highlights the utility of a small number of governance principles for influencing stakeholder engagement and behaviour in the context of major sport events; highlights interrelationship between good governance concepts, including with performance; also one of the few studies to examine these phenomena in more than one country.
International Journal of Sport Management and Marketing	Parent, Kristiansen, and Houlihan (2017) Norway	(a) What is the relationship between good governance principles and the knowledge management/transfer process in the context of major sport events, and (b) to what extent does knowledge management/transfer in the Youth Olympic Games compare with that of the Olympic Games process.	Transparency; Accountability; Stakeholder participation in decision making.	Democratic governance	Single organisational case study using documentary analysis and interviews.	Organising committee of a major sport event	The IOC used governance principles to ensure the organising committee for the major sport event was held accountable for strategy and operational matters. The study also found that while good governance might facilitate the management and transfer of knowledge, it does not ensure organisational effectiveness (performance).	Highlights the difference between desired governance practices and what is possible in reality.
Play the Game	Geeraert (2017)	The study set out to identify a number of good governance indicators for sport.	Transparency, Democratic processes, Internal Accountability and control, Societal Responsibility.	None.	Survey of NSOs	NSOs	NSOs scored either 1 or 0 for the adoption of the 274 indicators of good governance organised across 4 themes—Transparency, Democratic processes, Internal Accountability and control, and Societal Responsibility.	Provides a snapshot in time of the state of the adoption of a range of good governance principles by NSOs across a wide range of countries.
International Journal of Sport Policy and Politics	Sisjord et al. (2017) Norway	(a) Are leaders in Norwegian sport aware of the [gender] quota regulation, (b) Does the quota regulation guide the composition of the executive boards, and (c) does there exist specific projects/initiatives in order to increase the proportion of the under-represented gender on executive boards.	Board diversity	None used to drive the research design and analysis.	Interviews with representatives from three organisational levels of Norwegian organised sport.	NSOs, Regional confederations of sport, and local sport clubs.	Sport organisations at the national and regional level had greater awareness of the regulation than local clubs. National and regional level organisations had largely adhered to the regulation while at the local level, clubs had not paid much attention. There was little evidence of specific projects or initiatives to support increasing the representation of women on boards at any level. Overall, the study concluded that gender quotas do not work in isolation, they need to be supported by comprehensive efforts to consciously address gender balance amongst governing sport boards.	The data for the study was collected in 2007–2008 and published in 2017 so there may have been improvements in the Norwegian sport system in the last decade that are not captured in this study. However, the study supports findings in Australia.
International Journal of Sport Policy and Politics	Tacon and Walters (2016) United Kingdom	How has modernisation influenced the way NSO board members perceive and enact their roles.	Board roles	Modernisation, Political Science and Nonprofit Governance.	National survey of NSOs in four home countries—England, Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales and a single longitudinal organisational case study of one NSO based on interviews and documentary analysis.	NSOs	The financial and strategic roles of the board have become comparatively more important to boards, while representative roles have become comparatively less important. Board members from larger NSOs consider their professionalised role of financial and strategic oversight to be more important than board members from smaller NSOs, while smaller NSOs consider their traditional roles of fundraisers and ambassadors as more important than larger NSOs. Some evidence that board members made decisions in line with policy from funding agencies and that the issue of representative boards still presents practical challenges for boards to govern effectively.	The study did not address specific elements of the governance guidelines or principles, rather it focused on the overall influence of the modernisation agenda on NSO governance. Suggests modernization emphasizes commercial values.
Corporate Governance: An International Review	Taylor and O’Sullivan (2009) United Kingdom	(a) What is the most appropriate orientation for boards of NSOs in order to balance the interests of the broader membership with the increasing commercial orientation of the sport, (b) What is the optimal size for boards of NSOs, and (c) What is the most appropriate leadership structure, CEO duality or a separate Chairman and CEO.	Board composition, Board leadership	Nonprofit governance	Interviews with a convenience sample of 22 board members and other sport industry stakeholders.	NSOs	Widespread acceptance that NSO boards should move away from traditional representative structures to a more corporate structure, Boards should comprise between 5 and 12 members, that the role of CEO and Chair should not be held by the same person, and that boards should utilise a number of non-executive members.	Sample comprised a majority of respondents holding senior management roles so potentially reflects the views of paid staff more so than board members.
European Sport Management Quarterly	Walters and Tacon (2018) United Kingdom	(a) Why do boards of non-profit sport organisations adopt codes of governance, and (b) how do board members perceive codes of governance.	National good governance guidelines from UK Sport, Sport and Recreation Alliance and Sport England.	Modernisation, Political Science and Nonprofit Governance.	Single longitudinal organisational case study of one NSO based on interviews and documentary analysis.	NSOs	The adoption of a code of governance has two impacts; to create external legitimacy by demonstrating to a funding body that the board was taking governance seriously and to create internal legitimacy amongst board members that their board was well governed. Adoption of the code can also be perceived as constraining board autonomy, strengthening lines of accountability upwards by strict adherence to code principles, and shift institutional logics whereby the principles in the code become the assumed way of governing by a board.	The study did not address specific elements of the governance guidelines or principles, rather it focused on the overall influence of the modernisation agenda on NSO governance. But, the authors warm increasing mandatory codes could undermine actual good governance improvements within the organisation and become simply a box-ticking exercise.
Birkbeck Sport Business Centre	Walters, Trenberth, and Tacon (2010) United Kingdom	Not specifically stated; the report provides an analysis of standards of governance within UK NSOs and considers the extent of the impact of the UK Modernisation program on UK NSO governance and management.	Role of the Board, Board Composition	Inferred to be modernisation	National survey of NSOs in four home countries—England, Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales.	NSOs	Most NSOs had strategic plans but many NSOs need to address core issues of board induction, board training and board performance evaluation. NSOs engage with stakeholders and have some form of representation at board or committee level. Suggests board size should not exceed 10 members and include at least one independent, non-executive member from outside the sport; Suggests board member onboarding and training is needed, as well as evaluation/appraisal; Organisational operational aspects should be delegated to staff members; Suggests a stakeholder map analysis should be conducted by NSOs, as well as increasing stakeholder engagement and representation.	This is a scoping and exploratory study that provides some useful context for the impact of the UK Modernisation program on UK NSOs.

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