Change and isomorphism—A case study of translation processes in a Norwegian sport club

Abstract

This article builds upon former research into sport organizations, which has revealed how institutional fields become uniformed through isomorphic processes, and at the same time how organizations undergo change. In this article change in a Norwegian football club is studied first by considering the organization as a mixture of rational, natural and open systems, and second, by applying a neo-institutional perspective of translation. Through document analysis, observation and interviews, it was found that change in the sport club's policy is based on the interplay between internal discussions and external influence. When the focal football club should develop a model for development of players, aiming at taking into account both elite orientation and mass participation, the solution was found by mimicking ideas from other organizations in the institutional field. Hence, the article shows how decision-making processes within one sport club's board are related to translations (Campbell, 2004) of ideas in the regional field of similar clubs, more particularly those conceived as successful.

Keywords:

• Organizational change
• Decision-making
• Institutional theory
• Isomorphism

Notes

1 So is the study of the public sector as environment for the local sport club, which is first and foremost the municipal authority. Both Danish (Ibsen, 2006) as well as Norwegian studies (Berg and Rommetvedt, 2002a, b) reveal that the only common element across municipalities, is variation. In Denmark, only two out of five municipalities have a sport policy which is written and documented (Ibsen, 2006). Similar numbers are not available for Norway, but variations are visible regarding to the formal structure of sport politics within the public sector and regarding the relationship between the public sector and the voluntary sport organizations (Berg and Rommetvedt, 2002a), as well as with regard to the municipalities’ economic capacity and priorities for sport (Berg and Rommetvedt, 2002b).

2 The report from 1997 general assembly holds: ‘The board of the youth department is requested to do a consequence analysis of an eventual split from [the club]’.

3 Annual report 2006.

4 Field is a concept used by both Bourdieu and institutionalists. See Skille and Skirstad (2007 pp. 43–46) for a merger and the application of the merger on Norwegian sport.

5 A striking citation from one of their interviewees makes the point: ‘Don’t talk to me about five-year business plans; we didn’t even have a five-minutes plan at [this club]. There was no time. We just had to do whatever we saw everyone else doing’ (O’Brien and Slack, 2004, p. 30).

6 For reasons of anonymity, more details are not provided for each board representatives, and for the same reason quotations are not linked to the positions of the board.

7 Youth commence playing on the full-size pitch in 11-man teams when achieving the age of 13.

8 Sahlin-Andersson (1996: 79–80) uses as an example the development of a research park in Stockholm, Sweden, where references to famous parks in other countries were frequently used; in particular, Silicon Valley was praised. However, what was imitated was not Silicon Valley, ‘but rather the story about it, and more specifically, the success story of Silicon Valley’, and some elements were actually impossible to imitate, ‘for example, the nice water, the scenic environment, and the existing industrial structure in the region’.