Innovation in national governing bodies of sport: investigating dynamic capabilities that drive growth

ABSTRACT

Research question: To what extent are dynamic capabilities present in, and drive the performance of, U.S. Olympic National Governing Bodies (NGBs)?

Research methods: Guided by a critical realist perspective we used qualitative semi-structured interviews with the CEO or Executive Director of four U.S.-based NGBs of sport. We examined the effect of dynamic capabilities on the so-called ‘3M’ (members, medals, and money) performance of four purposively selected NGBs.

Results and findings: Our findings indicate that NGBs with varied performance in outcomes relating to membership, medals and money had notable differences regarding their approach to innovative leadership, organisational learning, market alignment and resource acquisition and mobilisation. The historical structural context also plays an important role in influencing the behaviour of NGBs.

Implications: This paper identifies how frameworks such as Dynamic Capabilities can be applied and further examined in order to drive sustained innovation and enhanced organisational performance specifically within NGBs of sport.

KEYWORDS:

• NGB governance
• dynamic capabilities
• innovation
• performance
• organisational theory

Correction Statement

This article has been republished with minor changes. These changes do not impact the academic content of the article.

Disclosure statement

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

Notes

1 All not-for-profit organisations in the U.S. (including NGBs of sport) are required to file an annual 990 with the Internal Revenue Service (IRS). The 990 enables the IRS to monitor the financials of not-for-profit organisations to make sure that they are not abusing their tax-exempt status and also provides the public with key financial information about not-for-profit organisations.

2 The most recent NSGA methodology applying an online survey tool to measure mass sports participation only dates as far back as 2009. Thus, for consistency, we compared changes in participation between 2009 and 2014.