Sports associations’ organizational culture: leadership, transparency, and decision-making perception
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.29352/mill0223e.45159Keywords:
leadership; organizational culture; sports management; sports organizations; transparency mechanismsAbstract
Introduction: Successful organizations adopt operational mechanisms that foster efficiency, innovation, and strategic alignment.
Objective: To analyze sports agents’ perceptions regarding the organizational culture of sports associations and its influence on leadership, transparency, and decision-making.
Methods: Semi-structured interviews were conducted with five decision-makers from Portuguese football associations.
Results: The collected testimonies revealed contextual differences in management models across district associations: structures open to digital communication were found to have closer ties with clubs; resource scarcity emerged as a common challenge; participative leadership styles promoted trust and engagement, while centralized approaches tended to limit innovation and organizational effectiveness.
Conclusion: Continuous investment in administrators’ training, combined with systematic monitoring of strategic decisions’ effects, constitutes an essential approach to fostering a more professional, efficient, and sustainable management of district football. At the same time, it is imperative to promote practices that ensure broad participation and transparent access to information at all levels of governance. These measures not only strengthen the association’s institutional capacity but also contribute to the development of a more equitable, innovative, and resilient sporting environment, capable of effectively addressing the contemporary challenges of local and regional football.
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