Call for Book Chapters | Public Value and Governance of Sports: Arena for Value Creation and Destruction | Call ends December 31, 2026

Editors

Marjukka Mikkonen, Elias Pekkola, Antti Aine, Päivikki Kuoppakangas & Anna-Katriina Salmikangas 

Sport provides an arena for societal activity: a forum in which politics, the economy, and the third sector meet. Organised sport can thus be understood as a microcosm of public life, encompassing economic activity, civic participation, and identity politics. Although often organised beyond the formal public sector, sport remains closely connected to public governance through public funding, regulation, and expectations of integrity, equality, transparency, participation, legitimacy, and accountability (van Eekeren, 2021; Geeraert & van Eekeren, 2021). This edited volume invites scholars to examine this arena as a setting in which public, private, and civil society actors jointly create, contest, and sometimes destroy public value through hybrid arrangements (Vakkuri & Johanson, 2021). 

Viewing sport as a forum for societal activity raises questions about what value it produces, for whom, and under what institutional and governance conditions. Sport research often adopts a normative perspective that assumes sport creates value for stakeholders. This assumption, however, captures only one side of the picture: sport can also destroy value. Moreover, value creation and destruction may unfold over time; an intervention that initially creates value may later undermine it. Governance interventions in this shared arena can therefore generate both benefits and harms, depending on the context and the perspectives of different actors. 

In this volume, we are particularly interested in how the arrangements and frameworks governing this hybrid encounter create or destroy value for different stakeholders. Good governance, for example, has been widely introduced in the sport sector as a normative framework for evaluating the structures, processes, actions, and goals of governance systems (Hasanen, 2024; Thompson, 2022). It can be understood as a means of creating public value, as a public value in itself, and as a process for managing tensions among evolving and context-dependent values (van Eekeren, 2021). Yet the measurement and implementation of governance principles may also produce unintended consequences, including additional compliance work, structural change, increasing institutional complexity, new capacity-building needs, and constraints on organisational autonomy (Girginov, 2023). Similarly, governance networks may enable public value creation while also opening opportunities for strategic manipulation, ceremonial compliance, and the protection of private autonomy (Geeraert, 2025; Geeraert & van Bottenburg, 2025). 

Understanding sport as a forum where politics, the economy, and the third sector meet also connects sport governance to broader societal questions. Rather than treating it as an isolated, sector-specific concern, the book uses sport to advance debates in public administration and management, public value, collaborative governance, and hybridity (e.g., Ansell & Torfing, 2021; Cataldi, 2024; Vakkuri & Johanson, 2021). The volume examines the simultaneous, contested, and sometimes contradictory dynamics of value creation and destruction in and through sport. By analysing these tensions, it positions sport as an analytically rich setting for developing public value and governance theories with relevance beyond the sport sector. 

Possible themes & questions 

We invite empirical, conceptual, methodological, and comparative chapters addressing, but not limited to, the following themes: 

• • • The meanings, forms, and distribution of public value in sport 
    • Sport at the intersections of the public sector, civil society, and the market 
    • Value creation and value destruction in multi-level sport systems 
    • Public value creation, destruction, and transformation across levels and over time in sport systems 
    • Governance failures, integrity problems, corruption, discrimination, exclusion, abuse, and public value erosion in sport 
    • The intersection of hybrid, multi-level, networked, collaborative, ecosystemic, or polycentric governance arrangements and public value in and around sport 
    • Governance failures and their public value consequences, including integrity breaches, corruption, discrimination, exclusion, abuse, and erosion of trust 
    • Experiences and perspectives of different stakeholders of sports in relation to value creation and destruction (e.g., athletes, clubs, volunteers, fans, citizens, public authorities, sport federations, sponsors, professionals, and civil society organizations) 
    • Methodological approaches for studying public value creation and destruction in sport, including qualitative, narrative, comparative, legal, ethnographic, participatory, mixed-method, and longitudinal designs 

Chapters may engage with questions such as: 

• • • What public value does sport create, for whom, and through which governance arrangements? 
    • Methodological and interdisciplinary approaches to studying public value creation and destruction in sport, including qualitative, quantitative, comparative, legal, narrative, ethnographic, participatory, mixed-method, and longitudinal designs 
    • How is sport positioned across the public sector, civil society, and the market, and with what implications for governance and public value? 
    • How do athletes, clubs, federations, public authorities, volunteers, fans, and citizens perceive, negotiate or narrate value creation and destruction? 
    • How do regulation, self-regulation, public funding, integrity policies, and accountability mechanisms shape public value outcomes in sport? 
    • How can research on sport extend theories of public value, collaborative governance, and hybridity by explaining the simultaneous creation and destruction of public value? 

References

Ansell, C., & Torfing, J. (2021). Public governance as co-creation: A strategy for revitalizing the public sector and rejuvenating democracy. Cambridge University Press. https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108765381

Cataldi, L. (2024). New public governance as a hybrid: A critical interpretation. Cambridge University Press. https://doi.org/10.1017/9781009418904

Geeraert, A. (2025). The dark side of governance networks: How private actors use discursive strategies in global sport governance. Public Management Review, 27(12), 3150–3176. https://doi.org/10.1080/14719037.2025.2456034

Geeraert, A., & van Bottenburg, M. (2025). How the pursuit of public value facilitates collaborative governance: The case of La Vuelta Holanda. Public Management Review. Advance online publication. https://doi.org/10.1080/14719037.2025.2484800

Geeraert, A., & van Eekeren, F. (Eds.). (2021). Good governance in sport: Critical reflections. Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781003172833

Girginov, V. (2023). The numbers game: Quantifying good governance in sport. European Sport Management Quarterly, 23(6), 1889–1905. https://doi.org/10.1080/16184742.2022.2078851

van Eekeren, F. (2021). The value of a public value perspective on good governance in sport. In A. Geeraert & F. van Eekeren (Eds.), Good governance in sport: Critical reflections. Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781003172833-4

Vakkuri, J., & Johanson, J.-E. (Eds.). (2021). Hybrid governance, organisations and society: Value creation perspectives. Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9780429286247

Submission guidelines 

We invite authors to submit an abstract of 500–700 words outlining the chapter’s topic, theoretical contribution, empirical material or methodological approach, and fit with the theme of the volume. Abstracts should also include the names, affiliations, and contact details of all authors. 

Full chapters are expected to be approximately 7,000–8,000 words. All submissions should be original and not under consideration elsewhere. 

Indicative timeline