Recommended reading, for teachers and students alike – and for stakeholders

H. Thomas R. Persson
Dept. of Sport Sciences, Malmö University

I have read Stakeholder analysis and sport organisations, edited by Anna-Maria Strittmatter, Josef Fahlén and Barrie Houlihan. Stakeholders (intressenter in Swedish) is a concept that is familiar to many if not most of us. After all, how would you otherwise discuss relationships between different organisations in the field of sport? The shortest (acceptable) definition that I expect the students to memorise is that “stakeholders are all those that are affected by what our organisation does or can effect/restrict what our organisation can or cannot do”. This is in my mind a useful definition, not too broad and not too narrow. It helps to emphasise that as a representative of an organisation, in our case a sports organisation, you are dependent on your environment. An environment can be visualised by the ripples on a water surface after the dropping or throwing of a stone.

So, a grassroot organisation will be affected by the decisions and actions taken and funding opportunities provided by the local municipality, a special sport federation, the Swedish sport confederation, the state, but also sponsors, to name a few, just as the local community and all of the above will be affected by at least some of our decisions and activities such as growing in membership, deciding to work with integration, etc. In the midst of this we have members, employees and volunteers, all effecting and affected by our organisation in different ways. For example, without our members there is not a club or federation, and with more members comes income, volunteers and potential employment. How many ripples from the centre we need to consider depends on the organisation, activity and decision. Hence, even if we agree on the same category and number of stakeholders, depending on the decisions and activities, different stakeholder will be affected by and effect our organisations in different way and degrees.

Not surprisingly (he writes with a bitter tone), I believe this contribution is of utter importance and something that ought to be discussed in every national confederation, special federation, club, and of course in class.

If I can visualise stakeholder(s) in this simple way, are we in need of an entire book on stakeholder analysis? The editors seem to think so, stating that:

The widespread use of the concept and associated theory not only in the analysis of sport decision-making but equally widely across the field of management is testament to the richness of stakeholder theory and its adaptability to different contexts and time periods. Given the increasing application of stakeholder theory, it was considered timely for an assessment of the value of the theory and the underpinning concepts. (p. 3)

For those who are only interested in gaining a first insight into different approaches to stakeholder theory, and perhaps also broadening their knowledge, the “Introduction” chapter is highly recommended and will actually be more than sufficient whilst functioning almost as a mini dictionary. However, are you interested in both getting new insights into different sport cases that may lie outside of your normal main research interest(s) and, and this is the important contribution, to find out the different strengths, weaknesses with different versions of stakeholder theory, and when and with which theories it can be advantageously combined with, this is the book for you.

The book contains 13 chapters divided into five parts (Introduction, Stakeholding in elite, youth and community sport, Stakeholding in the public administration of sport, Stakeholding in commercial networks, and The effectiveness of stakeholder theory understanding the sport environment). To attempt say something intelligent about all the variety at hand between the front and back cover of this book would be presumptuous of me, so I will content myself with making a few remarks about but a few of the chapters.

The first case study at hand (in chapter 2) is SPLISS (Sports Policy factors Leading to International Sporting Success) revisited, but now from the angle of stakeholder inclusion. Here, De Bosscher and colleagues take almost a Bakhtinian dialogic approach to their subject as they bring their stakeholder perspective to the design and evaluation of sport policy (for an in-depth discussion on the Bakhtinian dialogic approach see Persson, 2006). Consequently, they are interested in finding out to what extent those who are implementing sport policy – coaches and athletes – also are part of the formation and/or evaluation of the sport policies. The results are mixed, but mainly negative, showing that those whom the policies are impacting the most are usually left outside of the formation and evaluation processes. This should come as no surprise for those with some insight into the life of a federation, the board compositions, and the fear of shaking the foundation of the delicate balance between federations represented by board members, club (non-athlete) representatives and the prevailing know-it-all attitude by inviting and giving voice to athletes and coaches by granting a permanent place on the board. This is not only against best practice in good governance, which would be the leg I stand on, but according to the authors also in terms of harvesting medals. Not surprisingly (he writes with a bitter tone), I believe this contribution is of utter importance and something that ought to be discussed in every national confederation, special federation, club, and of course in class.

My second pick is Fahlén and Stenling’s text “Stakeholding in community sport” (chapter 4). I concur with authors that community sport is underrepresented in sport management research. Hence, this chapter deserves specific attention. Fahlén and Stenling’s starting point is their critical view of the stakeholder(s) concept, or the way it is used, is both theory- and methodology-based. On one hand, it is argued that “the vagueness characterising the stakeholder model resulting in imprecise and ambiguous interpretations of what a stake and a stakeholder are” is restricting theoretical generalisations, for example. On the other hand, “the application of concepts and models outside the culture and socio-historical period within which they were developed” (p. 68) runs the risk obfuscating our understanding of the organisations and their contexts that are in focus of our research, and thus potentially also the conclusions that we draw from our findings.

Methodologically, Fahlén and Stenling argue that the field suffers from a lack of “empirical substantiation” (p. 69). In an attempt to remedy this, one might say, the authors obtained the permission to film (without being present) two sport clubs’ board meetings over a period of one year. From the recordings, they were able to discern not only 36 and 18 issues addressed by the two clubs respectively, but also when and how many times each issue was addressed. The point, as I understand the authors, is that stakeholders are not only context sensitive but has a temporality, i.e., the other party/parties should only be understood as stakeholders on the specific occasion when the issue is addressed. If the issue is not finalised and therefore recurs on a number of occasions, it will affect the other party/parties’ status of stakeholder. As a reader, I ask myself, more than once, what significance this has for the development of our understanding of the theory and methodology of the development of the concept of interest. But admittingly, there is of course an important benefit in becoming more specific, at least in terms of recognising and understanding how many or how common the more sporadic or unusual relationships are for our community sport clubs. This is after all increasing our understanding of the complex reality that our community clubs need to navigate.

Stakeholders in sport marketing by Chris Horbel (chapter 12) is a good example of the breadth of texts from the book (do not read textbook). I would suggest that this, like other texts by Horbel, is well written and accessible even to the interested, non-marketing expert. This is a strength, if you are pondering over whether you should use the book as part of your lecture material. To be fair, there is sense of familiarity for those having read other texts by Horbel, but this is of course common to all of us when producing texts for different types of compilations. Besides providing a window into the modern history of the conceptualisation of marketing, or its evolution, we are presented with a clear example of how the stakeholder concept sometimes is in need of company. Keeping with tradition, Horbel gives more room for the concept of actor than that of stakeholder, while showing how both are central for understanding the complicated networks of relationships that are part and parcel of today’s understanding of marketing. If the reader is taking the liberty of broadening the concept of marketing, they will see how this also provides us with a tool for bettering our understanding of the non-conscious everyday marketing activities of a federation or club. That is, every club and federation is involved in an ongoing marketing activity where it conveys its importance to grow or just staying alive. Just as, after reading any other good text, you are wondering if it is too late to change research focus.

I would highly recommend reading this book, and to use it as course material, even if only as recommended reading. If not the entire book, there will be chapters that ought to be valuable for most readers. As all compilations it has its highs and lows, but which is what is mostly dependent on the reader’s own interest and/or previous familiarity.

Copyright © H. Thomas R. Persson 2024

References

Persson, H. T. R. (2006). Swedish integration policy documents: a close dialogic reading. [PhD thesis, University of Warwick]. University of Warwick, Official URL: http://webcat.warwick.ac.uk/record=b2216954~S9