It is widely recognized that the performance measurement of organizations should help them in their strategic decisions and in their capacity to evaluate their successes. This measurement is, however, lacking in sport governing bodies from the French speaking Community of Belgium (n = 56). This paper proposes a model to measure organizational performance by considering strategic objectives distributed among five main dimensions of sport, customers, communication and image, finance and organizational which are measured by quantitative performance indicators. The focus of the paper is on the governing bodies of Olympic sport (n = 27) and the model measures their missions and systemic goals. In addition, the priority the Chairs of 13 Olympic sport governing bodies attach to each dimension and each strategic objective is assessed. Finally, there is a discussion of the comparison of their priorities and their organizational performance, which leads to the identification of four strategic orientations.

Introduction:Organisational changes in sports federations are often associated with a drift from a volunteer driven to an increasingly business-like phenomenon (Shilbury & Ferkins, 2011). This process of transformation is be called as "professionalization". Accordingly, professionalization seems to be an appropriate strategy for sport organisations in order to meet organizational pressure due to challenges of a more complex and dynamic changing environment adequately. Despite the increasing research interest and the attempts for systematization on the phenomenon of professionalization it still remains unclear what does the term professionalization exactly mean (Dowling et al., 2014). Thus, there is a lack of a consistent concept of professionalization that is needed in order to explore different facets and perspectives of this phenomenon more validly. Against this background following question emerged: What is the suitable concept of professionalization for analyzing the actual ongoing processes of change, adaption or transformation in sport federations? Methods:Dealing with this question, following two-step approach was choosen: (1) In a first step a scholar's perspective at professionalisation of sport organisations will be displayed in order to explore both the common ground as well as divergences and inconsistencies in previous approaches. Therefore, a literature review is indicated. (2) In a second step, and in contrast to previous studies we will consider a practical point of view by a so called second-order observation of experts to gain valuable insights into current thinking and acting towards professionalization in sport federations. In doing so, a hermeneutical approach is used, which is about understanding the meaning of contexts by grasping the everyday world, and draw insight and meaning from it (Shilbury et al., 2013). Accordance with hermeneutics, the explorative interpretive knowledge of expert interviews was used. The interviews were conducted with a sample of six selected experts, who have both dedicated insider knowledge and the overall view of all Swiss sport federations. Results and discussion:The summaries of literature review could be categorized into two research currents. The one defines professionalization as a structural process towards professional status of occupations. The other defines it in a broader sense as an organisational change towards a business-like approach. Whereas the first perspective there is a broad scientific consensus that second isn't that clear, however. Explorative analysis of interview data reveals different themes in relation to professionalization of sports federation. First theme deals with a changed philosophy as more strategic alignment towards for-profit, efficiency and quality orientation. Second theme refers to paid work associated with more competence orientation and balanced governance between paid and voluntary work. Third theme deals with acting shift towards more rationalization and efficiency by implementation of innovative management a...

Although much research exists on the performance of organizations little literature exists that allows understanding of the performance of national governing bodies (NGBs) of sport. The research in this paper aims to facilitate this understanding and presents the results of a programme of research carried out with French NGBs. In the main phase of the research, utilizing an adaptation of Lawrence and Lorsch's theoretical framework, case study research was carried out with 11 French NGBs in order to understand their strategy and management practices in relation to their organizational performance. Analysis of these case studies, alongside previous research that has focused on the relationship between strategy/organizational structure and performance, leads to the proposal of a framework through which to explain NGB performance in the field of sport. This framework seeks to accommodate the relationship between strategy, management and operational performance.

This paper confronts the basic questions involved in the measurement of the performance of national sport organisations through a specific approach conceived and carried out for national swimming federations in four Mediterranean countries (Italy, Greece, Portugal and Spain). In the past there has been a number of studies assessing the effectiveness or the performance of NSOs (national sporting organisations/national governing bodies/national sport federations), but these were predominantly descriptive, specific to a particular point in time, and were not related to the establishment of a stable measurement system for management control. Performance is viewed here, in a broad sense, as the ability to acquire and process human, financial and physical resources to achieve the goals of the organisation. To measure a multidimensional performance we propose to use a specific model with a systemic approach (applied from Madella, A. (1998). La performance di successo delle organizzazioni-Spunti di riflessione per gestire efficacemente le societa `di atletica leggera. Atleticastudi , 101 Á/112). This approach combines at the same time, input and process variables and output measures.The final data collected, incorporate five basic dimensions: human resources, finance, institutional communication, partnership and inter-organisational relations, volume and quality of services, and athletes' international performance. An analysis of the global performance of each federation is illustrated. Finally interviews with key actors are used to identify some of the principal factors of success of performance.

The measurement of performance of a voluntary organization challenges management theorists and practitioners. What are the effectiveness and efficiency criteria to evaluate performance of these organizations? To overcome the limitations of current methods of performance measurement, we propose a new performance measurement technique in a taxonomic perspective that associates qualitative and quantitative indicators thanks to a contractual approach. This approach establishes a typology of 6 performance profiles of 40 NSO. Statistical correlations between performance dimensions are also analyzed. Statistical analysis shows that dimensions of performance are significantly correlated. Economic and financial performance is correlated more with promotional performance than with the number of members.