Existing research on sport organizations is imprecise in the use of the concept of 'professionalization'. Furthermore, we do not know if analytical concepts of professionalization correspond with the understanding in practice. This study explores the perceptions of practitioners and proposes a framework to analyse professionalization in national sport federations. Expert interviews were conducted with six key people from Swiss national sport federations and then analysed these for characteristics of professionalization using a hermeneutic approach. The characteristics were divided into three areas: (1) changed management philosophy, (2) functional differentiation and specialization, and (3) application of management tools. However, professionalization is primarily perceived to be a matter of 'professional' attitude that transforms into federation culture. The practitioners disclose an ambivalent view of professionalization, e.g. business-like culture vs. voluntarism, for-profit vs. non-profit orientation, autonomy vs. control. A framework is developed that synthesizes analytical concepts and practitioners' perceptions to support future comprehensive research into causes, forms and consequences of professionalization in national sport federations.

In a changing and complex environment, international sport federations (IFs) have to face new challenges. These challenges can trigger or hinder IFs' professionalization processes. While researchers have examined organizational change and professionalization of national sport federations (NFs) and clubs, studies on IFs are rare. Considering professionalization as an important element of IFs' change processes in recent years, the study attempts to fill this gap. The conceptual framework is based on the concepts and dynamics of organizational change, the influence of isomorphic pressures and the operationalization of a multi-level framework. Data from six case studies was analyzed by means of qualitative content analysis. Findings reveal multiple causes of IFs' professionalization.Three particular findings are discussed: professionalization as a dynamic process with phases of acceleration that vary depending on IFs' size; IFs' becoming increasingly business-like through isomorphic changes; and five causes of particular relevance to IFs' current professionalization process.

Research question: This study examines the conditions and configurations that particularly influence International Federations' (IFs) commercialisation. Research method: Crisp-set qualitative comparative analysis (csQCA) is used to determine the conditions that are related to an IFs' commercialisation. Sixteen interviews were conducted in six Olympic IFs and one international sport umbrella organisation. Results and Findings: The findings reveal a variety of high and low commercialisation configurations. Specialisation is a key condition in both high and low commercialisation, and social media engagement is central in high commercialisation. Strategic planning and low accountability have low degrees of overlap with high commercialisation outcomes. With 13 out of 22 IFs achieving high levels of commercialisation, the findings demonstrate that IFs are increasingly developing businesslike behaviours. Implications: The findings highlight the importance of specialisation and social media engagement to achieve high commercialisation. However, when IF's assume a monetisation agenda, there are associated risks such as stakeholder legitimacy, mission drift, goal vagueness and adherence to good governance principles.

In recent decades, some governments (e.g. Canada, the UK, Australia) have imposed far-reaching professionalisation processes on national sport federations (NSFs), while others (e.g. Switzerland) have made only minor impositions and relied more on NSFs to self-regulate. As governments must decide on the extent to which sport policy imposes professionalisation processes on NSFs, understanding the challenges and opportunities arising from both policy-imposed and self-regulated professionalisation processes is relevant. However, extant literature has focused mostly on professionalisation processes imposed by sport policy. Therefore, this study aims to analyse the context, action, content and outcome of self-regulated professionalisation processes to identify the challenges and opportunities arising from these processes. A framework of professionalisation and a corresponding processual approach build the conceptual background of this study. A single-case study is applied to enable a holistic and long-term analysis of the proceedings of a Swiss NSF's professionalisation processes. The results reveal the mechanisms of self-regulated professionalisation processes (i.e. how contexts and actions shape outcome), thus leading to a conceptualisation of these mechanisms and conclusions about challenges and opportunities arising from selfregulated professionalisation processes, which are useful for sport managers and policymakers.

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