Ambiguity, manageability and the orchestration of organisational change: a case study of an English Premier League Academy Manager

Abstract

An academy is an organisational context operated by professional football clubs, governed by the rules of the English Football Association and the English Premier League. Academies provide coaching and education for youth football players aged from under 9 to under 21. The Academy Manager is responsible for the strategic leadership and operation of the club’s academy. This includes implementing the club’s philosophy, coaching and games programme, player education, and the management of academy staff. The purpose of this paper is to explore the experiences of Simon [pseudonym], an English Premier League Academy Manager, when implementing organisational change within an academy. Data were collected from a work-based diary and four in-depth semi-structured interviews. The notion of orchestration is used as an analytical frame to make sense of Simon’s experiences through the change process and further our understanding of the social complexities of organisational change in elite sporting environments

The micro-politics of organizational change in professional youth football: towards an understanding of the “professional self”

“…Part of a wider research project, the aim of the present study is to investigate the experiences of a professional coach during the process of organizational change within a professional football club. The project forms part of a nested case study of interrelated social actors, where each actor's story is analysed in rich detail as a coherent contextual narrative (Gibson & Groom, 2018a). Specifically, this study focuses on the coach's interpretations of the actions and behaviours of staff within the club during the process of change, and the subsequent impact of the change process on his selfunderstanding.…”

“…Specifically, the interactionist-interpretive methodology employed within the present study seeks to explore the interests, motives, and actions of the participant coach and the subsequent meanings that he attaches to his behaviours and the behaviours of others during the change process within his professional football club (Blumer, 1969). Such a perspective is adopted to increase our understanding of issues about which very little is known, such as coaches' experiences of organizational change in professional football (Gibson & Groom, 2018a, 2018bPotrac & Jones, 2009a;Potrac, Jones, Gilbourne & Nelson, 2013).…”

“…Professional football is typified by the increasingly polarizing financial funding structures of a small number of rich clubs and a large number of clubs that operate with scarce financial resources, which impacts the working lives of the individuals they employ and who rely on professional football as their primary source of financial income (Gibson & Groom, 2018a, 2018bGilmore & Gilson, 2007;Huggan et al, 2015;Roderick, 2006aRoderick, , 2006bRoderick, , 2014. Although professional football clubs are an important part of the social fabric of many societies, there are surprisingly few studies that examine the working conditions and experiences of employees within the professional clubs (Gibson & Groom, 2018a, 2018bGilmore & Gilson, 2007;Huggan, Nelson, & Potrac, 2015;Ogbonna & Harris, 2015;Roderick, 2006aRoderick, , 2006bRoderick & Schumacker, 2017). This is important, as Roderick (2006a) has highlighted that 'professional football is a form of entertainment work that is highly contingent in the sense of lacking long-term security and breeding a pervading sense of insecurity ' (p. 245).…”

“…Following each managerial departure, the coaching staff aligned with the manager also left their employment positions with the clubs. However, there is a paucity of research that explores the working lives of professional football coaches during periods of organizational change and, in particular, how coaches experience the process of organizational change (Gibson & Groom, 2018a, 2018b.…”

“…This work therefore offers rich and detailed narrative resources to support the education of those working within professional football and the impact of organizational change on individual day-to-day working practices, so that they are better able to see and act upon change (Gibson & Groom, 2018a, 2018b.…”