Complexity of governance structures: Taxonomy of governance structure models used by Czech national sport organizations

Abstract

Most of the research on nonprofit governance is predominantly focused on board while the complexity of governance structure is overlooked. This study examines governance structure models of Czech national sport organizations (NSOs) as a representative of nonprofit sector. Qualitative research design was employed and document analysis was conducted. Results reveal substantially higher diversity in complexity in governance structure of NSOs in comparison to literature and the results lead to development of taxonomy of governance models of NSOs. Two grounds of the diversity were analysed. First, governance structure models are influenced by continental (two-tier) corporate governance model and Anglo-Saxon (one-tier) governance model. Second, governance structure models vary in number of electoral levels between an individual member and an NSO general meeting. The developed models are discussed and links to structural variables analysed.

Types of professionalization

“…An extensive review of the literature and documents of national sport organizations, based on the concept of organizational design archetypes by Greenwood and Hinings (1988), revealed three specific design archetypes: the kitchen table design archetype, the boardroom design archetype, and the executive office design archetype. Several researchers have applied Kikulis et al's (1992) types to analyze change types (Kikulis et al, 1995;Slack and Hinings, 1994) and strategic change (Amis et al, 2004) or to legitimize their studies, for example, on governance structures (Král, 2014) or organizational performance (Bayle and Robinson, 2007). Kikulis et al's (1992) types are broadly analyzed and insightfully described.…”