Gendered Managerial Discourses in Sport Organizations: Multiplicity and Complexity

Abstract

The lack of women in senior management functions in sport may in part be attributed to dominant discursive managerial practices in sport organizations. The purpose of this study is to explore ways in which the discourses and their subtexts used by directors of Dutch national sport organizations to talk about their work, sustain homologous reproduction. Close reading of the transcripts of interviews by both researchers followed by a continuous cycle of data reduction and verification and researcher agreement enabled four dominant discursive themes to emerge. We show how an overlap of various discursive practices related to instrumentality, relationality, emotionality/passion and homogeneity strengthen the gendered nature of senior managerial work in large sport organizations.

Barriers to women’s access to decision-making positions in sport organizations: the case of establishing a girls’ volleyball academy in Israel

“…Sport organizations often promote traditional gender roles, and male privilege and dominance (Claringbould & Knoppers, 2007;Knoppers & Anthonissen 2008). Therefore, it is not surprising that women are still under-represented in leadership positions and marginalized in the sport workplace (Acosta & Carpenter, 2006).…”

“…The tendency of men to occupy influential positions in sport organizations is natural and mostly unquestioningly accepted (e.g., Knoppers and Anthonissen 2008;Pfister 2006). Several researchers observed that senior management roles are heavily dominated by masculine discourse (e.g., Shaw and Frisby 2006).…”

Discursive managerial practices of diversity and homogeneity

“…Sports organizations at the national level are only partially funded by the state and more often through lottery funding. In previous work based on the larger project, we explored connections between constructions of managerial work and masculinities (Knoppers and Anthonissen 2005), the gendering of discourses about managerial work in sports organizations (Knoppers and Anthonissen 2008), and how managers in nonprofit organizations construct a relationship between their history of involvement with sport and managerial skills (Knoppers 2011). We attempted to collect data from a heterogeneous population.…”

Gendered Identities in Self-Descriptions of Electoral Candidates in a French National Sport Federation

“…This discourse can be congruent with an approach to human resource management in which managers see them as acting in the best interests of the organisation by adopting communication skills (Kerfoot & Knights, 1998;Knoppers & Anthonissen, 2008). Wacjman (1998), who studied male and female managers in five multinational companies, found that the emphasis on interaction abilities has meant that male managers have added these skills to their repertoire so that women are not really needed to contribute these skills to organisations.…”

“…This passion must not be disordered, however, but be controlled. This emphasis on control would allow the use of this discursive practice to be associated with masculinities instead of femininities (Knoppers & Anthonissen, 2008).…”