Subtexts of Research on Diversity in Sport Organizations: Queering Intersectional Perspectives

Abstract

A great deal of research focusing on organizational diversity has explored dynamics that exclude women and minorities from positions of leadership in sport organizations. The relatively little change in diversity in these positions suggests a need to employ ways of engaging in diversity research that do not center on identity categories and primarily focus on practices. Drawing on notions of subtexts and on queer theory, this critical narrative review aims to make visible and to question organizational practices and processes that may contribute to the diversity “problem” within sport organizations. A subtextual analysis of 32 articles published in leading sport management journals reveals how dynamics of organizational culture, such as an uncritical use of the concept of diversity, the invisibility of practices sustaining gender binaries and heteronormativity, and the intersection of heteronormativity and White normativity, contribute to sustaining the status quo in sport organizations. The authors build on these findings to challenge scholars to further explore and address these practices and processes in sport organizations and in their own research by employing queered intersectional approaches.

Guest editorial: Diversity, equity and inclusivity in sport marketing research

“…Equity, diversity and inclusion are framed as a valuable goal by sport organizations; however, most organizations fall short of achieving any meaningful progress on this goal and as evidenced by the papers in this special issue, there is much work to be done in sport marketing. As noted by Knoppers et al . (2021, p. 619), “unless scholars, managers, and policymakers recognize, address, and radically change how prevailing discursive practices in sport produce organizational cultures that are supported by gendered, racialized, and heteronormative subtexts”, EDI goals will remain empty promises and diversity focused marketing initiatives will continue to fail.…”

Introduction: why a Research Handbook on Gender and Diversity in Sport Management

“…A scholarly focus on the numbers of women who work in sport organizations and/ or develop sport policies has not produced a robust body of knowledge that has significantly added to understandings of why women continue to be excluded and organizations are so resistant to change. In addition to the phenomenological focus on individual experiences, some critics have called for a more explicit feminist research perspective that accounts for the way structural and socio-cultural practices and processes exclude many women from leadership in sport (e.g., Fink, 2016;Knoppers, McLachlan et al, 2022). The institutionalization of the doing of gender and diversity in sport organizations and the gendering of sport work is complex and, therefore, needs to go beyond a reliance on liberal feminist perspectives.…”