Denna studie undersöker hur idrottsföreningar använder symboler för att forma och upprätthålla en stark organisationskultur. Fryshuset Basket, som används som fallstudie, grundades av Anders Carlberg och är en basketförening som vill betona gemenskap, engagemang och strävan efter framgång. Studien lägger fokus på användningen av tre symbolkategorier: verbala, materiella och handlingar, samt hur dessa tre används och bidrar till att forma idrottsföreningens kultur. Genom genomförandet av intervjuer med både administrativ personal och utövare samlades data in om hur organisationskulturen upplevs inom föreningen och hur föreningen formar och behåller sin kultur. Den insamlade datan analyserades för att identifiera hur symbolkategorierna används för att förstärka föreningens kultur och identitet.
Analysen visar att genom användningen av de tre symbolkategorierna kan idrottsföreningar som Fryshuset Basket forma och behålla en stark organisationskultur. Slogans och uppmuntrade ord kommunicerar och förstärker föreningens värderingar, medan föreningslogga och utmärkelser fungerar som konstanta påminnelser om föreningens värderingar och identitet, och bidrar till att skapa en kollektiv identitet. Att uppmärksamma aktiviteter genom sociala medier och etablerade traditioner förstärker ytterligare föreningens känsla av samhörighet och inkludering. Fryshuset Basket använder aktivt dessa verktyg för att skapa en inkluderande och inspirerande organisationskultur där medlemmarna uttrycker att de känner sig värdefulla och delaktiga.
Studien bidrar med insikter om hur idrottsföreningar kan använda symboler för att skapa en gemensam identitet och stark organisationskultur, vilket kan vara värdefullt för andra föreningar och organisationer som strävar efter liknande mål.
Strong political neoliberal currents in Sweden are directing attention toward communities’ responsibility to address local issues, particularly in disadvantaged areas. In parallel, community sports clubs in Sweden have gained strong traction as being sites where social issues can be addressed. In Swedish disadvantaged areas, where infrastructure is of poor quality, these clubs can be an important addition to statutory interventions, but they need to be further explored in terms of strategic pathways and conditions. Community sports have only recently been conceptualized with Chaskin’s capacity-building concept. In this paper, I seek to further stimulate this line of inquiry. By using material from two interrelated projects with informants in the sports movement, I show how sports clubs use multiple strategies according to three of Chaskin’s proposed strategies: leadership development, organizational development, and inter-organizational collaboration. By outlining an empirically dense illustration, this paper contributes to the research on sports clubs and their role in the community and provides suggestions on how strategical assessments must include how associations develop strategies online.
Research Question: The war in Ukraine has forced approximately eight million people into neighboring European countries. As part of sports clubs’ societal commitment, many have received Ukrainian refugees. However, compared to previous so-called ‘refugee waves’, forced migration from Ukraine is different in terms of demographics, culture, and (sports) traditions. This paper aimed to assess these ‘new’ nuances and their implications for the European sports movement. Research Methods: Data were gathered through 17 semi-structured interviews with Swedish sports club representatives, analyzed with a critical realist-inspired thematic analysis, and interpreted with Bronfenbrenner’s process-person-context-time framework. Results and Findings: The representatives expressed that Ukrainian refugees are more in-tune with organized sports compared to other refugee populations; however, there are also culturally discrepant ideas about sports. Specifically, there seems to be an influx of skilled (youth) refugees, who approach sports in ways incompatible with Swedish conventions about youth sports. While the sporting capital often enables easier inclusion, it also presents challenges in extreme cases. Implications: The findings show that the European sports movement must be attentive to new challenges and opportunities associated with the current humanitarian crisis. Sports representatives need to balance culturally sensitive approaches with ethical considerations regarding youth sports.
This paper introduces a model that explains psychosocial development by embedding the developmental concept of rough-and-tumble play (RTP) into the contextual settings of martial arts (MA). Current sport-for-change literature relies on theories that address contextual factors surrounding sport but agrees that sport in itself does not facilitate developmental outcomes. In contemporary times where western societies invest substantial resources in sport programs for their psychosocial contribution, this becomes problematic. If the contextual factors surrounding sport are exclusively what produce developmental outcomes, what is the rationale for investing resources in sport specifically? We challenge this idea and argue that although contextual factors are important to any social phenomena, the developmental outcomes from sport can also be traced to the corporeal domain in sport. To date, we have lacked the theoretical lenses to articulate this. The developmental concept of RTP emphasizes how "play fighting" between consenting parties stimulates psychosocial growth through its demand for self-regulation and control when "play fighting" with peers. In short, RTP demands that individuals maintain a self-regulated mode of fighting and is contingent on a give-and-take relationship to maintain enjoyment. RTP can thus foster empathy and prosocial behavior and has strong social bonding implications. However, such play can also escalate. A fitting setting to be considered as moderated RTP is MA because of its resemblance to RTP, and its inherent philosophical features, which emphasizes self-regulation, empathy, and prosocial behavior. This paper outlines what constitutes high-quality RTP in a MA context and how this relates to developmental outcomes. By doing so, we present a practitioner's framework in which practitioners, social workers, and physical educators can explain how MA, and not merely contextual factors, contributes toward developmental outcomes. In a time where sport is becoming increasingly politicized and used as a social intervention, it too becomes imperative to account for why sport, and in this case, MA, is suitable to such ends.
The purpose of this study is to examine how the effects of commercialisation impact the management of sports organizations. Additionally, the study aims to investigate how sports organizations handle commercialisation to ensure a sustainable balance between the market logic and safe sports for children. Neo -institutional theory, and its various components, have been used as a theoretical lens to answer these research questions. The study was conducted using a deductive, qualitative method, and the questions for the semi-structured interviews were designed and analysed with the help of neo-institutional theory.
The results and analysis show that commercialisation primarily affects the management of sports organizations through increased professionalisation. To manage commercialisation and maintain a sustainable balance between market logic and safe sports for children, sports organizations work on educating employees, coaches, and parents. They establish guidelines and ensure compliance, focusing on a proactive approach to prevent infringement. Within the organizations, there is an ongoing dialogue to integrate these guidelines into the organization. The results also highlight the importance of understanding the individual needs of athletes so that sports activities can be conducted on their terms. A long-term perspective on sports participation is also emphasised as important for sustainability.
This study investigates empirically how natural snow depth affects the number of downhill skiers. Data include the number of skier visits for the 32 largest ski resorts in Sweden from the 1998/1999 to the 2018/2019 seasons. Results of spatial dynamic estimations show that an increase in natural snow depth in the ski area has a significant negative impact on the number of skier visits in the short term, although the magnitude is small. This implies that a snow deficit leads to increased demand for downhill skiing both directly and indirectly (in the neighbouring areas). The variable snow depth in the neighbouring ski areas is not significantly different from zero, indicating that no spatial substitution takes place. There is, however, a strong positive relationship between skier visits to neighbouring areas, revealing that ski resorts are complements rather than substitutes. The long-term influence of snow depth is not significant, implying that the ski business is independent of variations in snow depth. Instead, the number of skier visits is mainly determined by past visits, revealing a high degree of persistence.
The Swedish sports movement is a market in transition, people engaging in sports outside of the typical sports clubs have raised in popularity over the last years and private players have taken big steps forward. Economic new liberalism, where private players are more common have gained access to previous regulated markets due to deregulation.
The purpose of this study is to examine non-profit sports clubs ́ experience of competition from private players in the sports market. Furthermore, this study aims to examine how non-profit sports clubs are affected by the competition and how their organization handles it. This study has a qualitative approach and data has been collected through eight semi-structured interviews. The interviews were conducted through digital meetings or via telephone, due to the prevailing Covid-19 pandemic and the limitations it caused in physical meetings. Every respondent represented a sports club in the Stockholm area in different sports: soccer, ice hockey, swimming, and athletics.
The collected data were analyzed with takeoff from previous research regarding competition, new institutional theory, organization forms, and sector-bending. All clubs in the study are exposed to competition with private players. The sports experiencing the most competition are the soccer and ice hockey clubs who are once facing this issue much more compared to the athletics and swimming clubs. The competition that ice hockey and soccer face is primarily through holiday camps. In the athletics and swimming clubs, the competition is primarily regarding facilities and the fact that the municipality is an actor in the market as well. The effects caused by the private players ́ existence is that the clubs lose participants in their camps and that money outflows from the sports clubs to the private sector. To manage this the clubs work with quality development to become more competitive. The clubs’ day-to-day operations are not affected by the private players in this current situation, but that might change.
The aim of this chapter is to analyse changing gender and social class patterns in equestrian sports in Sweden and Great Britain during the twentieth century. One hundred years ago, equestrian sports were strongly connected to men and masculinity. Men worked together with and used horses in agriculture, forestry, in the transport sector and in the army. A real man was a ‘horse man’. In Sweden horse riding was connected to the army and to the upper class. In today’s Sweden equestrianism is strongly connected to women, girls and femininity on all levels. Furthermore, the contemporary equestrian sector is of great economic importance to the Swedish economy, and horse riding is popular and not only restricted to members of the upper class. Less is known about the development in Great Britain, despite the fact that Great Britain has since long been seen as a very important place for the development of equestrian sports. In order to understand the process of changing gender codes and the growth of the sector in Sweden and to explore and understand the development in Great Britain in the twentieth century, this chapter examines articles on the equestrian competitions of the Olympic Games in 1912, 1948, 1952, 1956 and 1964 in Swedish and British magazines.
Historically, sports in Sweden have been practiced either according to an amateur ideal for the purpose of combating ill-health or and in accordance with the athletes own sports interest. Since its establishment, sport has followed social development and adapted accordingly. When the amateur rule was removed in 1967, the sport underwent a change towards professionalization. It is primarily sports organizations that compete at the highest level and with a focus on team sports that have embraced this professionalization. The professionalization meant that employees in sports organizations were paid a salary and that the athletes could make money from their sports. Development in sport has since continued in line with society and commercialization has become a phenomenon as well as a lasting element that has taken over parts of the power in the sports world. This has created different cultural values in sports. We now talk about non-profit -, professional - and commercial sports. This study investigates whether these values can work together within an elite organization and what tensions may arise between them. The study is a qualitative case study in which three semi-structured interviews have been conducted. The analysis was based on Schein's organizational culture model, which focuses on the levels of artifacts, espoused beliefs and values and basic underlying assumptions. The result showed that organizational culture is shaped and integrated by the different cultural values.
Den svenska fotbollen har under de senaste åren genomgått en kommersialiseringsprocess som inte bara har inneburit ökade publiksiffror och engagemang utan även ökade intäkter, framför allt från Tv-rättigheter. I denna process har bolagiseringen av svensk idrott varit en viktig milstolpe, att föreningar kunde gå från att vara ideella föreningar till att bilda Idrotts AB gav den svenska idrotten en ny dimension. Detta har lett till att allsvenska klubbar idag oftast drivs på ett sätt som kan likställas med företag, de ekonomiska målen har fått en allt större plats hos klubbarna. I början av 2020 trädde ett nytt Tv-avtal i kraft för Allsvenskan som gav de allsvenska klubbarna en stor intäktsökning.
Syftet med denna studie är att få en ökad förståelse för hur de allsvenska klubbarnas ekonomi har förändrats med det nya Tv-avtalet. Detta genom att se till hur intäkts- och kostnadsstrukturer har påverkats och hur klubbarnas karaktäristiska drag ser ut idag. Studien undersöker de 10 klubbar som har spelat i Allsvenskan mellan åren 2018–2022 för att kunna göra jämförelser kring hur det såg ut innan och efter Tv-avtalets inträde. Då det finns en del forskning kring detta på internationella klubbar men knapphändig i en svensk kontext, ämnar studien bidra till forskningen om hur allsvenska klubbar mår ekonomiskt.
Med en kvantitativ metod som grund har data bestått av information hämtad från klubbarnas årsredovisningar och analysen har gjorts genom bivariat analys och jämförelser mellan år och klubbar. Studien visar att på att det nya Tv-avtalet har haft en stor påverkan på de allsvenska klubbarna, då de totala intäkterna i Allsvenskan har ökat. Andelen av de totala intäkterna som Tv-rättigheterna står för har ökat, och de klubbar med mindre eget kapital har dragit mest nytta av detta. Vidare har de extraordinära intäkterna sett den största procentuella ökningen för majoriteten av klubbarna och personalkostnader är den post vars andel har ökat mest bland kostnaderna. Samtidigt som de klubbar med mindre eget kapital har påverkats mest av Tv-avtalet är det tydligt att klubbarna med större eget kapital förlitar sig mycket på extraordinära intäkter för att sportsligt kunna utmana marknadsledaren Malmö FF.
This essay is a qualitative research study that investigates which cultural and sporting factors a sports agent should consider when recruiting a football player to international clubs. A sports agent is an administrative, advisory, and intermediary role in a football player's sporting career in order to provide optimal conditions within the recruiting clubs. This study has taken four parties into account in a recruitment process: the sports agent, the football player, the leaving club and the receiving club. The purpose of the study is to try to identify these cultural and sporting factors, as well as which ones may be crucial for a recruitment to succeed or not. The study uses four theoretical starting points that have been used to analyze the study's collected empirical data. These four are three of Hofstede's cultural dimensions, the AIDA model, the relationship spectrum, and balanced centricity (many-to-many marketing).The study is a comparative research study that compares different cases from five interviews and one case from a primary source, in the form of an autobiographical novel by the football player Martin Bengtsson, where the study's informants consisted of two sports agents, two football players, and a sports director from an Allsvenskan club. The results and analysis showed that certain actors within a recruitment process can operate within a dependent relationship, which, for example, means that a receiving club cannot carry out its work without football players. However, it also turned out that the sports agent is not a necessity in the recruitment process, but rather can serve as a helpful tool to facilitate the process, and if the sports agent is removed from the equation, the recruitment process can still function. Consequently, a sports agent needs to have a deep understanding of all the actors involved in order to take all information and different needs into account. The study attempts to demonstrate what a sports agent considers in a recruitment process, as well as other information that a sports agent needs to bear in mind in order to achieve mutual satisfaction among all parties.
As of January 1st, 2020, the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child was incorporated as a law in Sweden. This raises some questions about how it would influence and implicate the Swedish way of executing youth sports. Several media and experts in children's and youth sports have argued that using selective methods such as ranking or topping the team might not be in accordance with the convention. What the legislation entails and how the convention is taken into account in practice, however, seems to be largely dependent on how this is interpreted by those who are expected to implement it. The purpose of this study is therefore to gain insight into how children and youth coaches interpret the convention and its new status as a Swedish law. We also aim to understand how the coaches reflect on these selective methods from a children's rights perspective. The examination uses a phenomenological approach with qualitative semi structured interviews. The study's theoretical framework consists of three theories. We adopt the perspective of social constructionism to understand how coaches create meaning of the convention, institutional theory to understand how institutionalized logics and values can influence reflections and the theory of deviant conformity to understand how deviations from normative ideas and behaviors are understood and what they are based on. Some of the insights gained from the analysis were as follows: