Managing Cultural Change in Sport Organisations

Citation

McDougall M (2025) Managing Cultural Change in Sport Organisations. In: Girginov V & Girginova K (eds.) Handbook on Sport and Culture. Cheltenham: Edward Elgar. https://www.e-elgar.com/shop/gbp/handbook-on-sport-and-culture-9781035339976.html?srsltid=AfmBOop0GEbpxioXr9r8RhBcMXZImGAtxig2Pj_c7z2Z2v0B8eO4BnQt

Abstract
The brief of this chapter was to focus on the management of cultural change by looking at how change comes about and whether cultural norms and values can actually be changed. These considerations are placed within the tracing of pro-management positions in sport to generally unacknowledged moorings in structural functionalism, a tradition that when fused to subsequent management iterations of it, provides an enduring template for a casual acceptance of the manageability of cultural change. The mainstays of structural functionalism (coherence and stability; internalized values learned and enacted through socialization) are unpacked and challenged by four longstanding and related critiques: 1) the illusion of stability, 2) lack of attention to power, 3) lack of attention to agency, 4) and an inability to describe cultural change. The challenges make the case that organizational sport scholars overestimate both their ability to describe cultural change and to manage it.

Keywords
Organizational Culture; Normativity; Values; Structural Functionalism; Talcott Parsons; Agency