National sport organization governance design archetypes for the twenty-first century

Research question: This paper revisits our knowledge of sport organization governance design archetypes. To do so, we focus on Canadian national sport organizations (NSOs) and pose three research questions: (1) what governance design archetypes exist based on the use of more contemporary criteria; (2) how easily can an NSO’s archetype be determined; and (3) what are the implications of these new archetypes for researchers and practitioners? Research methods: We undertook a landscape study of 32 Canadian NSOs with data from an online survey, publicly-available information, and clarification calls. Archetypes were derived from 47 organizational and governance characteristics using a k-means cluster analysis. Results and Findings: Our empirically-derived archetype design taxonomy showed the best fit to be four clusters (Board-led, Executive-led, Professional, and Corporate) based on key organizational values, complexity, capacity, revenue sources, and governance variables. Implications: Besides knowing NSOs are more heterogenous than in the past, researchers and practitioners can use capacity, efficiency, horizontal differentiation, broadcast revenue, political accountability, and social media information to derive an NSO’s governance archetype. These findings imply researchers can (1) examine non-profit sport organizations’ changes over time based on a set of archetypes reflecting contemporary realities, and (2) compare and contrast NSOs’ governance more holistically. In turn, managers can better compare their NSO with other NSOs to optimize their organization’s performance. Finally, national sport agencies/funders should support NSOs’ governance improvement efforts through flexible guidelines and resources because of NSOs’ governance heterogeneity.