Executive Summary
Corporate culture has a great influence on the effectiveness, performance, and success of organizations. Therefore, sports organizations that impact the society and economy in several ways need to be characterized based on their formal and informal culture. In this regard, the following report presents an analysis of the characteristics, manifestations, and significance of the organizational culture. The primary focus has been put on the influence of leaders on the culture as well as their effective role in aligning it with the specific needs of the modern sports environment.
Introduction
Sports play an essential role in improving society and the economy because sports organizations bring several benefits to millions (ICSA, 2018). However, like all other corporate organizations, sports organizations also face many challenges and crises. It needs them to adopt a strong culture and essential support in all kinds of circumstances (ICSA, 2018). Organizational culture is the assimilation of different beliefs, values, assumptions, norms, symbols, actions, and language patterns shared and protected by all members. This way, the culture provides an identity to the organization as well as its members in the light of interpretation and comprehension of such an acquired body of knowledge. Furthermore, this understanding of the culture directly influences the organization’s productivity, growth, learning, and innovation at all levels (Eskiler et al., 2016). Cultural assumptions also determine the scope of an organization according to which it set its objectives and goals.
Therefore, sports organizations need to establish a culture that helps them align their strategies with their desired objectives while promoting a specific set of values to evaluate their performance (ICSA, 2018). One can manifest itself in several ways by affecting the overall identity and success of the organization. For instance, if the organizational culture does not support the involvement of staff members in the decision-making, managers can adopt an autocratic style of leadership that hinders creativity and innovation, and thus, organizations can face high-profile failures which not only affect their progress but the sport as well (Henriksen, Storm and Larsen, 2017). According to Belzer (2015), the Arizona Diamondbacks provides the best example of organizational culture because it provided its employees tremendous opportunities to convey their ideas and feelings to the top monument and contribute to decision making.
In this regard, it is crucial to understand the different ways in which culture manifests itself, especially, in sport organizations, and why it important. The following report highlights the significance of organizational culture and presents an in-depth discussion on the culture itself and leaders’ influence on its norms.
Manifestation and Significance of Organizational Culture
Characteristics and Manifestations
Organizational culture is often referred to as an organization’s psychological assets. It is a historically determined, socially constructed, and very difficult to change. Furthermore, it contains several underlying and unquestioned assumptions that define the behaviors of the organizations. It also implies that the preferences and actions that most members of organizations make are not based on their individuals’ decisions but are also influenced by the organizational culture. Moreover, their behaviors are also determined by different norms, beliefs, values, and assumptions rather than being restrained by authority, formal rules, and the norms of rational behavior. This further signifies that the organization’s personality characterized by organizational culture should promote performance and motivation and not just focus on rewards and sanctions.
Identification
Culture is an entity that is very prominent and has a strong influence on the direction of sports organizations. To make the culture identification process convenient to understand, Schein (2010) highlights four elements of culture i.e., stability, breadth, depth, and integration. The “stability” is dominant when culture and all the associate values are permanent and extremely difficult to change or transform despite changes in the top management. According to Leung et al. (2005), the stability element makes the assimilation of new members very easy and quick in the organization. The Breadth factor relates to the presence of culture at all functional levels of the organization that also ensures group synergy. Similarly, when cultural values become embedded in all kinds of decisions disregard their conscious implementation, it leads to the depth of culture. Thus, this depth element also provides significant support in orienting new personnel effectively in the team. Finally, the integration element refers to the strong cohesion of values, behaviors, and rituals. All these elements together sustain and improve the strength of organizational culture.
Manifestations
There are many ways in which culture can manifest itself. The most observable yet indecipherable is the regularities in the behaviors of the members when they interact with others. Specific examples include the language they use, traditions, and customs they practice, and rituals that they employ in varying situations. Similarly, the values, broad policies, ideologies, and rules that organizations publicly announce follow them to achieve their desired goals are a manifestation of their culture. Moreover, the workplace policies that are generally informed to the team members and stakeholders outlines the characteristics of the culture. Organizational culture, especially in sports organizations, is also specified by physical layouts and the interaction procedures of the members, stakeholders, and outsiders among themselves. All of these factors are quite visible. However, culture can also manifest itself in several other ways that are hard to perceive by others. For example, habits of thinking, guide perceptions, mental models, shared symbols and meaning including ideas, images, and feelings. These are the less visible manifestations of culture.
Establishment
The establishment of culture within a sports organization is a very important step because it directly influences its strength. Therefore, to provide an effective tool for sports management, Schein (2010) has outlined six essential triggers. In this regard, first, it is the primary responsibility of individuals who can influence the direction of the organization and peer behavior either formally or informally to embrace the core values of the culture. Secondly, this influence needs to be strengthened through various formal and informal means. This is evident from the research study of Johnson et al. (2013) where they observed the strong placement of formal and informal leadership which contributed to the strong team culture and consequently the higher success rate of the team. The third factor is the response of leaders to different uncertain situations, crises, and challenges that organizations face in their way towards achieving their goals. For, Schein (2010), it is a great opportunity for leaders to demonstrate the importance of cultural values and upheld them to effectively address the challenging times. Next is the recruitment of new members in a very strict manner to ensure that the team’s desired values are embraced. Finally, the last factor is the reinforcement of cultural values by rewarding a suitable expression of the required culture.
Values
The cultural values are as important to comprehend as the establishment of the culture itself. These values are represented by most of the members of an organization. However, these values vary significantly from organization to organization as indicated by Cole and Martin (2018), the winning values for Barcelona are different from those of Bayern Munich. This factor is prominent in all kinds of organizations and not only in sport organization as Cole and Martin (2018) pointed out that the business values of Apple’s success are fundamentally different from those of Microsoft although they both serve the same needs of the consumers. However, it is also possible that these values are changed with time in reaction to different dynamic changes in the environment in which sports organizations work. Therefore, Cotterill (2013) observed that it is the constant presence of cultural values within organizations that helps them mark success consistently rather than what exactly they are.
Culture plays an essential role in the success of sports organizations. According to Schein (2010), culture is simulated with a specific set of values. They determine the individuals’ behavior and influence the desired outcomes positively or negatively. Therefore, the conscious understanding of culture is important to ensure its positive influence because the negative informal culture leads to excessive corruption at levels within an organization (Campbell and Göritz, 2013).
Leader’s Influence on Culture
The influence of leaders can be both formal and informal on an organization. The formal influence is expressed through legitimate power but the informal influence is very hard to identify and characterize. In this regard, Cole and Martin (2018) mention the standards for establishing somebody as the informal leader of the team. This includes harmony, liking coordination, and participation. Harmony is the extent of sincere efforts to which members actively play their roles in creating a positive environment while liking is the perception of members about each other regarding how much they are felt supportive. Coordination is the members’ efforts in organizing the group and finally, participation is the level of active engagement in hand-on tasks.
Thus, these criteria provide crucial support to rank the team member based on the quality and influence of their informal leadership that can further assist in the alignment of formal and informal leaders. Any misalignment of these potential influences can result in the ineffectiveness of the organizational culture risking the organization’s success. Therefore, Johnson et al. (2014) reported that the All Blacks enjoyed the most successful period of their history from 2004 to 2011 when the desires of formal and informal leaders were aligned perfectly.
The structure of leadership is also an important component of an organization’s culture. Cosh, Fu, and Hughes (2010) in their study of investigating the effectiveness of the culture of organizational reported that the flat structure of leadership has been a promising factor for an organization’s better performance and consistent success in England. Furthermore, organizations that intentionally adopt a flat structure have a greater ability to innovate because of decentralized decision making which allows team members to contribute as effectively and actively as the top management. In this regard, Cole and Martin (2018) claimed that the informal collective leadership and flat hierarchy were the most prominent factors behind the successful season of The Turbos in 2014.
However, leadership style is another factor for the conscious influence of culture. Players are always satisfied and determined to work under a coach who exhibits transformational leadership (Ibarra and Scoular, 2019). This is also supported by the findings of the empirical survey of Obgonna and Harris (2000), where they concluded that the leadership style is a central factor for influencing culture in the corporate organizations in the UK, while transformational leadership was found to be the strongest element for their success. The similar results about the effectiveness of transformational leadership as compared to autocratic, democratic, and situational are reported by Cole and Martin (2018) when they investigated the underlying factors behind the success rate of The Turbos.
It is very significant to deliberate the components and values of a particular culture before attempts are made to establish it. Moreover, informal and formal leaders have a great influence on culture and thus it is crucial to align them with the most appropriate perspective about culture. It is further very well-investigated that the flat structure of leadership is an effective way to establish culture because it promotes collective leadership (Frontiera, 2009). Similarly, the transformational style of leadership is perceived as the most appropriate style to influence, transform, and establish the organizational culture.
Significance
According to Marcu and Buhaş (2014), the sports phenomenon is a very systematized activity that is performed to achieve certain socio-professional objectives in the sports area. In the view of management, sport is an evolutionary part of modern life which is structured on a particular material basis, systems, theoretical principles, laws, and national as well international authorities and organizations which are aimed to develop and enhance the emotional, material, and biological aspects of the sports’ participants and practitioners (Marcu and Buhaş, 2014).
Culture holds great importance in sports’ organizations as it is the primary formula that ensures their success and survival when members of the organizations accept and adopt a certain set of cultural values (GONZÁLEZ, 2020). These values are also the source of a unique identity for the organizations that differentiate them from each other. Therefore, Colyer (2000) has reportedly said that the organizational culture values have a great influence on the performance ability of the organization and strongly affect its effectiveness. Furthermore, highlighting the importance of the organizational culture in Australian sports organizations he stated that cultural values not only influence the type and quality of the services that they provide but also predetermine them and thus control their success and working environment.
Another factor that makes sports organizations different from other corporate organizations is the active participation of volunteers who work side by side with the paid employees. this also makes it important to understand the culture of sports organizations that promote the harmony and mutual collaboration of staff members, volunteers, players, and sport management (Colyer, 2000). Therefore, to identify the organizational culture, Colyer (2000) describes its three levels i.e., artifacts which are the observable and superficial aspects such as the rituals, technology, stories, and physical features like team colors, songs, logos, etc.; values which are characterized by the formal and informal behavior of the members and finally the philosophy and underlying assumptions of the organization which regulates the behavior patterns.
Therefore, analyzing the organizational culture becomes a crucial step in measuring the performance and effectiveness of the sports organizations as well as recommend changes to sustain their consistent development and innovation (Eskiler et al., 2016). Moreover, the prior understanding of the organization, as Megheirkouni (2017) highlighted, is very important for leaders in sports organizations to effectively address the challenges which many organizations are facing in the 21st century to maintain a high level of performance in rapidly and constantly changing sports environment.
For Maitland, Hills, and Rhind (2015), the organizational culture manifests itself in everyday vernacular in a sport which tends to reinforce the understanding of the common management organizational problems and explains the coaching behavior and has a direct influence on coaches, players, and members.
Recommendations and Conclusions
Organizational culture plays a very significant part in the sustainability and accomplishment of the organizations because it has a direct influence on the organizations’ objectives and goals, its members’ behaviors and attitudes, and overall performance and effectiveness of the organization (Williams, 2019). Therefore, sport managers and leaders need to comprehend the underlying values, rituals, ideologies, and assumptions that identify and differentiate the organizational culture. These also provide them a helping scale to analyze the performance of the organization and compare it with that of their competitors to propose future strategies accordingly. However, as much as the identification of the culture is important, the ways it is created and manifested is also significant to understand. In fact, the organizational culture influences all the activities, and even the thinking process of the members who are attached to the sports organizations by any means. This includes coaches, staff members, players, and volunteers who are an integral part of such organizations.
In this regard, the following report has analyzed the creation, establishment, and transformation of sport organizational culture in the perspective of its manifestations in the organizations’ core ideologies and the behaviors of its members. It has been further investigated that a specific set of values are fundamentally required for any sports organization that supports diversity to sustain an effective work environment (Jervis, 2012). The most prominent factor in this regard is the role of leaders who provide their expert services for the consistent development of the organizations at all levels. Furthermore, by providing examples of successful sports organizations, it is inferred that the transformational leadership style is considered as the most appropriate style for managers to adopt for creating a collaborative environment. Because under such leadership, employees, players, and staff members feel very satisfied and motivated to share their ideas regarding a particular aspect of the organization and this contributes to the effectiveness and creativity.
However, considering the predominant challenges that have emerged due to globalization and digitalization, the existing organizational culture in all sports organizations is not sustainable enough to meet all the current requirements. Therefore, as described in the report, managers and leaders need to constantly focus on the particular conditions of the dynamic sports environment and change cultural values, and innovate the existing models accordingly. For instance, as indicated by Smith, (2016) the recent developments in information technology require sport management to incorporate relevant digital technologies in their training, communication, and marketing strategies to attain a competitive advantage.
References
Belzer, J. (2015). The Best Organizations To Work For In Sports. [online] Forbes. Available at: https://www.forbes.com/sites/jasonbelzer/2015/03/02/the-best-organizations-to-work-for-in-sports/?sh=21e30ce37b81 [Accessed 24 Dec. 2020].
Campbell, J.-L. and Göritz, A.S. (2013). Culture Corrupts! A Qualitative Study of Organizational Culture in Corrupt Organizations. Journal of Business Ethics, 120(3), pp.291–311.
Cole, J. and Martin, A.J. (2018). Developing a winning sport team culture: organizational culture in theory and practice. Sport in Society, 21(8), pp.1204–1222.
Colyer, S. (2000). Organizational Culture in Selected Western Australian Sport Organizations. Journal of Sport Management, 14(4), pp.321–341.
Cosh, A., Fu, X. and Hughes, A. (2010). Organisation structure and innovation performance in different environments. Small Business Economics, [online] 39(2), pp.301–317. Available at: https://link.springer.com/content/pdf/10.1007%2Fs11187-010-9304-5.pdf.
Cotterill, S. (2013). Team psychology in sports : theory and practice. London: Routledge.
Edgar Henry Schein (2010). Organizational culture and leadership. 4th ed. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.
Eskiler, E., Ekici, S., Soyer, F. and Sari, I. (2016). The Relationship between Organizational Culture and Innovative Work Behavior for Sports Services in Tourism Enterprises. Physical Culture and Sport. Studies and Research, 69(1), pp.53–64.
Frontiera, J. (2009). Leadership and Organizational Culture Transformation in Professional Sport. Journal of Leadership & Organizational Studies, 17(1), pp.71–86.
GONZÁLEZ, P. (2020). EU sports diplomacy: the role of organisational culture. [online] Sport et citoyenneté. Available at: https://www.sportetcitoyennete.com/en/member-access-2/eu-sports-diplomacy-the-role-of-organisational-culture [Accessed 24 Dec. 2020].
Henriksen, K., Storm, L.K. and Larsen, C.H. (2017). Organisational culture and influence on developing athletes. Sport Psychology for Young Athletes, pp.216–227.
Ibarra, H. and Scoular, A. (2019). The Leader as Coach. [online] Harvard Business Review. Available at: https://hbr.org/2019/11/the-leader-as-coach.
ICSA (2018). Organisational culture in sport: Assessing and improving attitudes and behaviour. [online] The Institute of Chartered Secretaries and Administrators. Available at: https://www.icsa.org.uk/assets/files/policy/research/Organisational-culture-in-sport.pdf [Accessed 24 Dec. 2020].
Jervis, J. (2012). The importance of promoting diversity in sport. The Guardian. [online] 10 May. Available at: https://www.theguardian.com/careers/diversity-in-sport.
Johnson, T., Martin, A., Geoff Watson, Palmer, F., R Hugh Morton and Butcher, M. (2014). Legends in black : New Zealand rugby greats on why we win. Auckland, New Zealand: Penguin Books.
Johnson, T., Martin, A.J., Palmer, F.R., Watson, G. and Ramsey, P. (2013). A Core Value of Pride in Winning: The All Blacks’ Team Culture and Legacy. The International Journal of Sport and Society, 4(1), pp.1–14.
Leung, K., Bhagat, R.S., Buchan, N.R., Erez, M. and Gibson, C.B. (2005). Culture and international business: recent advances and their implications for future research. Journal of International Business Studies, [online] 36(4), pp.357–378. Available at: http://iew3.technion.ac.il/~merez/papers/jibs_culture_Intern_B.pdf.
Maitland, A., Hills, L.A. and Rhind, D.J. (2015). Organisational culture in sport – A systematic review. Sport Management Review, 18(4), pp.501–516.
Marcu, V. and Buhaş, S.D. (2014). Sports Organizations – Management and Science. Procedia – Social and Behavioral Sciences, 117, pp.678–682.
Megheirkouni, M. (2017). Leadership styles and organizational learning in UK for-profit and non-profit sports organizations. International Journal of Organizational Analysis, 25(4), pp.596–612.
Ogbonna, E. and Harris, L.C. (2000). Leadership style, organizational culture and performance: empirical evidence from UK companies. The International Journal of Human Resource Management, 11(4), pp.766–788.
Smith, N.K. (2016). How Rio Olympics athletes are using tech to win medals. BBC News. [online] 28 Jul. Available at: https://www.bbc.com/news/business-36854284 [Accessed 24 Dec. 2020].
Williams, D. (2019). How leadership can affect organizational culture | Lead Read Today. [online] Lead Read Today | Fisher College of Business. Available at: https://fisher.osu.edu/blogs/leadreadtoday/blog/how-leadership-can-affect-organizational-culture [Accessed 24 Dec. 2020].
