This paper explores the professionalisation and performance aspects of Airbnb hosts in rural regions in Denmark, Iceland, and Norway. More specifically, based upon the professionalisation of hosts, ...which represents a proxy for the scale of their entrepreneurial engagement, the host landscape in the rural regions is investigated, resulting in different host profiles, including individual single- and multiple-listing hosts, and small and large tourism companies. The paper subsequently estimates the service quality performance of Airbnb hosts in relation to their professionalisation in rural regions through a u-shaped relationship, with the professionalisation influencing the performance evaluation of the hosts by the users. This twofold empirical analysis amends the extant literature, as it provides both a more nuanced and more comprehensive description of the nature and scale of Airbnb host engagement in rural regions, and points to the vast entrepreneurial opportunities for private households and companies on the platform.
•Airbnb hosts in rural regions attract new travellers and amend a “thin” accommodation infrastructure.•This paper explores Airbnb host profiles in rural regions through a professionalisation-performance relationship.•The study finds multiple host profiles: individual (single- and multiple-listing) and commercial hosts (small and large tourist companies).•Individual hosts are important for a high service quality for Airbnb guests in rural regions, commercial hosts receive lower performance values by guests.•The different profiles point to various opportunities for private households and local businesses on Airbnb in rural regions.
Sports clubs in semi-professional team sports professionalise their management particularly often due to expectations from internal and external stakeholders. Likely, they separate their elite ...section from other sections at some point during their professionalisation process. Promoting factors are the entrepreneurial risks and the high use of resources of the elite section. However, there are different approaches regarding the legal form of the separated elite section. While some sports clubs organise the elite section as a separated club, others choose a profit oriented legal form, like a limited liability company (LLC) or a stock company. Here, the following question arises: What are the consequences of the varying approaches for the governance of the sports clubs?
Nagel et al. (2015) use a multi-level framework for the analysis of professionalisation in sports federations, which can be similarly used to analyse professionalisation processes in sports clubs. The framework shows, that professionalisation forms can lead to positive and negative consequences, such as changes in the governance structures. However, the chosen legal form and its (non) profit orientation leaves room for club-specific governance structures (Lang et al., 2019).
This study is part of an international project on professionalisation processes of sports clubs. The research design is a case study design. It analyses two Swiss sports clubs that engage in a men’s semi-professional team sports league. Both sport clubs separated their elite and amateur sections. The volleyball club organised the elite section as a member association, just like the amateur section. The handball club chose a LLC for their elite section. Data collection consisted of three parts: documentary analysis, expert interviews with decision-makers and focus groups with club members. The data was analysed using causation coding and visualisation strategies.
The results show, that the elite section of the volleyball club employed a full-time paid CEO, while the management of the handball club’s LLC relied exclusively on voluntary work. This might be explained by more financial resources of and higher demands on the international playing volleyball club. For both sports clubs, a decreasing identification of the amateur section with the elite section was a challenge at the beginning of the separation. Although both clubs believe that they have overcome this challenge thanks to joint events, the recruitment of volunteers for the elite sports is still a challenge.
In conclusion, the professionalisation processes and the separation of elite and amateur sports led to changes in the governance of the sports clubs. However, the assumption that profit oriented legal forms tend to employ more paid staff could not be confirmed. Future research is needed to challenge these findings and to discover further approaches of governance structures.
References
Lang, G., Ströbel, T., & Nagel, S. (2019). Professionalization forms in mixed sport industries: is it time to rethink the stereotypes of non-profit and for-profit sport organizations? Managing Sport and Leisure, 24(4), 208-225. https://doi.org/10.1080/23750472.2019.1611470
Nagel, S., Schlesinger, T., Bayle, E., & Giauque, D. (2015). Professionalisation of sport federations: A multi-level framework for analysing forms, causes and consequences. European Sport Management Quarterly, 15(4), 407-433. https://doi.org/10.1080/16184742.2015.1062990
Whereas literature on non-profit sport organisations highlights a trend towards increased professionalization due to systemic expectations and pressure (Klenk et al., 2017), non-profit sport clubs ...still struggle with peculiar challenges related to the development their activities. They exist and develop thanks to an important contribution of voluntary staff driven by intrinsic motivation factors. Compared to for-profit companies or national sport governing bodies (NSGBs), they hardly rely on a competitive budget and they face financial vulnerability (Cordery et al., 2018). For instance, the mean budget for non-profit sport clubs in Switzerland is approx. CHF 60’000 (Lamprecht et al., 2017) whereas the budget of the umbrella federation, Swiss Olympic is approx. CHF 70 million (Swiss Olympic, 2019) and the mean budget of the affiliated NSGBs is approx. CHF 10 million (Kempf et al., 2019). Their capacity to respond to systemic pressure by resource acquisition and retention is limited.
The good governance narrative emerged in the late1980s with the reform of the corporate and public sectors as a cure for mismanagement and unethical behaviour. In the field of sport, the concept became popular in the aftermath of corruption scandals in large international sport organisations and has led the creation of complex and demanding standards (Chappelet & Mrkonjic, 2019). To date, non-profit sport clubs are rather immune to good governance expectations and only a handful of initiatives that focus on the preservation of their social and economic impact address the topic (see Kirkeby, 2016). A reflection on their capabilities to effectively implement standards such as democracy or accountability is missing. This contribution investigates good governance and professionalization of non-profit sport clubs from a theoretical perspective. Starting with the hypothesis that non-profit sport clubs struggle to respond to systemic pressure because they lack resources and that acquiring and maintaining new resources is costly, this contribution builds on strategic management and resource dependency theory to analyse the challenges related to the implementation of good governance standards and develops strategic responses.
References
Chappelet, J. L. & Mrkonjic, M. (2019). Assessing sport governance principles and indicators. In M. Winand & C. Anagnostopoulos (Eds), Research Handbook on Sport Governance (pp. 10-28). Edward Elgar.
Cordery, C. J., Sim, D. & Baskerville, R. F. (2018). Financial vulnerability in football clubs: Learning from resource dependency and club theories. Third Sector Review, 24(1), 49-70.
Kempf, H., Weber, A. Ch., Zurmühle, C., Bosshard, B., Mrkonjic, M., Weber, A., Pillet, F., & Sutter, S. (2021). Leistungssport Schweiz – Momentaufnahme SPLISS-CH 2019 Unpublished raw data. Bundesamt für Sport BASPO.
Kirkeby, M. (2016). Challenges and approaches to ensuring good governance in grassroots sport. In Transparency International (Ed.). Global Corruption Report: Sport (pp. 121-127). Routledge.
Klenk, C., Egli, B., & Schlesinger, T. (2017). Exploring how voluntary sports clubs implement external advisory inputs. Managing Sport and Leisure, 22(1), 70-90. https://doi.org/10.1080/23750472.2017.1386587
Lamprecht, M., Bürgi, R., Gebert, A., & Stamm, H. P. (2017). Sportvereine in der Schweiz: Entwicklungen, Herausforderungen und Perspektiven. Bundesamt für Sport BASPO.
Swiss Olympic. Budget 2019. https://www.swissolympic.ch/dam/jcr:274b8641-bb33-4296-bba0-133114146d96/Budget_2019_DE.pdf
Sports clubs in different levels of professionalisation show different organisational problems (Lang et al., 2022). At the same time, one part of the key responsibilities of sports federations as ...umbrella organisations is the needs-based support of voluntary sports clubs (VSC) as their members. However, different professionalisation levels and heterogeneous organisational problems of member clubs are increasingly challenging the design of appropriate service offerings by sports federations. Thus, services provided by sports federations should be adapted in relation to the expectations and needs of its member clubs. In this way sports clubs also effects with their expectations developments within sports federations to optimise their supporting services in a more targeted manner.
This study addresses these challenges by analysing VSCs’ expectations and identify distinct expectation types. The empirical study was carried out in a regional sports federation in tennis, the Bavarian Tennis Federation (BTV). This leads to the research questions: What expectations do VSCs as members generally address to the BTV? To what extent can VSCs be classified in terms of their expectations regarding BTV services?
To address these expectations, the performance measurement literature provides a fruitful theoretical frame. In order to base appropriate performance parameters, stakeholders’ expectations need to be identified ex ante (Bayle & Madella, 2002). In the literature it is consensus that measuring the performance of sports federations requires a multidimensional approach (e.g., Winand et al., 2010).
To analyse expectations of VSCs an online survey was conducted. Access to the survey was given to BTV member club representatives in a leadership position. For operationalisation, an exploratory factor analysis was performed, which shows the best solution with six reliable factors. The identified factors were used for Ward’s hierarchy cluster analysis with squared Euclidean distances. The analysis showed that an optimal cluster solution can be determined with four clusters. Based on the z-standardised factor values the identified clusters were labelled as follows: (1) “People developer” (n = 57, 32%); (2) “Mass sports clubs” (n = 39, 22%); (3) “Self-governmenters” (n = 40, 23%) and (4) “High expecting communicators” (n = 41, 23%). For validation, the extracted clusters are also reflected by other characteristics of the organisations.
The findings reveal that there are heterogeneous expectations of VSCs that need to be addressed more individually by sport federations. The extracted types provide a first empirical step to identify different expectation schemes. These schemes enable managers of sports federations to professionalise their service offer portfolio and at the same time, to design targeted services to contribute to the development and professionalisation of sports clubs.
References
Bayle, E., & Madella, A. (2002). Development of a taxonomy of performance for national sport organizations. European Journal of Sport Science, 2(2), 1–21. https://doi.org/10.1080/17461390200072205
Lang, G., Piller, S., Schmid, J., Lamprecht, M., & Nagel, S. (2022). Professionalization and organizational problems of sports clubs: Is there a relationship? Current Issues in Sport Science, 7, Article 004. https://doi.org/10.36950/2022ciss004
Winand, M., Zintz, T., Bayle, E., & Robinson, L. (2010). Organizational performance of Olympic sport governing bodies: Dealing with measurement and priorities. Managing Leisure, 15(4), 279–307. https://doi.org/10.1080/13606719.2010.508672
Professionalisation of sports clubs Klenk, Christoffer; Lang, Markus; Schwizer, Dominik
Current Issues in Sport Science,
02/2023, Letnik:
8, Številka:
2
Journal Article
Recenzirano
Odprti dostop
Sports clubs play a crucial role as they promote (elite) sport and physical activity and fulfill important societal functions. At the same time, sports clubs are confronted with manifold challenges ...related to developments in society and sport. Therefore, sports clubs tend to professionalise, a process by which sports clubs transform from volunteer-driven to increasingly business-like organisations (e.g., implement paid work, use management tools, restructure their club) to address these problems. In this symposium - an initiative of the Research Network in Sportmanagement Switzerland - the phenomena of professionalisation will be addressed from multiple perspectives by discussing the triggering causes, the transformative process, and the corresponding consequences with the overall objective of getting a more comprehensive understanding of professionalisation in sports clubs. Mrkonjic addresses good governance and professionalisation of non-profit sport clubs and Stieger et al. analyse professionalisation and its consequences for the governance of sports clubs in semi-professional team sports. Mustafi et al. focus on the transfer market for non-big five soccer clubs of Swiss Super League and Schulz et al. examine expectations of voluntary sports clubs with regard to support services of sports federations.
Introduction
The objective of this research is to study the strategies of Swiss first division clubs in the transfer market. In a context where the revenues of the big 5 clubs (before Covid-19) keep ...increasing (especially TV rights), the weak financial capacities of the non-big 5 clubs, especially in terms of their low revenues from media rights, push them to devise different strategies. Given the profiles of the clubs, how do they organise their strategy on the transfer market - T - (purchase-sale)? We seek to answer the following questions: What is the importance of transfers on the economic model of Swiss first division clubs? What share of their budget do they represent?
Methods
Market purchases/sales (from 2015 to 2020) define our T (Transfers). We therefore seek to understand the strategy of Swiss clubs in the transfer market from a purely economic point of view (we do not take into account the sporting aspect) and to see what profits Swiss clubs make thanks to T. We then compare, season by season and club by club, the results obtained on the transfer market in relation to the clubs’ budget. We supplement this quantitative data with qualitative interviews with scouting managers from 8 Super League clubs in order to understand the professionalization of Swiss clubs in this area. We carried out an empirical data processing - k-means - to propose a typology of the 12 Super League clubs according to their role in the transfer market and the importance of the T compared to their budget.
Results
Cluster 1 - The low importance of T: The T represents a very small part of the clubs’ budget in this cluster. Transfers have a very low importance here.
Cluster 2 - Singularity of FC Basel: FC Basel is alone in this cluster with sales and purchases well above the other clubs.
Cluster 3 - Confirmed importance of the T on sales: Clubs in this cluster are close to the cluster number 2. Sales are here very important for clubs.
Cluster 4 - A balance of the T between purchases and sales: The purchases and sales are balanced. Clubs in this cluster sell and spend just as much to strengthen themselves.
Discussion - Conclusion
We can see that when a team succeeds in establishing itself in the Super League with stable revenues, it can hope to make purchases on the transfer market thanks to sponsorship or ticketing, which allow it to increase its budget. And when a team manages to qualify for European competitions, its strategy can be diversified and we can see teams making more substantial purchases. Moreover a club can move from one cluster to another quickly. The professionalisation of the scouting of young players also plays a very big role and the resources and professional skills of each club in this area can be very important.
The article traces social work’s development in Israel’s Palestinian society from 2007 until a reform of the welfare bureaus in 2018, based on primary and secondary written sources, interviews with ...Palestinian social workers employed at the time, and a survey of social workers throughout the country’s Palestinian local authorities. Despite gains, social work in this society continued to face historical government-based obstacles to its professionalisation, namely, significantly reduced resources compared to its Jewish counterpart, absence of the Palestinian narrative in service provision and lack of Palestinian representation in policy formulation. The result was a continuing dual welfare system: one for the country’s Jewish citizens; and a significantly more restricted one for their Palestinian compatriots.
While many scholars have postulated the decline of membership influence as an important consequence of the professionalisation of civil society organisations (CSOs), other analysts have argued that ...traditional membership-driven CSOs are resilient and that hiring professionals does not necessarily diminish membership influence. This study sheds light on this issue by analysing membership influence in a representative sample of approximately 2000 CSOs from five European countries and the European level. As members generally have a strong influence on CSOs’ policy positions, our analysis demonstrates that the pessimistic tone in much contemporary scholarly work is largely unwarranted. On the contrary, hiring professionals does not invariably decrease membership influence and can, when members are closely engaged in advocacy work, even facilitate it.
Abstract
The future of social work preoccupies scholars and educators in the field, with consideration periodically extending beyond ‘trends’ to the fundamental question of whether social work per se ...even has a future. A recurring theme in these debates concerns social work’s professional project, and whether professionalisation enhances or undermines social work’s values and aims. Whilst contributing to the conceptual articulation of a social work habitus, few of these contributions are informed by the views of practitioners in the field. This article analyses 122 practitioners’ perspectives on current issues for social work, through data taken from a survey conducted in Victoria, Australia in 2018. Practitioners’ perspectives are analysed in relation to the theoretical construct of professional capital. In contrast to modernist interpretations of professionalisation-as-status typical of polemical works, a professional capital perspective construes social work’s professional project as a legitimation strategy, the primary aim of which is to secure recognition of the unique view of the social world which informs social work practice. From that perspective, arguments against professionalisation misrecognise the role professionalisation plays in securing social work’s future, unwittingly placing its future in jeopardy.
To date no studies have conceptualised women's professional football as work. In 2011, the inception of the FA Women's Super League (FA WSL), created the opportunity for football as work for elite ...women footballers in England, in an occupational field tied historically to a highly masculinist and thus, gender-exclusive culture. Consequently, research exploring the impact of professionalisation and perspectives of professional women footballers is sparse. This research explores the lived realities of professional women footballers in England.
30 semi-structured interviews with professional women footballers currently competing in the FA WSL were undertaken. This research project adopts an interpretative qualitative approach, data were analysed thematically.
Data revealed that employment conditions of women have created both insecure, precarious work, and non-work conditions. Drawing on the thinking tools of Pierre Bourdieu data demonstrates precarity is increased based on gender, as women's football suffers from material resource inequality.
The findings provide empirical evidence that professionalisation is not is not necessarily a linear, or even beneficial process to women footballers, offering a counterargument to the evolutionary narrative that underpins discussions around gender equality and women's sport. Further evidencing consequences of precarious work and the experiences of professional footballers in their new occupation. The exegesis is to encourage researchers to consider the impact of professionalisation if we are to more adequately understand the complex lives of professional women footballers.
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