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Christiaan Jacobs is the new Dean of Student Affairs at the University of South Central Ontario, which puts him in charge of the Department of Athletics and Recreation. Jacobs has learned that the hypercompetitive environment established by the athletic director, Nathan Scott, has been causing friction in many areas of the department, potentially resulting in the resignation of several long-term employees. As part of an organizational audit, he interviewed many employees and had them complete the Competing Values Framework questionnaire, the results of which were troubling. How should Jacobs lead this department forward and can he count on Scott to be supportive of the direction that he wants it to go? The purpose of this case is to introduce students to the importance of organizational culture and challenges to organizational change. Students will learn about the Competing Values Framework, change management, and have the opportunity to analyze qualitative and quantitative data in formulating responses to the case-guiding questions. This decision-focused case is suitable for use with upper division undergraduate and graduate sport management students in courses such as Organizational Behavior, Strategic Management, Collegiate Athletics Administration, and Critical Issues in Sport.

The purpose of this study was to examine the process of change at the level of youth sport by identifying the impetus for change, responses to change by stakeholders, and factors that constrained or aided the change process. Theoretically, this study builds upon an existing integrative change model. The context of this research is two youth soccer associations in Ontario, Canada, undergoing a long-term structural redesign mandated by the provincial soccer association. Stakeholders from local soccer clubs, as well as the Ontario Soccer Association (N = 20), identified key factors influencing the implementation and success of change. Pressures to change and individual efforts made by board members, coaches, and parents were noted as aiding the change process. Limited collaboration with stakeholders, poor communication, misunderstandings of the change, and constrained organizational capacity negatively affected the change process.

Increasing rates of childhood obesity has prompted calls for comprehensive approaches to school-based physical activity (PA). The purpose of this study was to evaluate the feasibility of comprehensive school physical activity program (CSPAP) development and related contextual issues within a rural Appalachian county using a Systems Approach. A multicomponent needs assessment was conducted, including 11 school site visits with interviews with school personnel, physical space audits, and self-reported professional development, curricular, and equipment/resource needs. Data were summarized into case narratives describing context, space/facilities, and school assets/needs. Member checks verified the accuracy of narratives and inductive cross-case analysis was used to explore emergent themes. Six themes emerged: Leadership/Capacity Building, PA Access and Opportunities, Physical Education/PA Equipment and Resources, Physical Fitness Data Management and Reporting, Equity and Access to Safe and Usable Play Spaces, and Community Connections. Results support the feasibility of CSPAPs in rural communities and provide insight to factors influencing CSPAP. This study provides a framework for schools considering the development of CSPAP.

Sports franchises often value prior head coaching experience as they evaluate head coaching candidates. This paper empirically tests whether prior head coaching experience affects team performance in the National Football League. Accounting for individual coach effects and other relevant factors, I find that team performance is significantly worse beyond a given coach’s initial head coaching spell. These results hold for a variety of outcome measures. While coaches with the lowest levels of success in their initial head coaching spell have the most pronounced negative experience effects, significant negative effects are estimated for coaches at all levels of initial success. One explanation for these results is that human capital acquired through head coaching experience is to a large extent firm specific, so while learning does occur within a given head coaching job, it does not carry over to future coaching spells. This can lead to an erosion of any relative human capital advantage.

Philosophical debate about the proper role of athletics within the academy has reverberated through each era of collegiate sport, and a growing body of literature points toward an impending tipping point unless radical reform ensues. This study contributes perspective to a proposed reform model through investigating perceptions of National Collegiate Athletics Association Division I coaches (N = 661) about their roles as educators and how this role could be altered through structural and philosophical changes within the academy. Quantitative and qualitative data provided mixed findings related to coach support for an integrated organizational structure with high variance in all structural facets explored except for compensation, where coaches believed structures should not be uniform between athletic and academic units because of the perceived greater workload, hours, media attention, and pressure in athletics.

Despite a rich literature on organizational capacity (OC) in voluntary sports clubs (VSCs), few studies have examined OC building and its long-term sustainability. Against this background, the authors identified changes in OC among VSCs that participated in a club development program and examined the sustainability of these changes. The authors collected survey data 9 months after participation comparing the participating VSCs (n = 62) with similar nonparticipating VSCs (n = 64). A selection of the participating VSCs was then contacted 3–4 years later for a follow-up survey (n = 48) and focus group interviews (n = 5). The results show that (a) significant differences in human resource capacity, planning and development capacity, and infrastructure and process capacity were visible between the participating and nonparticipating VSCs, and that (b) certain changes in OC remain in the clubs 3–4 years after participation. A sustainable change was that core volunteers related differently to the work in their respective VSCs.