The board president’s role in controlling the decision-making process in voluntary sports organizations

Abstract

The goal of the study is to understand the president´s influence and his skills in the strategic decisionmaking process. The qualitative nature of the study implied a participant’s observation during board meetings (with a total of 35 sports directors - 3 professionals and 32 volunteers), as well as interviewing the six board presidents of the sports associations that are part of the study. The main results revealed a poorly structured decision-making process, but with a determinant role of the board president in the conduction and manipulation of the said process. This was especially evident with the professional sports directors who showed higher knowledge and better preparation of the subjects. Likewise, both of the associations headed by full-time professional sports directors, along with an association led by a volunteer sports director (though strongly backed by the technical director of sport or sports manager during the meetings and decision-making), revealed greater strategic management and better organizational results. The main power sources of the board president, and the skills he uses in order to mark the decision’s direction are internal alliances with the closest sports director (volunteer and professional), anticipation through a previous expressed opinion, the use of information, sports expertise, and also the knowledge regarding the existent problems among the clubs and the affiliated coaches. The results found bad governance which shows confusing and poorly structured management practices. This study intents to contribute for the change of the relationship between the role of the board and the technical director of sport or sport manager (specially for the relevance of the last), in order to improve better strategic decision-making in the non-profit sport organizations.