Josef Fahlen

• Strittmatter, Anna-Maria; Stenling, Maria Cecilia Erika; Skille, Eivind Åsrum & Fahlen, Josef (2024). Youth representatives as agents of institutional change: the circumscribing effects of role prescriptions in sport governance. International Journal of Sport Policy and Politics. ISSN 1940-6940. s. 1–15. doi: 10.1080/19406940.2024.2356593.
• Strittmatter, Anna-Maria; Skille, Eivind Åsrum; Stenling, Cecilia & Fahlen, Josef (2024). Structural and Cultural Othering: An Organizational Culture Perspective on Young People’s Participation in Decision-making in Sport Organizations. Young - Nordic Journal of Youth Research. ISSN 1103-3088. doi: 10.1177/11033088241237386.
• Renström, Anna; Stenling, Maria Cecilia Erika & Fahlen, Josef (2024). Developing athletes into cooperative learners: the potential in viewing coaches as educators and coaching as teaching. Sport, Education and Society. ISSN 1357-3322. doi: 10.1080/13573322.2024.2334426.
• Lehtonen, Kati; Skille, Eivind Åsrum & Fahlen, Josef (2023). The art of balance: Indigenous sport governance between traditional government and self-governance. International Review for the Sociology of Sport. ISSN 1012-6902. doi: 10.1177/10126902231217185. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv Vis sammendrag

  The governance of Indigenous people is in many contexts a combination of political ambitions to promote self-governance, and more traditional policies and governance practices. These combinations often carry unintended contradictions and exclusionary processes. In this article, we investigate the consequences of one such contradiction: the aspiration for self-determination and self-governance on the one hand and the aspiration for broader political influence in decisions about resources to Sámi sport on the other. Since legitimation of governance structures and practices is essential for their overall functionality, we constructed the research question: What strategies are used to legitimise the policy and governance practices of Sámi sport? To explore this research question, we employed Sámi sport in Finland as an empirical case. Results show that authorisation as a legitimation strategy is prominent and used at institutional and individual levels. Moral evaluation as strategy is based on authoritative actors’ personal choice. Inclusion and integration in mainstream policy is seen as a rational legitimation strategy, which is supported by narratives where smallness and uniqueness are dominant.

• Ehnold, Peter; Jarck, Henning; Doherty, Alison; Elmose-Østerlund, Karsten; Fahlen, Josef & Gohritz, Andreas [Vis alle 14 forfattere av denne artikkelen] (2023). Developing a multi-level framework for analyzing public sports-based programmes to integrate migrants and refugees into organized sports. Sport in Society: Cultures, Commerce, Media, Politics. ISSN 1743-0437. doi: 10.1080/17430437.2023.2276813. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv
• Skille, Eivind Åsrum; Strittmatter, Anna-Maria; Stenling, Maria Cecilia Erika & Fahlen, Josef (2023). Private football academies—friend or foe? An analysis of Norwegian media's framing of arguments about private football academies and the monopoly of organized sport. International Review for the Sociology of Sport. ISSN 1012-6902. 58(8), s. 1263–1281. doi: 10.1177/10126902231164903. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv Vis sammendrag

  Private football academies challenge the monopoly of Norwegian voluntary and democratic sport. Using field theory and framing approach as analytical perspectives, this article presents a media analysis that reveals that, first, association football and private academies agree on the fact that Norwegian football is not good enough and must improve. Second, they disagree on whether to improve it within association football exclusively or supplemented by private actors that are inspired by the international football field. Third, there is a negative popular view of private academies as too expensive, unconcerned with children's best interests, in violation of Norwegian sport's regulations for children's sport, and—in sum—thus being accused of destroying ‘sport for all’. However, by employing the analytical concepts of habitus and fields, the article also shows how actors partake in several subfields—often on both sides of the private—association border.

• Fahlen, Josef & Stenling, Maria Cecilia Erika (2022). Stakeholding in community sport. I Strittmatter, Anna-Maria; Fahlen, Josef & Houlihan, Barrie (Red.), Stakeholder Analysis and Sport Organisations. Routledge. ISSN 9781000511888. s. 68–86. doi: 10.4324/9781003111917-6.
• Stenling, Maria Cecilia Erika & Fahlen, Josef (2022). Taking stock of sport management research in the new millenia–research contributions, worthwhile knowledge, and the field’s raison d’être. European Sport Management Quarterly. ISSN 1618-4742. 22(5), s. 643–662. doi: 10.1080/16184742.2022.2063360. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv Vis sammendrag

  Research question: In this paper, we analyse the variety and distribution of ways that authors frame their research contributions in published sport management articles, thereby providing a base from which to reflect on what is considered worthwhile knowledge in the field of sport management. Research methods: Our analysis builds on a reading of the introductions of 128 papers published in European Sport Management Quarterly, Journal of Sport Management, and Sport Management Review between 2001 and 2020. We grounded our approach conceptually in the work of [Sandberg, J., & Alvesson, M. (2011). Ways of constructing research questions: Gap-spotting or problematization? Organization, 18(1), 23–44. 10.1177/1350508410372151] but identified field-specific variations using an inductive process. Results and findings: Most contribution-framings entail spotting gaps in the literature, in which the value of a piece of research is based on the idea that existing research is lacking in some way. Very few papers adopt a more disruptive contribution-framing mode that questions the assumptions underpinning existing knowledge in the field. Implications: We raise potential issues of concern and important considerations for the future regarding questions around the development of a distinct body of sport management knowledge, ways to evaluate gaps in the literature, the significance of significance-statements, and the need to discuss an appropriate balance between incremental and assumption-challenging knowledge production.

• Stenling, Maria Cecilia Erika; Fahlen, Josef; Strittmatter, Anna-Maria & Skille, Eivind Åsrum (2022). The meaning of democracy in an era of good governance: Views of representation and their implications for board composition. International Review for the Sociology of Sport. ISSN 1012-6902. s. 1–18. doi: 10.1177/10126902221088127. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv Vis sammendrag

  Contemporary sport governance contexts are marked by a trend towards efficiency-based board composition and an increasing use of instruments aimed to (re)shape boards. Yet, democratic governance is integral to many countries’ sport systems, and research tells us that representation still matters in sport governance. Considering this, the aim with this paper is to provide researchers and practitioners with a vocabulary to understand and address issues of representation in board composition. The paper builds on interviews with nomination committee representatives of 62 Swedish national sport federations (NSFs). The analysis provides insights into the meaning and implications of four distinct views of representation, along with an interpretation of potential responses to board-shaping instruments engendered by these views.

• Stenling, Maria Cecilia Erika; Fahlen, Josef; Strittmatter, Anna-Maria & Skille, Eivind Åsrum (2021). Gate-keeping nonprofit governance: evaluative criteria and their rankings in nomination committee selection processes. I Donnelly-Cox, Gemma; Meyer, Michael & Wijkström, Filip (Red.), Research Handbook on Nonprofit Governance. Edward Elgar Publishing. ISSN 9781788114905. s. 279–293. doi: 10.4337/9781788114912.00025.
• Skille, Eivind Åsrum; Lehtonen, Kati & Fahlen, Josef (2021). The politics of organizing indigenous sport – cross-border and cross-sectoral complexity. European Sport Management Quarterly. ISSN 1618-4742. 23(2), s. 526–543. doi: 10.1080/16184742.2021.1892161. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv Vis sammendrag

  Research Question: The authors studied the complexity surrounding the organization of sport in nations without nation-state status, exploring three research questions: (1) How do representatives of Sámi sport organizations in Finland and Norway perceive and act upon the proposal to reorganize Sámi sport? (2) How do representatives of the Sámi parliaments in Finland and Norway perceive and act upon the proposal to reorganize Sámi sport? (3) How do representatives of the state bureaucracy in Finland perceive and act upon the proposal to reorganize Sámi sport? Research Methods: We interviewed representatives of the Sámi parliaments and Sámi sport in Norway and Finland, an external consultant in Norway and a state official of Finland constituting a total of eight key actor interviews. Results and Findings: The analysis revealed the dominant role of the Norwegian side of Sámi sport, largely based on the institutional power of the Sámi parliament in Norway. In that respect, voluntary sport organizations in both Finland and Norway were reluctant to consider or were even negative towards an ongoing reorganization of Sámi sport since it was initiated by the Norwegian authorities and by the Norwegian Sámi parliament. Implications: Decision-makers in government agencies involved in cross-border and cross-sectoral issues should consider the opinions of all parties involved. Moreover, concerning indigenous groups striving for self-determination in post-colonial contexts, it is important to create a unified voice in matters important to the group as a collective.

• Stenling, Cecilia & Fahlen, Josef (2021). Sport club consultants as street-level bureaucrats in sport policy processes: conceptualising micro-level interaction styles and their macro-level consequences. European Journal for Sport and Society (EJSS). ISSN 1613-8171. 18(2), s. 168–186. doi: 10.1080/16138171.2021.1908731. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv Vis sammendrag

  The focus of this paper is sport club consultants, an under-researched role that is uniquely situated at the interface of sport policy systems and clubs. Incumbents of this role—the label of which varies between countries—conduct club-directed developmental work to align clubs with centrally issued policies and programmes. Conceptualising sport club consultants as a sport-specific street-level bureaucrat, the paper’s purpose is, first, to analyse sport club consultants’ interaction style vis-à-vis clubs and, second, to demonstrate that broader and unintended transformative effects may follow from this rather micro practice. We propose that sport club consultants’ institutionally shaped interaction style may be operationalised along four dimensions (e.g. case prioritisation principle, shaping of interaction context, interactor positioning, communicative strategy). The substantive empirical content of these dimensions may vary between systems and the policy in question. Nonetheless, we show that system-level fragmentation, professionalisation, and centralisation are potential consequences of the work through which sport club consultants attempt to reconcile tensions between centrally distilled policies and clubs’ readiness, willingness, and ability to change.

• Skille, Eivind Åsrum; Fahlen, Josef; Stenling, Cecilia & Strittmatter, Anna-Maria (2021). Dørvakter til særforbundsstyrer: Valgkomitérepresentanters syn på seleksjonskriterier og kjønnsbalanse. I Tjønndal, Anne (Red.), Idrett, kjønn og ledelse. Fagbokforlaget. ISSN 9788245035353. s. 306–322.
• Stenling, Cecilia; Fahlen, Josef; Strittmatter, Anna-Maria & Skille, Eivind Å. (2021). The gatekeepers of sport governance–nomination committees’ shaping potential in national sport organizations’ board composition processes. European Sport Management Quarterly. ISSN 1618-4742. s. 1–19. doi: 10.1080/16184742.2021.1897640. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv Vis sammendrag

  RESEARCH QUESTION The purpose of this paper is to construct knowledge on the working processes of nomination committees (NCs) in sport and analyze their potential to shape board composition. The significance of such an effort lies in its potential to shed light on the processes preceding the structures and practices created for the wielding of power in sport organizations. RESEARCH METHODS This paper reports findings based on telephone interviews with NCs of 64 Swedish national sport organizations. RESULTS AND FINDINGS The analyses show how NC processes may be distinguished into six components: election of the NC at the general assembly (GA), monitoring of the incumbent board, preparation for nominee identification, assembly of a list of potential nominees, evaluation of potential nominees, and submission of proposed nominees to the GA. Within and across these components, the analyses reveal three aspects particularly powerful in their potential to shape board composition: degree of formalization, network reliance, and transparency. IMPLICATIONS These findings have implications for research and practice. Regarding the former, the study provides a baseline description that can be used in future explorations of the NC process and its determinants and effects in varying contexts. As for the latter, the findings suggest that sport organizations carry an untapped potential in considering NCs’ shaping potential, regardless of whether an ‘adequate’ board is one that is equipped to improve organizational efficiency or one that safeguards representation and democracy.

• Skille, Eivind Åsrum; Fahlen, Josef; Stenling, Cecilia & Strittmatter, Anna-Maria (2021). (Lack of) government policy for indigenous (Sámi) sport: A chain of legitimating and de-legitimating acts. International Review for the Sociology of Sport. ISSN 1012-6902. doi: 10.1177/1012690220988650. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv Vis sammendrag

  While colonization as policy is formally a historic phenomenon in Norway and elsewhere, many former structures of state organization – including their relationship to sport – remain under post-colonial conditions. This paper is concerned with how the Norwegian government contributes to creating a situation, which includes the Norwegian sports confederation (NIF) but excludes the indigenous people Sámi’s sports organisation. Based on existing data and literature, we analyse how the state favours NIF through a chain of legitimating acts. Thus, sport is a preserve of colonization, where a one-sided legitimation parallels a de-legitimation of the overarching sport policy goal of sport-for-all. However, there are signs of change whereby actors are challenging NIF’s monopoly and ‘older’ state-sport regimes.

• Bodemar, Annika; Strittmatter, Anna-Maria & Fahlen, Josef (2020). Doomed to fail? A study of how junior managers at a major sport event cope with leadership issues. International Journal of Sport Management and Marketing. ISSN 1475-8962. 20(3-4), s. 271–288. doi: 10.1504/IJSMM.2020.110845. Vis sammendrag

  The organising committee at the 2012 World Snowboarding Championships in Oslo experienced major problems such as uncertainty among the junior managers and general chaos. Despite this, in external communications, the event was declared to be a success. This article draws on the works of Parent and Seguin (2007) and Parent et al. (2009) to examine the key leadership and organisational factors that contributed to these problems. The purpose of this study is to investigate how the junior managers coped with uncertainty and solved problems. This study is based on semi-structured interviews, documents, and participant observations. The findings show that a variety of mechanisms caused uncertainty, including some factors that predicted the event's failure. Although the existing literature is focused on explaining events' success or lack thereof via leadership, this case provides an opportunity to understand how an event can succeed despite the presence of factors that typically lead to failure.

• Stenling, Cecilia; Fahlen, Josef; Strittmatter, Anna-Maria & Skille, Eivind Åsrum (2019). Hierarchies of criteria in NSO board-nomination processes: insights from nomination committees’ work. European Sport Management Quarterly. ISSN 1618-4742. doi: 10.1080/16184742.2019.1672204. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv Vis sammendrag

  Research question: The purpose of this paper is to create knowledge on board-selection processes and their outcomes in terms of board composition. We address two research questions: (1) What evaluative criteria are at play in board-selection processes; and (2) what hierarchies of criteria are formed when evaluative criteria are ranked? The significance of the study lies in contemporary considerations of good governance, in sport members’ (un)equal access to positions of power, and in how issues of representation relate to the legitimacy of sport governance systems and to broader societal patterns of representation, influence, and democracy. Research methods: Nomination committees are increasingly used worldwide to further good governance in sport organizations. Our analysis builds on interviews with representatives of 61 out of 71 Swedish national sport organizations’ nomination committees. Results and Findings: Our study shows that trade-offs are made not between gender and merit, as previously suggested, but between and among a wide variety of representation criteria and a wide variety of efficiency criteria. We show how tensions between criteria result in trade-offs that imply a ranking of criteria into seven types of hierarchies, only one of which prioritizes a representation-based board composition. Implications: Because rankings of multiple evaluative criteria impact any single criterion of interest (e.g. gender), future studies should take into account the range of evaluative criteria at play. For sport management and policy practitioners alike, we provide a tool to understand and address (in)adequate representation but also an imperative to consider the meaning of adequate representation.

• Fahlen, Josef & Ferry, Magnus (2019). Sports participation in Sweden. I Green, Kenneth Stanley; Sigurjonsson, Thorsteinn Josef & Skille, Eivind (Red.), Sport in Scandinavia and the Nordic countries. Routledge. ISSN 978-1-138-05215-4. s. 136–171. doi: 10.4324/9781315167978-7.
• Skille, Eivind Åsrum & Fahlen, Josef (2019). The role of sport organizations for local and national community: The case of Sámi sport organizations. European Sport Management Quarterly. ISSN 1618-4742. doi: 10.1080/16184742.2019.1610784. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv Vis sammendrag

  Research question: This paper investigates (1) how representatives of Sámi sport clubs understand local and national communities, and (2) and the role of the sport organization in the creation and perception of local and national community. The study contributes to the research field by showing how sport organizations are the basis of the community, locally and nationally. Research methods: Interviews were conducted with seven board members representing five Sámi sport clubs in four municipalities. The sport clubs were all members of the Sámi sport organization, and located in core Sámi areas where Sámi language and culture is manifested in everyday life. Sámi are the indigenous peoples of the northern Norway, Sweden, Finland and north-west Russia. Results and findings: For sport club representatives, Sámi sport refers to specific activities associated with Sámi husbandry heritage, and to the Sámi sport organization. Sport clubs function as community organizations at the local level. Moreover, through affiliation with the Sámi sport organization, the sport clubs are the link to the Sámi national community. Sámi indigeneity is played out internally in the local community as well as on the borderline to other communities with other ethnic compositions. Implications: The study revealed a complex relationship between the local and national elements of indigeneity, and between the internal and the external elements. These elements of multiculturalism and sport clubs require to be taken into account in future sport management and policy-making in addition to multicultural policies towards immigrant sport participation and organization.

• Strittmatter, Anna-Maria; Stenling, Cecilia; Fahlen, Josef & Skille, Eivind (2018). Sport policy analysis revisited: the sport policy process as an interlinked chain of legitimating acts. International Journal of Sport Policy and Politics. ISSN 1940-6940. 10(4), s. 621–635. doi: 10.1080/19406940.2018.1522657. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv Vis sammendrag

  By providing an analytical framework that draws on a conceptualisation of legitimacy in organisation studies, this paper demonstrates that the sport policy process can be understood as an interlinked chain of legitimating acts. Based on recent suggestions in organisation theory literature on how to approach legitimacy and legitimation, we applied the framework on a small sample of published sport policy studies to demonstrate its utility. By applying the framework, six interweaved and interweaving elements of the legitimating act within sport policy processes were identified: legitimacy-seeking organisation, subject, source(s), strategy, bases and scenario. The analysis shows that each of the six elements works by intersecting within each phase of the policy process. The main conclusion is that consequences – often unintended – resulting from legitimating acts in one phase have legitimacy-related implications for the other phases of the policy process. As pressing as pinpointing the use of all elements of the framework is, it is equally important to distinguish each of the elements in order to fulfil the analytical potential of the proposed framework. Since sport policy processes in practice rely primarily on organisations and organisational action, future sport policy research would benefit from this type of framework connecting organisations and organising to policy processes.

• Fahlen, Josef & Stenling, Cecilia (2018). (Re)conceptualizing institutional change in sport management contexts: the unintended consequences of sport organizations? everyday organizational life. European Sport Management Quarterly. ISSN 1618-4742. doi: 10.1080/16184742.2018.1516795. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv Vis sammendrag

  Research question: The purpose of this paper is to construct empirically grounded concepts that can aid the explanation of processes of institutional change. This effort is guided by the observation that neither ‘structure-centred' nor ‘actor-centred' explanations of institutional change are equipped to provide a satisfactory explanation of one of organizational institutionalism’s basic assumptions: that organizations are products of and produce their institutional contexts. Therefore, the focus is directed at practitioners' everyday struggle to accomplish their work, and institutional change is conceptualized as an unintended consequence of such mundane ‘muddling through'. Research methods: The text is based on video recordings of board meetings in two sport clubs over one year. Data collection resulted in approximately 33 h of observation data from 17 board meetings. Results and findings: Analysis shows how sport club boards' interpretive processes of meaning making are instances of unintentional coproduction that plant seeds for institutional change. The creation of such seeds is the result of processes of problem–solution approximation and the use of proximal institutional raw material. This shows how sport organizations are crucial actors in the creation, modification, and transformation of the institutional arrangements prescribing appropriate organizational behaviour and enforcing patterns of interest and privilege. This analysis contributes knowledge on how sport organizations unintentionally coproduce increasing government reliance on sport organizations, professionalization, and commercialization. Implications: Such knowledge can make sport organizations and policy-makers aware of how unintentional coproduction might lead to the momentum of processes adverse to their needs and wishes.

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• Strittmatter, Anna-Maria; Fahlen, Josef & Houlihan, Barrie (2022). Stakeholder Analysis and Sport Organisations. Routledge. ISBN 9781000511888. 287 s.

Se alle arbeider i Cristin

• Strittmatter, Anna-Maria; Fahlen, Josef & Houlihan, Barrie (2022). Introduction. I Strittmatter, Anna-Maria; Fahlen, Josef & Houlihan, Barrie (Red.), Stakeholder Analysis and Sport Organisations. Routledge. ISSN 9781000511888.
• Skille, Eivind Åsrum; Strittmatter, Anna-Maria; Fahlen, Josef & Stenling, Cecilia (2019). Government policy for indigenous (Sámi) sport – a chain of legitimating acts?

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