IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/taf/rsmrxx/v17y2014i4p395-406.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

More than a sport and volunteer organisation: Investigating social capital development in a sporting organisation

Author

Listed:
  • S. Darcy
  • H. Maxwell
  • M. Edwards
  • J. Onyx
  • S. Sherker

Abstract

•The study examines the development of social capital in a sport and volunteer organisation.•The research design uses an interpretive qualitative framework.•The study confirms the development of collective and individual components to social capital.•Social capital is founded on bonding prior to bridging with other community organisations.•Human capital is used by individuals for both personal and other community benefits.This paper presents the findings of a study that examines the development of social capital within an Australian sporting organisation, Surf Life Saving Australia (SLSA). The study draws on the social capital literature across the not-for-profit sector and specific sport management social capital research. The research design incorporated an interpretive approach with data collected nationally from eight focus groups with key SLSA staff, board members and ‘toes in the sand’ volunteers. The findings provide fresh insights into the development and understanding of social capital within a sporting organisation. Both bonding and bridging were important social capital outcomes of the organisation's activities, albeit with important implications for antecedents and process. The data presented strong evidence for arguing that within the organisation bonding within the club comes first, which importantly provides a very strong sense of belonging and mutual support for club members, from volunteers through to the board. The strength of bonding provides a powerful base for subsequent bridging capital to the local, regional and national stakeholder communities that are associated with the organisation. Further, social capital develops in both the collective and individual, with leveraging of individual skills contributing to human capital development, which is closely connected to and inseparable from social capital. The paper concludes by discussing the theoretical implications for social capital generally and social capital in a sporting context.

Suggested Citation

  • S. Darcy & H. Maxwell & M. Edwards & J. Onyx & S. Sherker, 2014. "More than a sport and volunteer organisation: Investigating social capital development in a sporting organisation," Sport Management Review, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 17(4), pages 395-406, October.
  • Handle: RePEc:taf:rsmrxx:v:17:y:2014:i:4:p:395-406
    DOI: 10.1016/j.smr.2014.01.003
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10.1016/j.smr.2014.01.003
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.smr.2014.01.003?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Kumar, Harish & Manoli, Argyro Elisavet & Hodgkinson, Ian R. & Downward, Paul, 2018. "Sport participation: From policy, through facilities, to users’ health, well-being, and social capital," Sport Management Review, Elsevier, vol. 21(5), pages 549-562.
    2. T. Bettina Cornwell & Youngbum Kwon, 2020. "Sponsorship-linked marketing: research surpluses and shortages," Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science, Springer, vol. 48(4), pages 607-629, July.
    3. Wicker, Pamela, 2017. "Volunteerism and volunteer management in sport," Sport Management Review, Elsevier, vol. 20(4), pages 325-337.
    4. Wang Zhigang & Liu Yingfei & Zhang Jinyao & Liu Xintao & Duan Hongyan & Zhang Lei, 2022. "How Sports Event Volunteer Management Affects Volunteers’ Satisfaction and Engagement: The Mediating Role of Social Capital," SAGE Open, , vol. 12(2), pages 21582440221, June.
    5. Simon Darcy & Janice Ollerton & Simone Grabowski, 2020. "“Why Can’t I Play?”: Transdisciplinary Learnings for Children with Disability’s Sport Participation," Social Inclusion, Cogitatio Press, vol. 8(3), pages 209-223.
    6. Martino Corazza & Jen Dyer, 2017. "A New Model for Inclusive Sports? An Evaluation of Participants’ Experiences of Mixed Ability Rugby," Social Inclusion, Cogitatio Press, vol. 5(2), pages 130-140.
    7. Schulenkorf, Nico, 2017. "Managing sport-for-development: Reflections and outlook," Sport Management Review, Elsevier, vol. 20(3), pages 243-251.
    8. Anderson, Arden & Dixon, Marlene A. & Oshiro, Kristi F. & Wicker, Pamela & Cunningham, George B. & Heere, Bob, 2019. "Managerial perceptions of factors affecting the design and delivery of sport for health programs for refugee populations," Sport Management Review, Elsevier, vol. 22(1), pages 80-95.
    9. Sefa Awaworyi Churchill & Russell Smyth & Trong-Anh Trinh, 2024. "The Long-Run Effects of Male-Biased Sex Ratios on Mateship and Social Capital," Monash Economics Working Papers 2024-02, Monash University, Department of Economics.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:taf:rsmrxx:v:17:y:2014:i:4:p:395-406. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Chris Longhurst (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.tandfonline.com/rsmr .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.