Design archetype utility for understanding and analyzing the governance of contemporary national sport organizations

•Design archetypes are central to exploring change dynamics in NSOs.•NSOs must strategically adapt and change to be effective.•New ways to improve the representation of design archetypes for contemporary NSOs.•Future research agenda to help understand change within NSOs.More than 30 years has passed since the foundational works of the late Trevor Slack and his colleagues first appeared using design archetypes to explore change dynamics amongst National Sport Organizations. The scale and nature of change that has continued to occur in the operating environment for these organizations over the last three decades has resulted in NSOs increasingly being required to be more professional, to manage more complex sport delivery systems, and strategically adapt and change to be effective. In that context, the authors explore the contemporary nature of NSO design archetypes in order to better understand the current and emerging dynamics of change for these organizations. This conceptual paper reviews the theory and utility of design archetypes in helping to understand organizational change dynamics in relation to NSOs, revisits the work of Slack and others in order to identify ways to improve the representation of design archetypes for contemporary NSOs, and presents an argument for a renewed emphasis on design archetypes as a fundamental driver for future research efforts to help understand change within NSOs, and indeed, other sport organizations.