Sportverbände als Meta-Organisationen

Sports federations have so far received less attention in organisational sociology and sports science than sports clubs. Previous contributions merely provided a desideratum for explaining the organisational actions of sports federations. The concept of a meta-organisation points to fundamental differences in organisational action between organisations whose members are organisations rather than individuals. These primarily relate to the level of resources, the availability of resources, the dynamics of organisational action, decision-making and handling of conflicts. Therefore, in this paper, sports federations are described using the concept of meta-organisations and a model is developed that reflects personal, structural and financial dynamics and thereby incorporates the differences between average meta-organisations and sports federations, such as their monopoly position. The presented model has yet to be empirically tested.