Taylor, Damien (2023) To Examine the Strategic Organisational Practices in Sport to Encourage Women High-Performance Coaches in Australia. PhD thesis, Victoria University.

Abstract

Women play a vital role in professional sport on and off the field. The dearth of women high-performance coaches in Australian sport is a concern with statistics reporting women represent 15% of high-performance coaches (Sport Australia, 2019). One reason could be due to the lack of knowledge on good organisational practices that encourage women in these roles. Moreover, the barriers for women high-performance coaches are well known (Krahn, 2019; LaVoi et al., 2019). There is also a gap in knowledge at the organisational level with respect to enablers (Lavoi et al., 2018, p. 107). To address this dearth, the purpose of the current research is to determine what social, cultural, economic, and psychological factors intersect with organisational work practices of senior managers in national sport organisations (NSOs) in Australia to encourage women high-performance coaches. To guide the current study the Ecological Intersectional Model (EIM; LaVoi, 2016) from an organisational perspective was adopted based on its focus on women as coaches. Using a qualitative research design, a two-phased approach was conducted: document review and semi-structured interviews. Twenty-nine documents were analysed. Thirteen senior managers and 16 women high-performance coaches from five NSOs were interviewed. Deductive coding was conducted and guided by social, cultural, economic, and psychological organisational factors that influenced the attraction, development and retention of women high-performance coaches. Each of the four factors have defined attributes that were used as a guide for their analysis. Twelve good organisational practices and 31 associated recommendations were revealed. In addition, the influence of senior managers and their interactive practices with these women assisted to create an aligned focus and maintain current or disrupted practices within the organisation to encourage women high-performance coaches. As a result, the theory of institutional work (Nite et al., 2019) emerged whereby the actions of actors (e.g., senior managers and women high-performance coaches) and institutions, individually and collectively, shaped each other or were simultaneously shaped. Institutional work includes embedded agency theory (Hampel et al., 2017) that explores how actors’ behaviours, feelings, thoughts and actions and, in the case of the current study, research senior managers and coaches, interact, intersect and influence the outcomes experienced by women highperformance coaches in their NSO. Theoretically, the current study advances knowledge within the EIM at the organisational level. In doing so, the new knowledge stimulates future research guided by these good practices to attract, develop, and retain women high-performance coaches. Practically, findings provide a guide for NSO senior managers to build their understanding and implement practices focused on the social, cultural, economic, and psychological factors to encourage women high-performance coaches.

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