Giving meaning to sport involvement in managerial work

Abstract

I use a discursive analytical approach to explore ways in which senior managerial men working in nonprofit organizations understand the contribution, if any, of their own sport history to their work skills, how this may vary by organizational contexts and how the subtexts of these discourses may strengthen the dominance of managerial men in a specific context. I used semi-structured interviews to ask 67 senior managerial men about the role they perceive their sport history plays in their managerial skills. Two overlapping topics emerged from the data: team and leadership skills and perseverance and toughness. I explore the meaning these topics had for the managers and the possible gendered subtexts of these meanings. The findings are situated in the critical feminist management and sport literature.