IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/spomar/v19y2016i3p266-278.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The formation of interorganisational cliques in New Zealand rugby

Author

Listed:
  • Meiklejohn, Trevor
  • Dickson, Geoff
  • Ferkins, Lesley

Abstract

A commonly held assumption within a sports league setting is that league affiliates interact with each other equally and that these engagements are largely facilitated by the league governing body or Federated Management Organisation (FMO). This study looked at the possibility of higher levels of affiliate-driven interaction among subsets of provincial rugby unions in the form of cliques that participated in New Zealand's pre-eminent national provincial rugby competition (ITM Cup). In particular, we sought to identify the existence of cliques and to highlight the motives and conditions that underpinned their formation. Theories and concepts relevant to the formation of interorganisational relationships (IORs) provided the conceptual basis for the design and analysis of the study. Using a qualitative approach involving 19 interviews with CEOs of provincial rugby unions, we identified two cliques within this league highlighting that affiliate members will ‘hunt in packs’ to achieve specific outcomes. Commercial sustainability, access to scarce resources, such as, knowledge and political lobbying were illuminated as key drivers for clique formation. Two new concepts, ‘primary cliques’ and ‘reactionary cliques’ are introduced, and would benefit from further investigation.

Suggested Citation

  • Meiklejohn, Trevor & Dickson, Geoff & Ferkins, Lesley, 2016. "The formation of interorganisational cliques in New Zealand rugby," Sport Management Review, Elsevier, vol. 19(3), pages 266-278.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:spomar:v:19:y:2016:i:3:p:266-278
    DOI: 10.1016/j.smr.2015.08.002
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1441352315000728
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.smr.2015.08.002?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.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Roger G. Noll, 2003. "The Organization of Sports Leagues," Oxford Review of Economic Policy, Oxford University Press and Oxford Review of Economic Policy Limited, vol. 19(4), pages 530-551, Winter.
    2. Bob Stewart & Matthew Nicholson & Geoff Dickson, 2005. "The Australian Football League's Recent Progress: A Study In Cartel Conduct And Monopoly Power," Sport Management Review, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 8(2), pages 95-117, May.
    3. Aaron C.T. Smith & Bob Stewart, 2010. "The special features of sport: A critical revisit," Sport Management Review, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 13(1), pages 1-13, January.
    4. Ferkins, Lesley & Shilbury, David, 2010. "Developing board strategic capability in sport organisations: The national-regional governing relationship," Sport Management Review, Elsevier, vol. 13(3), pages 235-254, August.
    5. Dickson, Geoff & Arnold, Trevor & Chalip, Laurence, 2005. "League Expansion and Interorganisational Power," Sport Management Review, Elsevier, vol. 8(2), pages 145-165, September.
    6. Stewart, Bob & Nicholson, Matthew & Dickson, Geoff, 2005. "The Australian Football League's Recent Progress: A Study In Cartel Conduct And Monopoly Power," Sport Management Review, Elsevier, vol. 8(2), pages 95-117, September.
    7. Smith, Aaron C.T. & Stewart, Bob, 2010. "The special features of sport: A critical revisit," Sport Management Review, Elsevier, vol. 13(1), pages 1-13, February.
    8. Geoff Dickson & Trevor Arnold & Laurence Chalip, 2005. "League Expansion and Interorganisational Power," Sport Management Review, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 8(2), pages 145-165, May.
    9. Stefan Szymanski & Stephen F. Ross, 2007. "Governance And Vertical Integration In Team Sports," Contemporary Economic Policy, Western Economic Association International, vol. 25(4), pages 616-626, October.
    10. Sam, Michael P. & Batty, Richard & Dean, Rebecca G.K., 2005. "A Transaction Cost Approach to Sport Sponsorship," Sport Management Review, Elsevier, vol. 8(1), pages 1-17, May.
    11. Lesley Ferkins & David Shilbury, 2010. "Developing board strategic capability in sport organisations: The national–regional governing relationship," Sport Management Review, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 13(3), pages 235-254, July.
    12. Michael P. Sam & Richard Batty & Rebecca G.K. Dean, 2005. "A Transaction Cost Approach to Sport Sponsorship," Sport Management Review, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 8(1), pages 1-17, January.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

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


    Cited by:

    1. Cox, Michele & Dickson, Geoff & Cox, Barbara, 2017. "Lifting the veil on allowing headscarves in football: A co-constructed and analytical autoethnography," Sport Management Review, Elsevier, vol. 20(5), pages 522-534.
    2. Seifried, Chad & Katz, Matthew & Tutka, Patrick, 2017. "A conceptual model on the process of innovation diffusion through a historical review of the United States Armed Forces and their bowl games," Sport Management Review, Elsevier, vol. 20(4), pages 379-394.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Shilbury, David & O’Boyle, Ian & Ferkins, Lesley, 2016. "Towards a research agenda in collaborative sport governance," Sport Management Review, Elsevier, vol. 19(5), pages 479-491.
    2. Jakee, Keith & Kenneally, Martin & Dineen, Declan, 2022. "Scheduling slots and league objectives: An empirical analysis of Australia’s AFL," The Quarterly Review of Economics and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 84(C), pages 359-371.
    3. Jakee, Keith & Kenneally, Martin & Mitchell, Hamish, 2010. "Asymmetries in scheduling slots and game-day revenues: An example from the Australian Football League," Sport Management Review, Elsevier, vol. 13(1), pages 50-64, February.
    4. Smith, Aaron C.T. & Stewart, Bob, 2010. "The special features of sport: A critical revisit," Sport Management Review, Elsevier, vol. 13(1), pages 1-13, February.
    5. Jonas Van Riel & Geert Poels, 2023. "A Method for Developing Generic Capability Maps," Business & Information Systems Engineering: The International Journal of WIRTSCHAFTSINFORMATIK, Springer;Gesellschaft für Informatik e.V. (GI), vol. 65(4), pages 403-424, August.
    6. Funk, Daniel C. & Pizzo, Anthony D. & Baker, Bradley J., 2018. "eSport management: Embracing eSport education and research opportunities," Sport Management Review, Elsevier, vol. 21(1), pages 7-13.
    7. Christoph Pott & Christoph Breuer & Michael ten Hompel, 2023. "Sport Logistics: Considerations on the Nexus of Logistics and Sport Management and Its Unique Features," Logistics, MDPI, vol. 7(3), pages 1-18, August.
    8. Lee, Ye Hoon, 2020. "The role of mindfulness and occupational stress in the goal orientations of development and winning," Sport Management Review, Elsevier, vol. 23(4), pages 626-639.
    9. Gerke, Anna & Babiak, Kathy & Dickson, Geoff & Desbordes, Michel, 2018. "Developmental processes and motivations for linkages in cross-sectoral sport clusters," Sport Management Review, Elsevier, vol. 21(2), pages 133-146.
    10. Parent, Milena M., 2016. "Stakeholder perceptions on the democratic governance of major sports events," Sport Management Review, Elsevier, vol. 19(4), pages 402-416.
    11. Subhasis Ray, 2021. "Identification of Research Paradigms for Managing the Cricketing Ecosystem Using Stakeholder Analysis and Text Mining," Management and Labour Studies, XLRI Jamshedpur, School of Business Management & Human Resources, vol. 46(3), pages 289-312, August.
    12. Iva Glibo & Laura Misener & Joerg Koenigstorfer, 2022. "Strategic Sustainable Development in International Sport Organisations: A Delphi Study," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 14(16), pages 1-18, August.
    13. Oliver Budzinski, 2011. "The Institutional Framework for Doing Sports Business: Principles of EU Competition Policy in Sports Markets," Working Papers 1103, International Association of Sports Economists;North American Association of Sports Economists.
    14. Verschuuren, Pim, 2020. "Whistleblowing determinants and the effectiveness of reporting channels in the international sports sector," Sport Management Review, Elsevier, vol. 23(1), pages 142-154.
    15. Cox, Michele & Dickson, Geoff & Cox, Barbara, 2017. "Lifting the veil on allowing headscarves in football: A co-constructed and analytical autoethnography," Sport Management Review, Elsevier, vol. 20(5), pages 522-534.
    16. Werner, Kim & Dickson, Geoff & Hyde, Kenneth F., 2015. "The impact of a mega-event on inter-organisational relationships and tie strength: Perceptions from the 2011 Rugby World Cup," Sport Management Review, Elsevier, vol. 18(3), pages 421-435.
    17. Cordery, Carolyn J. & Sim, Dalice & Baskerville, Rachel F., 2013. "Three models, one goal: Assessing financial vulnerability in New Zealand amateur sports clubs," Sport Management Review, Elsevier, vol. 16(2), pages 186-199.
    18. Ferkins, Lesley & Shilbury, David, 2015. "Board strategic balance: An emerging sport governance theory," Sport Management Review, Elsevier, vol. 18(4), pages 489-500.
    19. Turner, Paul, 2012. "Regulation of professional sport in a changing broadcasting environment: Australian club and sport broadcaster perspectives," Sport Management Review, Elsevier, vol. 15(1), pages 43-59.
    20. Heffernan, Jackie & O'Brien, Danny, 2010. "Stakeholder influence strategies in bidding for a professional sport franchise license," Sport Management Review, Elsevier, vol. 13(3), pages 255-268, August.

    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:eee:spomar:v:19:y:2016:i:3:p:266-278. 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.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with 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: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/wps/find/journaldescription.cws_home/716936/description#description .

    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.