Structural and Cultural Othering: An Organizational Culture Perspective on Young People’s Participation in Decision-making in Sport Organizations

Abstract

The purpose of this article is to examine the role played by organizational culture in young people’s continuing underrepresentation in decision-making bodies, despite structural changes, in the context of Norwegian sport organizations. Data is based on a questionnaire centred on the experiences of young people in sport governance (n = 32 youth representatives) and semi-structured interviews with young (under 26 years) and older representatives of organizations affiliated with the Norwegian Olympic and Paralympic Committee and Confederations of Sports (n = 10). Findings show that Norwegian sport organizations foster a cultural understanding of young people which takes its structural expression in the separation of elements that are ‘othering’ the youth. Youth have also limited access to resources of power as a result of a lack of trust in older leaders. Prevailing culture mirrors an adult society in which young people need to upgrade their level of professionalism through education before they are invited to decision-making processes.

Introduction

Recent public and academic debates have put forth the issue of young people’s representation in the governance structures of the activity that dominates many countries’ leisure time: sport. A central argument in these debates is that organizations that are mostly made up of and for young people should have governance processes in which young people have the opportunity to influence their activity (Lindsey et al., 2023; White et al., 2019). Nonetheless, studies on youth sport policy in several countries show that young people are largely excluded from decision-making processes, including those that concern youth sport specifically (in Canada: Fusco, 2007; in England: Devine, 2018; McCormack & Clayton, 2017; White et al., 2019; in Norway: Strittmatter, 2016; Waldahl & Skille, 2016; in Sweden: Eliasson, 2017; Redelius & Eliasson, 2022a; and in the United States: Chalip & Scott, 2005). Young people thus appear to lack influence in sport political discussions, and they are prevented from having a voice when decisions are made.

There are three main reasons for creating knowledge on youth inclusion in sport organization governance and decision-making processes. First, inclusion in governance has the potential to help secure sport’s relevance for young people (the main target group and primary membership base of Western sport systems). In the long run, without such relevance, sport organizations are at risk of withering away and eventually collapsing. Because lest sport builds sustainable organizations and structures that are attractive to young people, they may gradually be drawn to other leisure activities than organized sport. The survival of the entire sport system is therefore at stake in youth’s inclusion in governance processes. Second, in Norway and elsewhere, public funding for organized sport is associated with an expectation to represent and develop in accordance with its largest membership group (i.e., children and youth). Therefore, including youth in decision-making processes is crucial for organizations as they seek to maintain their legitimacy as a state revenue recipient and the implementor of government sport policy (Strittmatter et al., 2018).

Third, representation of the membership base in decision-making positions is one of the principles of democracy and universal values in Scandinavian society, and the ways in which this is accomplished (or not), thus bear significance for considerations of wider societal development. Moreover, the participation of children in democracies, as organized sports is built on, ‘is the fundamental right of citizenship’ (Hart, 1992, p. 5). Participation of children and young people thus is also one crucial point of the United Nations (UN) Convention on the Rights of the Child; Article 12 emphasizes children’s participation in parts of their lives and activities that concern them (UN, 1989). Thomas (2007) delimits an active participation of children and young people within two typologies: social and political. While social participation refers to the inclusion into a community or network, such as a team in a sport club (see also Redelius & Eliasson, 2022a), political participation involves the question about ‘power, and challenge, and change’ (Thomas, 2007, p. 206). In this article, political participation is used more in its literal sense, hence young people being involved in sport politics and dealing with political issues. To allow for youth influence, young people must receive information about their opportunities, be encouraged to speak out and be heard (Arensmeier, 2010; Ødegård, 2007; Strittmatter, 2020). Young people must be taken seriously to be able to shape organizations of which they are members according to their wishes and demands (Redelius & Eliasson, 2022a).

Norway has a fairly long history of rules, statutes and guidelines set in place to safeguard children’s rights in sport (Skirstad et al., 2012). Debates around youth influence have however increased in Norwegian sport policy discussions and documents, leading to an intensified emphasis on the representation of young people in the governing bodies of Norwegian sport organizations (Strittmatter, 2016; Waldahl & Skille, 2016). This is the case not least for the peak body and umbrella organization of Norwegian sport, the Norwegian Olympic and Paralympic Committee and Confederation of Sports (NIF), and its subordinate organizational levels (for a historic overview of the development of youth governance, see Waldahl & Skille, 2016). The increasing emphasis on youth representation has led to the 2007 decision to reserve one seat on the NIF board of directors for a member who is younger than 26 years old (NIF, 2007). In 2019, this idea was broadened to other organizations when the NIF General Assembly decided that ‘the boards of National Sport Federations and Regional Sport Confederations should have at least one board member who is under 26 years old at the time of the election’ (NIF, 2019, p. 29). In 2021, a similar quota regulation was legislated for nomination committees (NIF, 2021a). Sharpening quota regulations mirrors a method used in Scandinavia to handle a political, democratic problem, namely finding structural solutions for overcoming the underrepresentation of certain groups in democratic institutions (Ødegård, 2007). Furthermore, NIF has established youth committees at several levels, from sport clubs, via Regional Sport Confederations (RSCs) and National Sport Federations (NSFs). Regarding youth committees, young people are appointed to advisory committees subordinated to the boards of the respective organizations (Waldahl & Skille, 2016).

Reflecting the potential effects of the structural elements referred to above, several sport organizations under the NIF umbrella report that they are very conscious that young people should be included in decision-making processes. Sport organizations thus seek to provide opportunities to include young people in their work, provide them with a voice, and express a wish to facilitate youth governance to a greater extent than they presently do (NIF, 2019, 2021). This self-criticism is perhaps warranted because governing bodies at national, regional and local levels of the sport system display a skewed age distribution (for Norway, see Strittmatter, 2020; for Sweden, see Svender & Nordensky, 2017; for Finland, see Koski, 2012; for England, see White et al., 2019). Although 93% of all children in Norway have been members of a sport club at some point in their childhood and 75% of all youths between 13 and 18 have been involved in sport (Bakken, 2019), Norwegian sport organizations are still governed by older men, whereas young people are a minority in the central decision-making bodies (Strittmatter, 2020). The underrepresentation of youth in sport governance is however not unique to this organizational domain. Research into young people’s political participation in Norway shows limited influence on real political issues when it is structured through youth councils (Ødegård, 2007). On this, Ødegård’s (2007) study showed that youth councils are advisory organs and arrangements for socializing youth into political work, rather than a channel for giving people a voice ‘as is’ (see also Thomas, 2007). In that sense, youth influence may turn out to be ‘at the mercy of politicians’ (Ødegård, 2007, p. 273).

In the context of sport, research on youth influence has explained the lack of autonomy young people have in their sporting activities as an effect of an ‘adult society’ (Strandbu et al., 2019). This body of work has directed their attention to the sport activity level, and the agency afforded to young people as they exercise the right to raise their voice. For example, Strandbu et al. (2019, 2020) examined sporting young people’s scope of agency in the context of intensive parental involvement. Research has pinpointed young athletes’ limited agency in their sporting practice, such as frequency and content of training as well as tactics, team rules and goals for the season (Redelius & Eliasson, 2022b), which is seen as a breach of Article 12 of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child that states every child has the right to express their views in matters affecting them and that the voice of the child should be considered (Eliasson, 2017). Considering the stable drop-out rate of young people from organized sports, scholars have pointed to issues that point to the responsibility of sport organizations, such as lack of suitable options and the alienation of young people after organizational changes that affect sporting activity (Espedalen & Seippel, 2022; Persson et al., 2020).

Extending the work referenced in the preceding, this study involves a shift in focus on youth influence in sport: from the sporting activity to governance—the domain in which these activities are constituted through the prioritization of resources, formulation of espoused goals and strategies, creation of specialized roles and coordinative structures, and other features that make up the everyday life of organized activity. Given that facilitative structural measures have been in place for decades, this study seeks alternative explanations to young people’s continuing limited influence in governance examining the following research questions: What are the cultural characteristics in the governance of Norwegian sport organizations, and how do they shape young people’s influence in decision-making processes? Using the paradox of promotive measures and high participation rates on the one hand and continued skewed representation on the other as a backdrop, this article draws on a study that investigated the opportunities and barriers for young people to participate in decision-making processes in Norwegian sport governing bodies.

Theory: Organizational Culture

Organizational culture refers to a stable stock of practices, meanings and values developed and shared among a group of people working together in a formalized way (Scott, 2003; see also Alvesson, 2013; Schein, 2017). Organizational culture strongly influences day-to-day work and decision-making in organizations, and it is influenced by the ‘general culture’, such as the national culture. In their study on elite sport success in Norway, Skille and Chroni (2018) showed that the Norwegian culture of egalitarianism and universalism influences the shared values and norms of national federations. Other contributions have shown that organizational cultures also vary among sport organizations depending on organizational goals, the specific culture of the sport in question, members of the organization and organizational capacity (Chroni et al., 2018). As cultural elements in an organization have impact on the structure, NIF’s focus on youth governance and young people’s participation in decision-making processes is scrutinized in light of stable stock of practices, values and beliefs in sport organizations.

Acknowledging that culture is also a structural phenomenon, the researchers follow Schein’s (2017) proposition on the connection between structure and culture of an organization. The structure of an organization can be classified as a tangible phenomenon of culture in that organization. Structural elements can include the organizational chart as the formal description of the way an organization works (Schein, 2017). In sport organizations, committee structures can depict and characterize the governance culture pertaining in the organization. In addition, organizational culture can be reflected in observable routines, rituals and ceremonies (Meyer & Rowan, 1977). ¹ Such visible phenomena are depicted by Schein as artifacts that are ‘easy to observe but very difficult to decipher’ (Schein, 2017, p. 19).

Similarly, Yukl (2012) argued that structural and cultural aspects are intertwined and can condition each other, meaning that changes in organizational culture are often required to successfully achieve organizational change. Structural and material conditions can reflect the issues an organization chooses to focus on or prioritize in its policies, meetings and actions. In other words, structure is seen as a reflection of values about what is worth accomplishing administratively and politically. Structure reflects which procedures are considered legitimate and how to determine the effectiveness of accomplishments and conditions the culture of an organization. Thus, the organizational structure can form the culture. For example, the separation of decision-making units may both create an overall organizational culture that ascribes distinct values, competencies, and tasks to different groups, and breed subcultures among these organizationally defined groups (Schein, 2017). ²

In addition to the relatively observable structure–culture nexus, Schein (2017) characterized organizational culture through espoused beliefs and values as well as underlying assumptions. When organizations are confronted with challenges, the proposed actions and solutions reflect beliefs and values regarding what is commonly understood as the right or wrong thing to do and what would work or not work. In sport organizations, values are often defined by strategies and goals. Therefore, strategies and goals can fall under the definition of espoused beliefs, which can be analysed by consensus among the actors within an organization (Schein, 2017). Common values and shared beliefs help an organization to reduce uncertainty in the organization’s critical functioning and if they continue to provide meaning and comfort in an organization, they may develop into underlying basic assumptions. At this point, actors will find it difficult to consider any other option or premise than those offered by preexisting cultural understandings. Because this level of cultural depth provides the organization’s members with a shared identity, organizational change (such as quota introductions) may be experienced as an identity threat, which further complicates the organizational change due to the tensions created between the established culture and the ideas and values foreshadowed by new organizational elements. A common way in which tensions are resolved is through the decoupling between structural elements and core activities (Meyer & Rowan, 1977). This allows organizations to display the necessary structural changes that are often required to gain legitimacy, but without making changes to core practices and their cultural embedding.

The concept of organizational culture thus enables us to analyse stock of practices, meanings and values developed and shared among young representatives and older people relating to them when governing sport organizations. In addition, it enables us to identify structures that form culture in an organization. The above reasoning allows to consider the issue of participative decision-making in sport organizations as shaped by structural arrangements as well as the cultural elements that support or work against formal participatory structures.

Methods

Data was generated as part of the Youth Governance in Sport research project, which explores hindering and precipitating organizational conditions for increasing young people’s voice in Norwegian sport governance processes. The study adheres to a constructive paradigm, which implies that structures and practices are viewed as arrangements constructed by actors making sense within their personal frames of thought and sets of interests (Guba & Lincoln, 2005). Considering organizational culture as co-constructed in the subjective meaning-making processes of individuals, the first author generated data through a survey with open-ended questions and qualitative interviews.

Data Generation

Data generation proceeded in two main steps. First, an online survey was distributed to 65 young people who were elected to boards or appointed to youth committees in Norwegian sport organizations and who attended a network meeting for young representatives organized by the NIF. Of these, 32 responded, eight of whom were aged 15–18, eight were aged 19–22 and 16 were 23–26 years old. Respondents represented boards and youth committees in NSFs (n = 16), RSCs (n = 15) and Regional Sport Federations (n = 1). The questionnaire included a series of open-ended questions centred on experiences, challenges and young people’s needs in their role as actors in sport governance. The questionnaire data also helped to identify some of the young interviewees and provided an overview before commencing interviews with them.

In a second step, the first author conducted 10 semi-structured interviews with representatives of organizations affiliated with the NIF. Of these, four interviewees were young representatives (aged between 19 and 26 years old) and six were older leaders (between 31 and 59 years old). To secure anonymity, the exact ages are not provided when quoting the informants, but an age range. The interviewees were selected because they were either youth representatives and/or were on boards and in positions that involved interaction with youth representatives and youth committees. The researchers followed the definition of young people for NIF in which young people in organizational positions are recruited between the ages of 15 and 26 years. The interview guide was developed to enable interpretations based on research on governance but also left room for analysis focusing upon a distinctly organizational perspective. It included questions that probed interviewees’ experiences of young people’s involvement in decision-making processes in their specific organizations and in Norwegian sport in general. Examples of interview and questionnaire questions are as follows: Could you explain your role in your organization? How did you come to be in the position that you are in now? How would you describe your possibility to influence decision-making? How is your role perceived by others? The more experienced leaders were also asked about the ways they perceive young people’s involvement in the governance of sport and the challenges associated to this issue.

The interview guide was member-checked (Braun & Clarke, 2013) by five young leaders in Norwegian sport organizations (aged 20–25 years) and two employees in the NIF (aged 31 and 37, respectively). The input provided helped the researchers develop the questions, so they were understandable and relevant for gaining knowledge on the challenges of young people’s involvement in the governance of sport. All interviewees were informed about the purpose of the study as well as their right to anonymity and to discontinue participation in the study at any time. The research was approved by and followed the ethical guidelines of the Norwegian Centre for Research Data. Interviews lasted between 38 and 82 minutes and were transcribed verbatim. Interviewees were given the opportunity to review the transcripts, add or delete information and elaborate on aspects in the interviews. One interviewee asked to make some changes to an answer which were of grammatical nature; however, the changes did not affect the content and meaning of the data.

Data Analysis

To identify patterns of organizational culture assumed to affect young peoples’ influence in decision-making processes in Norwegian sport organizations, the researchers conducted a six-step thematic analysis as suggested by Clarke & Braun (2013). Thematic analysis is a flexible method that allows the combination of theory-driven analysis and the identification and analysis of ‘patterns in qualitative data’ (Clarke & Braun, 2013, p. 120); thus, it opens the possibility for inductively constructed nuances. Because the survey results comprised only open-ended answers, they were analysed alongside the interview transcripts as qualitative material. As the data presented here were collected for an overarching research project into young people and governance in Norwegian sport; thus, the approach of applying an organizational culture theoretical lens for this particular articles stems from findings that emerged through the analysis, as explained below.

In Step 1, the first author read the transcripts to familiarize themselves with the data. Notes were taken on overall ideas about the subsequent results section. Step 2 included the first author conducting a line-by-line reading, focusing on interviewees’ experiences with the purpose of identifying codes relevant to the interrelation between organizational culture and young people’s possibility to influence the governance of Norwegian sport organizations. Codes were formulated by using words that resembled participants’ phrasing. In a third step, the initial findings were collectively discussed in the light of the theoretical framework of organizational culture, with the second, third and fourth author acting as critical friends. During this process, codes became more robust.

Thus, Step 3, which gradually transitioned us to Step 4, helped structure the results section into distinctive parts along the theoretical concepts presented above, in which codes from Step 2 were allocated to each of these parts. Step 4 again involved a collective discussion concerning the codes and the structure draft, and in Step 5, the researchers collectively finalized the structure of the results and discussion sections as per below, aiming to bring out a meaningful story. Rigor was obtained by a combination of member-checking, intercoder reliability and agreement practices (Clarke & Braun, 2013), underpinned by the researchers’ social constructivist ontological and epistemological perspectives. Step 6 of Clarke and Braun’s (2013) approach is the conveyance of an analysis in written form. The researchers reported observations in a more data-close form in the findings section and thereafter presented a theoretical reading of the findings from the perspective of organizational culture in the discussion, with a particular focus on the tensions between structure and culture. In the findings section, data from the questionnaire are marked with ‘Q’, data from interviews are marked with ‘I’.

Findings

This section presents young and older representatives’ experiences of young people’s participation in governance processes in Norwegian sport organizations under three empirically overlapping but analytically distinct themes: (a) ‘Othering’ of Youth, (b) Distrust and Uncertainty and (c) Education and Competence. The themes are sequenced so that ‘othering’ is an overarching element which is explained by distrust and uncertainty and where education and competence are a way to assimilate young people with the organizational culture.

‘Othering’ of Youth

Despite children and youth sport being so central to the Norwegian sports movement, the first distinguishing organizational culture element found affecting youth participation in governance is the understanding of youth representatives and issues as distinct from ‘regular’ and ‘proper’ sport governance. The following quotes illustrate the role of helping the organization of being and doing something different: ‘I challenge the established thinking patterns to those that have been sitting in the board for many years now’ (Y22, board member, RSF, 23–26 years, Q). ‘Maybe I can help to create a positive image, or a younger image for the organization’ (Y3, board member, NSF, 23–26 years, I).

Importantly, this cultural understanding of ‘othering’ takes its structural expression in the separation of youth representatives onto committees that secure the presence of youth representation but that separate—and in the process, indicate the subordination of—youths from the main governing board. The view of incumbents of reserved seats through quotas, another structural mechanism, stems from the same cultural understanding of youths as others and outsiders. Although embedded in and legitimized by cultural understandings, these structural changes imply the creation of segregated governance units with a somewhat ceremonial function. These may also be prone to creating organizational subcultures that reinforce understandings of youths as not of equal standing to ‘ordinary’ board members. One way the ceremonial function becomes visible is through the apparent lack of formal and informal instructions to youth committees. As one young representative shared:

We aim at creating a network for young people in the association, but we have spent over two years, to do almost nothing, because we have no clear direction. (…) We have no guidelines, no steering from above, and that is reoccurring in youth work in sport. … What does the board want? What does the administration want? What does the mass sport department want? There is no use of establishing a committee if there is no idea with it (Y5, youth committee chair NSF, 23–26 years, I).

Another informant reflected upon the lack of guidelines and perceived that older representatives only saw the youth committee as a response to a demand from above, rather than a change that is of benefit to the overall organization:

I have on several occasions tried to ask the association’s board and the mass sport committee about what they want us in the youth committee to contribute with. Most replies are vague comments such as ‘it is nice that we have a youth committee’, which is common. The perception of not being taken seriously or not being integrated in the association creates frustration. Most tasks we have received are like, ‘Look at this and tell us your opinion about what youth like’ (Y21, youth committee member, NSF, 23–26 years, Q).

A pattern seems to exist whereby the youth committees are given tasks that are far from core to the governance of Norwegian sport. This is illustrated by one of the older leaders who, with reference to a young representative who was a board member in an RSC, stated, ‘For example, he did the layout for that book. Those are the things he is good at’ (O1, board member RSC, 41–50 years, I). Overall, it seems as though the youth representatives on the boards and the youth committees are understood to have an advisory rather than actual decision-making role. To some extent, this cultural understanding was upheld by young representatives themselves, as exemplified in the following: ‘I have just been elected as a board member but have taken on the responsibility with the children and youth committee and am well underway in organizing it’ (Y31, board member, NSF, 19–22 years, Q). From experience, this person was used to ‘function as an intermediate between the youth and the board’. Another was even clearer regarding the advisory role of the youth committee and said that tasks are limited to treating youth issues: ‘I lead the committee and receive tasks for processing from the committees in the association. We improve competitions for youth and participate in gatherings to build networks, etc.’ (Y36, youth committee chair, NSF, 23–26 years, Q).

As an example of youth representatives’ exclusion from discussions around issues of perceived importance, the data revealed that youths are rarely included in decision-making concerning elite sport. Interviewees found this to be both exclusionary and unwise because youths have extensive knowledge about athletes and specific sports. ‘No, I feel that we are only there to have a voice for the youth, and not for the rest. And I feel that the federation is not mature enough to expire our influence on elite sport for example’. (Y5, youth committee chair, NSF, 23–26 years, I).

The fact that young people are almost solely involved in issues that concern recreational sport increases the barriers for youth governance on all levels of the sport system (see also Waldahl & Skille, 2016). Somewhat between the lines of this subsection, especially regarding the separation of youth representatives from ‘real organizational life’ and hence the important decisions being made, there seems to be an issue of trust or lack of trust related to young and inexperienced young people in sport organizations, which is elaborated on in the following.

Distrust and Uncertainty

The establishment of youth committees without pronounced ideas on why and how they are supposed to function has created a situation of uncertainty and distrust that makes the governance system vulnerable to established (culturally supported) ways of thinking and doing. In a system where board seats for so long have been held mostly by older (white male) representatives, drawing on preexisting cultural understandings means reproducing the status quo to the benefit of this group’s power. Two parallel processes are required for the mechanism of such reproduction to occur: old people who protect the existing system by showing distrust and young people who perceive distrust and hence develop uncertainty. As a youth committee member shared, ‘You are presented as inexperienced, independent of your knowledge and capabilities. I feel that the older ones are afraid of [losing] their position and recruit young people as figurehead but give them very little influence within the organization’ (Y29, board member and youth committee member, NSF, 19–22 years, Q).

One effect of this culturally supported skewedness is that young people’s values, experiences and perception of fitting in within decision-making processes is downplayed in homophilic practices where built-up trust around interest and capacity leads to older representatives entrusting their peers with proper influence in governance processes. Although this is not new knowledge, this study explains the mechanisms leading to it through insights from both older, experienced and younger, less experienced representatives. A typical young view is that they are not asked to contribute, as shown in the following interview extract: ‘We are three relatively young board members, but I still feel that we are there to fill up the quota. Then they take the rest (of the real businesses) with the rest of the people they trust’ (Y4, board member, RSC, 23–26 years, I). Another young informant reports that uncertainty influences getting actively involved in the decision-making conversation.

When you are part of the youth committee, there are other youths. But when you have a seat in a regular board where you are the only young person, it is very hard and very tough to raise your voice, especially when you disagree. They [the older] use very big words, and you probably do not have the overview over budget, and then it is hard to have an opinion (Y1, board member and youth committee chair, RSC, 19–22 years, I).

On the contrary, older representatives referred to the same process of exclusion as the young people’s lack of interest and involvement.

In general, it is a dilemma when young people see things with a new view, and they see a solution that has either been tried before or perhaps is not feasible. Then they wonder why they cannot do it, become perhaps disappointed, and think that the old and old-fashioned do not see the opportunities or are willing to change (O1, board member, RSC, 41–60 years, I).

Overcoming these cultural barriers is further complicated by what from a youth perspective is perceived as a lack of inclusive practices on the part of older representatives. This is mirrored in the sense of lack of security in voicing their opinion and feelings of ‘otherness’ and ‘othering’ that young people report. As an illustration, one interviewee reported, ‘I have been in many meetings with older people where I was the only young person and thought: do I really fit in here? Is this really cool? Now I am over 30; what about a 23-year-old?’ (O3, employee, NSF, 27–40 years, I). Moreover, several young people reported that they did not receive a proper onboarding in the specifics of the organization when they entered the board or the organization. Nevertheless, one solution that is applied is providing education and competence development.

Education and Competence

Lacking role prescriptions, clear instructions and inclusive board-level conduct, education emerges as the main vehicle for the socialization of young people into the culture of Norwegian sport governance. In fact, the widespread belief in education appears to be a distinguishing organizational cultural trait, with courses targeting young leaders in particular being rolled out by NIF. One of the interviewees reflected on the cultural importance of building competence through courses:

In Norwegian sport, we have a culture that is about ‘You have to take courses before you can have an opinion.’ (…) We have programs for youths, for women, for minorities, and this tells us that these groups need more competence before they can take a job. But it should rather be about creating a safe environment for these interest groups. And then we say, ‘The young person is so quiet, they are not engaged.’ But then, the board members must ask, ‘What is the reason this person is not providing any input? Is there something else? Is it a bad environment?’ This is about good governance in board work (O3, employee, NSF, 27–40 years, I).

Educational courses are an arena where young representatives meet and interact with more established leaders outside of the boardroom. However, the built-in positioning of the latter as knowledgeable and competent and the former as ignorant and needing to be taught, socializes youth representatives into otherness and subordination vis-à-vis older representatives.

As an example, NIF has established a specific course for young leaders scoping 18 hours for the basic course and 4 hours for a follow-up course. Through nine modules, young people are intended to learn about teamwork, the responsibility of being a role model, self-image and self-confidence, the organization of Norwegian sports and being a member of a sport club, being a voluntary resource, designing and evaluating action plans, communication and presentation skills (NIF, 2021b). That young people do not have the chance to ‘come as they are’, but are required to undergo an educational programme, reflects a basic assumption shared by older and younger informants. This assumption implies that young people need to reach a certain degree of organization-specific competence to meet the requirements for an invitation into decision-making arenas. Educational programmes per se, but also the topics to which young people are invited to contribute, indicate an organizational culture that is increasingly characterized by professionalization. The professionalization (e.g., certain qualities that people in the organization have such as education and experience) should assumingly be in line with younger peoples’ culture because they are used to more employees in voluntary organizations than older generations are. However, it seems as though the increased number of employees in sport organizations functions as yet another protector of the old power.

The youth consultant [in the organization] was disappointed with us whatever we did and thought we did not achieve anything when we came up with suggestions for action plans and such that were identical to those other youth committee had (Y10, youth committee member, RSC, 15–18 years, Q).

The most striking point in the comment above is perhaps that the employee to whom the young interviewee referred is the youth consultant in the organization—a position one should believe was made to support youths and youth cases. It stands out as an extreme example of the way structure and culture seem to work against young power in Norwegian sport organizations. Taken together, the theme of competence comprises several rather different components that apparently work together to reproduce the organizational culture instead of listening to youths ‘as is’.

Discussion

All of the empirical points made above are contextualized within a tension between structure and culture that are omnipresent in Norwegian sport organizations. The tension between structure and culture is subject to organizational processes of legitimation, institutionalization and professionalization which shape young people’s influence in decision-making, as explained in the following:

Youths struggle to influence decision-making processes, due to an established sport system governed by veterans. Thus, the young people face several challenges. For one thing, on a structural level, it is hard to contribute when the youth are disconnected from the board into subcommittees and thus the real governance of the organization. Moreover, it is challenging to contribute when never being asked because people in power do not expect the young person’s proposals and solutions to work anyway. The apparent belief that youth committees and quotas are suitable measures for increasing participative decision-making among youths fails because they structurally separate young people from the actual power. Even though committees are intended to achieve change (i.e., amplify young people’s voices), the committees reflect a cultural element that conditions constraints of young people’s power (Alvesson, 2013).

The committees as a structural element (Schein, 2017) represent a subordination to the board and the relationship between the young people in committees and board members is culturally characterized by imbalanced access to power. Board members and youth committee members have different access to different resources (material, structural and symbolic) and therefore different possibilities to make decisions about their reality (Alvesson, 2013). The different access to resources can also be witnessed in the tasks that are assigned or not assigned to young people; the tasks are connected to advisory roles rather than actual decision-making roles. As pointed out at the outset of this article, the Nordic countries (Green et al., 2019) have succeeded in a sport-for-all policy, measured by, for example, gender equality and participation rates among children and youths. Norway (Skirstad et al., 2012) has strict policies regarding children’s safeguarding in sport. Nevertheless, the organizational culture may work against the provisions of a channel for youths to speak up.

In other words, young people’s full participation in decision-making has not been legitimized. This may be understood against the background of decision-making structures being so-called high-impact systems (Kikulis et al., 1995) that are linchpins in organizational cultures. In this study, the values upheld were related to having older people in control, which mirrors an adult society (see also Strandbu et al., 2019) and the idea that young people need to upgrade their competence before they are invited to decision-making processes. The participation opportunities for young people are thus characterized by ‘political indoctrination’ rather than political self-determination allowing young people to ‘establish their own beliefs’ and raising them in sport political decision-making processes (Hart, 1992, p. 36). Thus, despite the good intentions in UN conventions, NIF children’s rights and youth sport guidelines, the culture of the organization is a significant source of power in shaping sport into a youth-friendly phenomenon. Following Yukl (2012) on the relationship between the structure and culture of organizations, a change of structure is a necessary but not sufficient criterion for changing organizational culture.

Change of culture demands that a mass of individuals adjust or evolve their values and beliefs. Newcomers are socialized to fall in line with the practices of this distinct social practice called Norwegian sport governance. Thus, a cultural feature is cultural moulding of underrepresented target groups through education or mentorship programmes designed to shape newcomers rather than adjusting the actual organization (see, e.g., Shaw & Slack, 2002). In addition, such programmes are based on a view that the target group, whether young people, women or immigrants, are framed as different from the stereotype in sport governance (see also Svender et al., 2012, for othering of women; see Evans et al., 2020 and Agergaard & Lenneis, 2021, for othering of specific ethnic groups). In other words, if change is considered at all (cf. Yukl, 2012), then change of the target groups, such as young representatives, is prioritized over change of the organization.

Picking up on Schein’s (2017) distinction between desired and actual behaviour, it is the belief of the actors in sport organizations that the establishment of youth committees is a suitable measure for increasing participative decision-making among youths. To give some voice to youths, most member organizations of the NIF, RSCs and NSFs have established distinct youth committees in which young people mainly discuss youth issues. Separating youths structurally from the core decision-making arenas and excluding them from aspects that older leaders only discuss among themselves is othering. Including youths is something observable that sounds noble, but in reality, the youth commitees seem to be more of an artificial or external element to the real decision-making structures than a response to the lack of young voices in sport organizations. With this approach, NIF could be—by critical scholars—accused for actually failing a UN policy, which suggests: ‘Productive collaboration between young and old should be the core of any democratic society wishing to improve itself, while providing continuity between the past, present, and the future’. (Hart, 1992, p. 37).

The establishment of committees as a response to a problem is a common strategy for sport and other types of organizations. Because the integration of ‘others’ into high-impact systems, such as decision-making processes in boards, might threaten shared values and beliefs, and hence the prevailing culture of the sport organization and thus a loss of legitimacy, committees can be seen as elements of structure that are decoupled from the core where decisions are made. Such committees can be flagged as the organization acting for solving the problem, but those who govern do not lose power. These structural changes serve a rather ceremonial function and reinforce a division where organizational (youth) subcultures are created outside those that permeate core governance functions. Subculture here refers to a consequence of young people being ‘structured away’ from the real decision-making forums rather than an active resistance created to oppose the majority culture (cf. Terpstra, 2006).

The idea of education programmes as an appropriate onboarding practice is a shared value (Schein, 2017) that has developed to a basic assumption due to its practical application over decades, also due to professionalization processes. On the contrary, there is no shared idea that older leaders in sport organizations should take part in an educational programme to learn how to integrate young people’s voices better in decision-making processes. Rather, the organizational culture of the NIF appears to be based on institutionalized practices and traditions that have been established and maintained over a long period. In other words, there are two mechanisms by way homophilic practices of the organizational culture are maintained: the selection of old peers and the education of the young to become like the old. Our findings can thus be seen in line with Hart’s (2008) levels of children’s non-participation in democracies. The change pushed on young people through education can be depicted as manipulation to further an agenda of the old. Youth quotas and committees structured away from the actual power serve as decoration, making the youth governance agenda of Norwegian organized sport as tokenism rather than actual participation (Hart, 2008, p. 22).

Conclusion

This study shows that the limited influence of young people in decision-making processes in Norwegian sport organizations can be empirically explained by (a) a lack of integration of youth representatives and youth committees, a lack of guidelines for the youth committees and their role in the association and the allocation of smaller tasks to young people; (b) distrust seen most prominently through courses aiming to mainstream young people into ‘proper governance delegates’; and (c) processes of competence building and socialization of youth representatives. These findings are explained in organizational theoretical terms, pinpointing that the structures and cultures of organizations play together and to a large degree uphold the status quo.

For the sport policy and practice, these findings are significant in relation to organized sport’s risk of losing their reproductive ability, legitimacy in the eyes of public funders, and democratic ethos and contribution to a viable democratic society. Indeed, the recruitment practice is not very expedient if youths do not get to participate actively and influence decisions that are made in Norwegian sport. Without active participation and influence, Norwegian sport will not benefit from the youths’ competence and perspectives. For example, excluding young people from issues in elite sport is a paradox. The tension between commitment to elite sport and facilitation of recreational sport is one of the reasons adolescents drop out of sport, because the focus on performance and competition pressure is perceived as less attractive to most young sport participants.

For academia, the study contributes to the general youth research field by focusing upon structural and cultural elements of the largest youth activity in Norway and many other countries: sport. In that respect, one explanation of the lack of progress of youth influence in sport is that the structural elements created are insufficient as long as the dominating cultural elements are still traditional. Regarding young people’s opportunity to participate in decision-making, they are both structurally and culturally restricting, and both are at play in various organizational solutions. Overall, youth committees make the influence structurally restricted—youth are not given access to real decision-making arenas. Moreover, youth participation in boards is culturally restricted as their stock of knowledge is not experienced as valued. One question that is not addressed in this article, but worth further exploring is whether it is a reasonable normative standpoint to impart youth with both the mandate and the accountability of all types of decisions. Building on the notion of generalization through context similarity (Larsson, 2009), these insights are likely to bear relevance in countries whose sport systems are similar to Norway’s (e.g., Sweden, Denmark, Germany). Beyond this, there is great purchase in extending the organizational culture lens in relation to issues of underrepresentation of separate interest group in sport. Potential avenues for future research are more in-depth explorations of how discrepancies between ceremonial and real change (cf. Meyer & Rowan, 1977) and homophilic tendencies play out in recruitment and socialization processes. Also, future research is proposed to take on the perspective of ‘othering’ (Dervin, 2012; Tanyas, 2016) to better understanding the lack of young people’s opportunity to influence the governance of sport and sport participation.