Organizational Theories in Australian Football League (AFL)

Background to Australian Football League

The AFL is the apex body administering and managing the rules of football in Australia. The mission of AFL is to support all football levels ranging from the junior to the professional/elite heights. The entity is operated as a not-for-profit organization meaning that all the surplus revenues are distributed across the constituent clubs. The composition of AFL includes football organizations across seven states and territories. It has 94 regional offices, 11500 teams, 2589 clubs, 180 community football staff, and 20000 coaches among others (“Australian Rules Football,” n.d.). The major function of the corporation is to manage the country’s football sport.

The organizational structure of AFL comprises six major divisions each handling specific aspects of the sport. The departments are finance and administration, football operations, marketing, and communications and broadcasting, game development, strategy and major projects, and commercial operations. The AFL operates in the football sector of the Australian sports industry that generates billions of dollars every year. All the rules followed by the sport are developed by AFL.

AFL does have its culture as will be discussed in the sections that follow. A brief overview is presented by Elzinga (2017) who states that most sports organizations operate just like any other company. It can be expected that such entities will struggle with similar issues faced by other firms. However, some unique aspects make sporting entities different from other enterprises. In this case, the AFL dwells only on the development of football rules and regulations. The clubs playing football are considered to be part of the AFL despite each of them having dissimilar management systems. Examining the culture of AFL will, therefore, entail examining the cultures of the Australian football clubs as well.

Organizational Culture

The term organizational culture is used to imply the tacit social order of a corporation. According to Groysberg, Lee, Price, and Cheng (2018), the term culture has no universal definition and can be a fluid concept used differently in various contexts. Culture comprises several components and has various characteristics that when applied to a firm could either inhibit or enhance organizational performance. For example, those businesses embracing characteristics such as proactive approach, commitment, risk-taking, and change can be described as innovative and they tend to perform well (Szczepańska-Woszczyna, 2015). Organizational culture determines the beliefs, norms, attitudes, and behavior of the members.

In the AFL, organizational culture is more visible from the operations of the clubs than it is within the AFL offices. However, it can be noted that the main motive of developing the football rules and regulations is to protect the interests of the stakeholders, including the clubs, players, coaches, and referees among others. According to Wagstaff and Burton-Wylie (2018), organizational culture in sports is viewed from a psychological stand. There the governing bodies (such as AFL) have a primary duty of protecting and supporting the mental and overall wellbeing of the workers and members. The players are the core employees, though managed by the clubs, and the best practices and the cultures of these clubs are set by the AFL.

An overview of the corporate culture at work within the AFL can be seen from practices such as career management. Australian football, according to Pink, Saunders, and Stynes (2015), has a culture of successfully supporting dual career development for the players. Such cultures are evident at the club level where despite maintaining an effective on-field performance the clubs also oversee the development of other skill sets that can help the players outside the sports sector. However, Pink, Saunders, and Stynes (2015) emphasize that even with such arrangements, football always comes first. The players are encouraged to explore personal meaning, with the clubs seeing it as an ethical responsibility to help them do so.

At the club level, however, the most apparent culture is the learning one for both the players and the managerial staff. Several studies have examined the learning culture both in sports in general and in the specific context of AFL. Football is among the high-performance sports that present athletes with massive learning opportunities and experiences. As the key employees in the industry, their performance and productivity are at the core of the organizational operations. The players tend to invest time and energy in competitions and training for prolonged periods (Barker-Ruchti Barker, Rynne, & Lee, 2016). Learning also tends to evolve with time depending on the current demands and the changes in the teaching methods adopted by the coaches.