De waardenvolle club: Het besturen en managen van publieke waardencreatie in voetbalorganisaties

Football clubs (amateur clubs, professional football clubs and the Royal Dutch Football Association) have evolved towards hybrid service organisations and are dealing with an increasing number of heterogeneous stakeholders with ambiguous goals, expectations and interests with regards to creating sporting, cultural and business value. At the same time club members, fans, governments, NGOs, sponsors and the media are having increasingly high expectations about the contribution of football clubs in addressing social issues. As a consequence, football directors and managers are also expected to create public value.
Based on extensive empirical research, the PhD thesis shows that football directors and managers struggle to achieve strong public value construction, effective partnerships and sustainable and legitimate services. In practice two ideal types can be distinguished: the Business Club, which is imbued with a critical attitude towards public value creation, and the Open Club, in which the emphasis on creating public value inhibits the creation of sporting, cultural and business values.
From an iterative process of constant comparison, analysis and theoretical sensitivity the PhD thesis proposes a new ideal type: the Valued Club. As an organisation, the Valued Club considers football as a creator of public value (not as a mere product or means) and football managers and directors steer towards responsibility and reflection. The Valued Club contributes concrete ideas and practices for directors and managers of football organisations and other hybrid organisations by providing three theoretical concepts: facilitating moments of truth, establishing smart partnerships in service networks and organising from a theory of change stance.