International Perspectives on Gender Leadership and Governance in Sport Organizations

Dear Colleagues,

While gender equity in sport organizations has been on the ‘agenda’ of research and policies for over 30 years, in practice, sport organizations are behind most other sectors in progressing towards gender inclusion, especially at leadership and governance levels. We are calling for the submission of articles that provide a detailed and expansive understanding of the complexity of gender relations in the leadership and governance of sport nationally, locally and in different cultural contexts. In particular, we encourage submissions from authors researching in contexts outside of the Global North.

Understanding gender inclusion in sport governance and leadership continues to be a significant and relevant research topic. This is due to the continued trends of male dominance across traditional sport organizations, but also the rise and expansion of professional women’s sport leagues and the associated media, commercial and public interest. With the increased professionalization of women’s sport, as scholars, we need to ask critical questions about who manages, leads and has power in sport-related organizations, and what types of policies might support change.

This proposed Special Issue will provide a critical discussion on the complexities around gender and leadership in sport that go beyond quotas. We welcome scholarship that examines international and contemporary perspectives on gender leadership and governance in sport organizations.

Articles could include empirical or theoretical scholarship on:

• Leadership opportunities for female players, coaches, umpires or volunteers in sport organizations;
• The influence of allyship of male colleagues and leaders;
• Intersectional experiences of gendered leadership and power;
• Theoretical perspectives and theories of change on gender relations in sport organizations;
• The influence of dominant and subordinate forms of masculinity and/or femininity on leadership norms and values;
• The binary construction of the development, structure and norms of sport organizations;
• A critical discussion of strategies or measures to address gender representation/inclusion in sport organizations, such as targets and quotas;
• Empirical papers on interventions and policies that have supported change;
• Everyday experiences of gender relations in sport organizations;
• Gender power relations in the leadership of the professionalization of women’s sport.

Contributions have to follow one of the three categories of papers (article, conceptual paper or review) for the journal and address the topic of the Special Issue.

Dr. Popi Sotiriadou
Dr. Lucy Piggott
Prof. Dr. Philippa Velija
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as conceptual papers are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a double-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Societies is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 1400 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

• leadership
• governance
• sport organizations
• gender relations
• professional sports