Partnership Capacity in Australian Community Sport

Community Sport Organizations (CSOs) exist to provide opportunities for sport participation for youth and adults in many countries around the world. These nonprofit, voluntary organizations face many challenges in an increasingly complex environment due to their diverse stakeholders, scarce resources, volunteer turnover among other issues (Allison, 2001; Hoye & Cuskelly, 2007). Interorganizational partnerships have been identified as a central dimension influencing the overall organizational capacity of CSOs and the ability of these organizations to achieve their missions (Misener & Doherty, 2013; Doherty, Misener, & Cuskelly, 2014). This study will research partnership capacity within Australian CSOs. The particular objectives will be:

(1) to explore the type, frequency, and key motives for partnerships in the community sport sector;
(2) to identify the key capacities required to develop and manage effective partnerships;
(3) to understand the outcomes of community sport partnerships in the Australian context.

We anticipate that this study will result in theoretical development related to partnership management as well as cross-cultural comparison in addition academic manuscripts and technical reports for participating CSOs will be developed at the end of the study. This will also serve as a foundation for my future dissertation studies related to building capacity in youth sport organizations.

Faculty Supervisor:

Katie Misener

Student:

Partner:

La Trobe University

Discipline:

Sociology

Sector:

Education

University:

University of Waterloo

Program: