Promoting social sustainability in elite sports requires a cultural change
Over the past three years, we’ve been exploring social sustainability and management in the complex operational logic of elite sports. Discussions surrounding sport management in Finland often focus on challenging structures, scarce financial resources, and success measured in medals. But it’s too often overlooked that the foundations and potential of organisations lie in people, their interactions, and the development of expertise.
The concepts of sustainability and responsibility in sports are here to stay and many sports managers encourage discussions on responsibility.
Unfortunately, responsibility is often seen merely as a project, or as something to include in a report or strategy speech to polish an image. It rarely becomes an integral part of the everyday life of an organisation. Instead of being an integral part of decision-making and operations, many responsible actions are just delayed reactions to external pressures. This problem becomes especially apparent when different stakeholders impose demands for meeting financial goals or producing results in competitions.
Well-being and humanity are often sidelined in management
In social sustainability, the focus is on people’s well-being, respectful and caring treatment, and equality. In elite sports, unfortunately, these are often overlooked. Earlier studies show that management based on caring and respect is essential to building a sustainable and ethically strong sports culture. Yet such management is rarely seen.
Uncertainty in trust and a lack of transparency in decision-making can strain the relationship between athletes, coaches, and managers.
Moreover, inappropriate ways of speaking and behaviour persist in sporting environments. Recent examples, such as the misogynistic comments by Aleksi Valavuori and Kalle Palander,show just how deeply rooted these attitudes continue to be in Finnish sports culture. Discrimination and inappropriate treatment are problems which haven’t been solved in any area of society – so why stay quiet about them in sports?
Building ethically sustainable work communities in sports
Above all, social sustainability in elite sports is a process of changing the culture, which takes time and frequently involves facing resistance. Promoting social sustainability is therefore not a mere act of heroism, and it doesn’t emerge or change based on a single manager’s vision or a statement made by an individual athlete. It often requires doing things over and learning from mistakes. Above all, it means continuous effort from all those involved in sports. It is in the community as a whole where trust and commitment are created by daily actions.
The change in culture requires systematic development of expertise in responsibility, openness and a dialogue where the voices of all parties – athletes, coaches, other employees and managers – are heard.
Such a change does not occur overnight but requires a continuous effort to build towards a more caring sports culture. Social sustainability should not be seen as separate from an organisation, but as the core principle of its operations. It is not something that can be compromised on during hard times; on the contrary, its importance becomes even more evident is such times, as it defines an organisation’s ability to support the work community’s well-being and fair treatment under all circumstances.
In the future, sports management will require a deeper understanding of respectful and fair treatment of people and more transparency in the use of power.
We need to look at how employee groups and leaders could together build respectful work communities and create interesting jobs in the field of sports. It takes courage to dismantle the old structures and boldly question the existing ones. At its best, elite sports can be a safe and respectful environment which prioritises well-being, equality, and caring. These values are not an obstacle to success – they are, in fact, its clearest prerequisite.
About the authors: Suvi Heikkinen works as an assistant professor and Marke Kivijärvi as a senior lecturer at the Jyväskylä University School of Business and Economics.
