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Many voluntary sports clubs face financial difficulties and consequently turn to external funding sources. Recent developments suggest that sports clubs have been successful in significantly increasing sponsorship income by professionalizing their sponsorship activities. However, not much is known about how voluntary sports clubs professionalize their sponsorship management (e.g. sponsorship staff). This study seeks to gain a deeper understanding of the components addressed and the practices used by voluntary sports clubs to professionalize their sponsorship.

An exploratory case study was conducted to gain in-depth insights into voluntary sports clubs’ organizational developments in the context of sponsorship management. Data were collected from six sports clubs through document analyses and problem-centered interviews with decision makers. The data were analyzed using a qualitative content analysis approach, which included both deductive and complementary inductive coding of the data.

The results show that the components addressed in the professionalization of sponsorship management are reflected in three dimensions: “people and positions” (e.g. sponsorship staff), “structures and processes” (e.g. differentiation of responsibilities), and “strategies and activities” (e.g. sponsorship rights orientation). It was also found that clubs, which have diverse characteristics and levels of professionalization, pursue distinct approaches.

In contrast to studies on professional sports organizations that focus primarily on the sponsor’s perspective, this study sheds light on sponsorship management in sports clubs in the non-profit sector. The findings can help voluntary sports clubs to transform their sponsorship management strategically and increase sponsorship income in the long term.

This paper aims to examine Holacracy as a self-management system and its implications for organizational theory. By exploring its distinctive ontology and epistemology, the paper explains how Holacracy redefines organizational structures and contributes to organizational change.

Adopting a conceptual approach, this essay draws upon existing literature to explore Holacracy’s departure from conventional organizational theories.

The paper discusses how Holacracy challenges traditional organizational concepts, defining its holarchical approach, and emphasizing dynamic hierarchies and role-based organization. It also highlights Holacracy’s focus on emergent intelligence, continuous feedback loops and structured knowledge acquisition through roles and organization spaces. By examining its unique ontology and epistemology, the paper offers insights into how Holacracy aligns with an emergent paradigm known as integral, metamodern or teal.

Further empirical research is needed to assess its practical implementation and long-term effects on organizational performance and employee well-being. Future studies could also explore challenges and limitations associated with adopting Holacracy in different organizational contexts.

Organizations considering alternative ways of working should examine Holacracy. Implementing Holacracy requires understanding its principles and may involve significant changes, with potential benefits such as increased agility and employee engagement.

Holacracy’s departure from traditional structures and approach to power can have broader social implications and contribute to more democratic and participatory cultures.

This paper is a pioneering contribution to the under-researched domain of alternative organizational models. It sheds light on the originality and distinctiveness of Holacracy, highlighting its unique approach to hierarchy, role-based organization and consciousness within organizations.

This study explores the integration of corporate reporting by Mitsubishi, a large Japanese company, using a culturally sensitive narrative that combines and reconciles Japanese and Western corporate values in one story.

We use an analytical framework drawing on insights borrowed from narratology and the notion of wrapping – the traditional art of packaging as communication.

We find that Mitsubishi is a survivor company that uses different corporate reporting frameworks during its reporting journey to construct a bespoke narrative of its value creation and cultural values. It emplots narratives to convey a story presenting the impression that Mitsubishi is a Japanese corporation but is compatible with Western neo-liberal ideology, making bad news palatable to its stakeholders and instilling confidence in the future.

Wrapping is a culturally sensitive form of impression management used in the integration of corporate reporting. Therefore, rather than assuming that companies blatantly manipulate their image in corporate reports, we suggest that future research should focus on how narratives are constructed and made sense of, situating them in the context of local culture and traditions.

The findings should interest scholars, report preparers, policymakers, and the IFRS, considering the recent release of the IFRS Sustainability Disclosure Standards designed to reduce the so-called alphabet soup of corporate reporting. By following Mitsubishi’s journey, we learn how and why the notion of integrated reporting was adopted and integrated with other reporting frameworks to create narratives that together convey a story of a global corporation compliant with Western neoliberal ideology. It highlights how Mitsubishi used integrated reporting to tell its story rather than as a rigid reporting framework, and the same fate may apply to the new IFRS Sustainability Reporting Standards that now include integrated reporting.

The study offers a new perspective on corporate reporting, showing how the local societal discourses of cultural heritage and modernity can shape the journey of the integration of corporate reporting over time.

The aim of this study is two-fold: (1) to promote a model of youth participatory research and offer a window of understanding into how it can be enacted and (2) to understand youth perspectives on youth empowerment. This study asks: “how can youth help us understand youth empowerment?”

The study applies youth participatory action research (YPAR) and interpretative phenomenological analysis. The study illustrates how to enact a model of YPAR by engaging youth in the process of research in a youth-serving community non-profit organization.

This study sets out to make two important contributions, one methodological and one theoretical: First, the study contributes to our understanding of the opportunities and benefits of youth-engaged, peer-to-peer research. Specifically, this study promotes a model of youth participatory action research and knowledge making processes, and the associated social and formal benefits for youth. By extension, this study illustrates an approach to engage youth in formal contexts which has implications for both management and organizational studies and education. Finally, the study extends our understanding and conceptualization of the phenomenon of youth empowerment (as informed by youth perspectives).

The study offers insight into how to conduct youth participatory action research and specifically how to address two limitations cited in the literature: (1) how to authentically engage youth including how to share power, and (2) how to perform youth participatory action research, often critiqued as a black box methodology.