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Organizational theories attempt to explain how entities work and to appreciate the processes that produce certain outcomes within the corporations. Such theories tend to draw from various bodies of knowledge but they all illustrate the internal and external relationships between the stakeholders. Among the key models are organizational culture and practice theory. This essay applies these two concepts to the operations of the Australian Football League (AFL). A brief background to the AFL will be presented before applying the individual theories. The context of the essay is the current global pandemic of coronavirus (Covid-19), and the recommendation section will examine how the ideas can be used to handle the situation.
Background to Australian Football League
The AFL is the apex body administering and managing the rules of football in Australia. The mission of AFL is to support all football levels ranging from the junior to the professional/elite heights. The entity is operated as a not-for-profit organization meaning that all the surplus revenues are distributed across the constituent clubs. The composition of AFL includes football organizations across seven states and territories. It has 94 regional offices, 11500 teams, 2589 clubs, 180 community football staff, and 20000 coaches among others ( Australian Rules Football, n.d.). The major function of the corporation is to manage the countrys football sport.
The organizational structure of AFL comprises six major divisions each handling specific aspects of the sport. The departments are finance and administration, football operations, marketing, and communications and broadcasting, game development, strategy and major projects, and commercial operations. The AFL operates in the football sector of the Australian sports industry that generates billions of dollars every year. All the rules followed by the sport are developed by AFL.
AFL does have its culture as will be discussed in the sections that follow. A brief overview is presented by Elzinga (2017) who states that most sports organizations operate just like any other company. It can be expected that such entities will struggle with similar issues faced by other firms. However, some unique aspects make sporting entities different from other enterprises. In this case, the AFL dwells only on the development of football rules and regulations. The clubs playing football are considered to be part of the AFL despite each of them having dissimilar management systems. Examining the culture of AFL will, therefore, entail examining the cultures of the Australian football clubs as well.
Organizational Culture
The term organizational culture is used to imply the tacit social order of a corporation. According to Groysberg, Lee, Price, and Cheng (2018), the term culture has no universal definition and can be a fluid concept used differently in various contexts. Culture comprises several components and has various characteristics that when applied to a firm could either inhibit or enhance organizational performance. For example, those businesses embracing characteristics such as proactive approach, commitment, risk-taking, and change can be described as innovative and they tend to perform well (SzczepaDska-Woszczyna, 2015). Organizational culture determines the beliefs, norms, attitudes, and behavior of the members.
In the AFL, organizational culture is more visible from the operations of the clubs than it is within the AFL offices. However, it can be noted that the main motive of developing the football rules and regulations is to protect the interests of the stakeholders, including the clubs, players, coaches, and referees among others. According to Wagstaff and Burton-Wylie (2018), organizational culture in sports is viewed from a psychological stand. There the governing bodies (such as AFL) have a primary duty of protecting and supporting the mental and overall wellbeing of the workers and members. The players are the core employees, though managed by the clubs, and the best practices and the cultures of these clubs are set by the AFL.
An overview of the corporate culture at work within the AFL can be seen from practices such as career management. Australian football, according to Pink, Saunders, and Stynes (2015), has a culture of successfully supporting dual career development for the players. Such cultures are evident at the club level where despite maintaining an effective on-field performance the clubs also oversee the development of other skill sets that can help the players outside the sports sector. However, Pink, Saunders, and Stynes (2015) emphasize that even with such arrangements, football always comes first. The players are encouraged to explore personal meaning, with the clubs seeing it as an ethical responsibility to help them do so.
At the club level, however, the most apparent culture is the learning one for both the players and the managerial staff. Several studies have examined the learning culture both in sports in general and in the specific context of AFL. Football is among the high-performance sports that present athletes with massive learning opportunities and experiences. As the key employees in the industry, their performance and productivity are at the core of the organizational operations. The players tend to invest time and energy in competitions and training for prolonged periods (Barker-Ruchti Barker, Rynne, & Lee, 2016). Learning also tends to evolve with time depending on the current demands and the changes in the teaching methods adopted by the coaches.
The learning culture is also seen with the development of the coaching staff within the AFL. According to Mallet, Rossi, Rynne, and Tinning (2016), the competitive nature and turbulence of the coaching environment mean that the greatest concern for coaching development is how the coaches learn the trade. The AFL and the individual clubs are all regarded as learning institutions for the coaches with each of them having different learning cultures. However, some learning cultures were deemed to be less supportive of the coaches, something that resulted in the creation of a dynamic social network (DSN) for supporting the coaching candidates. The authors highlight that the learning culture for the coaches is defined by the AFL and the football sport itself and is characterized by dynamism, urgency, and extreme uncertainty depending on the matchday results.
In the context of the Covid-19 pandemic, the culture of caring for the wellbeing of the members is reflected by the organizations efforts to implement safety rules to be followed. Rescheduling fixtures and enacting new quarantine protocols have become the key regulatory function of the AFL (Guardian Sports and Agencies, 2020). Updating the rules and implementing punitive measures for non-compliance have also become a norm ( AFL Coronavirus Rules, 2020). However, it is hard to expressly detail the learning culture within the AFL in the context of Covid-19. As a novel pandemic, the rules are also new precautionary measures and AFL has an opportunity to learn from the effectiveness of the rules and the global practices elsewhere. Major leagues are resuming around the world and the AFL has the chance to learn and teach the stakeholders the most important safety rules and measures.
Practice Theory
Practice theory is one of the most criticized theories because it is an arbitrary construct. According to Schmidt (2018), the arbitrariness of the practice theory is made obvious by considering the authors that have contributed to the development of the theory. All of the theorists have a different opinion regarding practice theory and seem to use arbitrary concepts such as communities of practice and actor-network among others. It is particularly interesting to note that all the theorists deemed to contribute to the theory, define different terms, thus making the general idea of practice theory blurred. In the context of this essay, the term practice theory will be used to imply the practice-oriented work performed by individuals as described by Lammi (2018). Practice, as a context, explains what people do from setting the objectives to the preparation of activities and to the actual performance of the activity.
Applying practice theory in sports, specifically in the AFL, the practice can be seen as coaching-determined considering the time put in it and timthe e in which the sporting skills are practiced. As the simplest of the definitions offered by Lammi (2018), what people do in football is play the game utilizing the necessary skills and confined by the rules of the game. Strategy and skills are developed through coaching and practice, actions seen as preparation for an activity that will be performed on the field. The term deliberate practice can also be used to imply the actions by the AFL and the individual clubs to actively develop players until they become the professional elite players to be a part of the AFL. Australian football has entailed a collection of bodies jointly implementing various strategies and programs to enhance the game ( Australian Rules Football, n.d.). The cooperative efforts to monitor player participation and to develop players can all be seen as deliberate practices by the AFL.
The learning culture mentioned above can also be described using the practice theory. The concept of learning in sports coaching described by Stodter (2018) covers all the pedagogical practice, a deliberate effort by the AFL and the individual clubs to teach players and coaches to improve their skills of the game. In the Covid-19 context, the practice theory can be examined in terms of what the AFL and the clubs do to protect the stakeholders from the pandemic. Besides the regulations, there is not much more seen from the league leaving a huge gap for the examination of the applicability of the theory.
Recommendations
The recommendations presented herein pay attention to the deployment of organizational culture and practice theory to improve the current situation regarding the Covid-19. As expressed above, the learning culture is particularly useful in protecting the players and members from the pandemic. Besides the learning culture, however, it is recommended here that the AFL should implement the safety culture within the organization and across all the clubs. By definition, a safety culture is a construct used within organizational contexts to improve their overall safety (Cooper, 2018). Implementing a safety culture will involve a major organizational change targeting the beliefs, attitudes, and behaviors of all the people within the AFL. A culture is practiced by the people who are also responsible for its maintenance. Making the players and coaches and other AFL staff responsible and accountable for the safety decisions will improve the overall well-being of the league. Considering that the pandemic comes with specified standard guidelines, behaviors such as sanitizing and social distancing can become incorporated as the key elements of the safety culture.
The second recommendation focuses on applying the practice theory to develop a practice that caters for the health and safety of the AFL workers. It would begin by the health departments and personnel working closely with the AFL and the clubs to develop standard practices that ensure the players and staff are not exposed to Covid-19. Just like the football skills are developed through coaching players and developing the talent from junior to elite levels, the same can be applied to health issues. Nowadays, players are trained to interact in ways that do not place them at the risk of contracting the virus or spreading it to other people.
Conclusion
Organizational theories are used to explain the workings of companies mostly in the form of standard behaviors and practices. The essay has described the AFL using the organizational culture and practice theory. It has been expressed that even though the AFL functions like ordinary corporations, there are unique elements that make a special case for the application of these theories. The major distinction is that the AFL is not a stand-alone entity but rather one that incorporates all the clubs. The organizational culture and practice theories are best observed from the club level where distinct cultures and practices try to embrace the overall culture and practice dictated by the AFL.
References
AFL coronavirus rules breached by Collingwood coaches Nathan Buckley and Brenton Sanderson. (2020).
Australian rules football: Australian Football League. (n.d.).
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