Gender & Equality in Sports
Do Football Players Give Female Coaches the Red Card? (MSc)
Erica Froste Myrin & Sigrid Holmgren (2023)
Abstract: In Swedish elite football, the skewed gender distribution between coaches is conspicuous, and this thesis aims to investigate one channel as to why there are so few female coaches in this environment. Previous research has found that students evaluate female teachers more critically than male teachers, even in components that they cannot control; might this be the case in Swedish elite football as well? We have conducted a framed field experiment on the teams in the highest football division for players 19 years or under in Sweden. 505 participants watched a video with instructions on a football skill and evaluated it. Half of the players were instructed by a female coach and the other half by a male coach. We find no evidence of a gender bias in this sample at the statistical significance level of 5 %. Neither did we find any significant results when controlling for participants being a member of a male or female team, nor when controlling for currently or previously having exposure to a female coach. A series of robustness checks were conducted, and we find our results to be robust.
Gender budgeting in sports: icing on the cake? (MSc)
Oscar Lundquist & Lukas Öberg (2022)
Abstract: This study seeks to explore what role the budget has in supporting gender equality. By adhering to sports management literature's concern for gender inequality in sports, and how it can be linked to resource allocation, we build upon the concept of gender budgeting through a budget's different roles. We investigate Riksidrottsförbundet through an exploratory single case study where semi-structured interviews with employees close to the budgeting process have been conducted. This thesis makes two main contributions. First, we contribute to accounting and sports research by integrating sports management's call for gender equality, showing how accounting, sports, and gender issues become an important research field that can solve large societal issues in terms of gender inequality. Second, we contribute to the research on gender budgeting and how different roles of a budget are used in supporting gender equality in a national sport governing body characterized by a dual identity - both acting in the place of a sports authority and being the spokesperson for the independent sports movement. This dual identity could help uncover whether gender budgeting is an "icing on the cake".
Hannah Stihl & Matilda Olsson (2020)
Abstract: Despite having had explicit targets for over 25 years, only 37 of 71 Swedish Special Sports Federations had achieved gender equal representation within their boards in 2016. It was thus decided during the general assembly meeting of the Swedish Sports Confederation in 2017 to implement a gender quota that all Special Sports Federations must adhere to by 2021, or otherwise risk losing their entire financial support. At the same time, while much research has been devoted to the benefits of gender equal boards, less focus has been given to organizational change processes towards the desired end-state. This study thus aims to examine how Swedish Special Sports Federations have worked to move from a state of gender imbalance to one of gender equality within their boards by addressing organizational practices and structures that influence the outlook for achieving gender equality. For this, a qualitative case study was carried out in which interviews were held with board members of 24 Special Sports Federations. The findings revealed that although almost all interviewed federations had implemented necessary actions to fulfill the gender quota, there was a discrepancy among the federations for with some mainly focused on representation, while others showcased a holistic approach which involved deep immersion in identifying and addressing root causes of the problem. The change process was further found to be influenced by pressures from external as well as internal sources, and the way the federations worked to manage perceptions of threat, discussions of the utility of gender equality, top management support, and educational efforts.
E-sports, A Man’s World? How Gender Ratios in E-Sports Teams Affect Perceptions (BSc)
Jonny Baho & Axel Neikter (2019)
Abstract: E-sports have gone from being a niche community of video gamers to becoming mainstream, with million-dollar prize pools for the best players. With the growth of e-sports, companies have increasingly become interested in sponsoring teams, sometimes going as far as to found their own teams. Despite its growth, however, e-sports remains male-dominated, with almost all professional gamers being male. Previous research shows that in sports perceived as being masculine, and in other masculine domains, stereotypes often exist, altering the perception of those who break these stereotypes. This study explores how the perception of e-sports teams differs depending on their gender ratios. An experiment was administered where three groups received a respective simulated newspaper article about a new e-sports team, with different gender ratios for each group: one all-male team, one mixed female and male team, and one all-female team. Data from 122 respondents was thereafter collected and measured with regard to attitude, interest, perceived skill, likelihood to share the article, and likelihood to watch the team play. The results indicated that respondents tended to show more interest in teams including female players than in the all-male team. Interestingly, the added interest arose for both the mixed-gender team and the all-female team, suggesting that it was not the lack of males that added interest but rather the occurrence of females. Furthermore, this study suggests that e-sports teams looking to increase levels of interest should attempt to add female players, all else equal.
Amanda Sochon & Anna Zdolsek (2017)
Abstract: Corporate interest in sponsorship is continuously increasing globally, and sport is receiving the largest portion. In Sweden, a country ranked as one of the most gender-equal countries in the world, 46 % of elite athletes are women, but only 20 % of sport sponsorship resources are allocated to this group. While previous research on women in sport found women to be restricted in the sport arena, adjusting to the prevailing male norm, sponsorship literature has illuminated how a corporation can benefit from and use sponsorship. The few studies that have connected the two research areas have studied single aspects of sponsorship collaborations influenced by gender. Lacking in research is a holistic perspective of the sponsorship collaboration in relation to gender, to further understand which aspects and why they influence the possibilities of women's clubs in obtaining and maintaining sponsorship collaborations. In order to isolate aspects influenced by gender in sponsorship collaboration and set a direction for future research in the field, a qualitative multiple-case study at the elite level in Swedish football was undertaken. Interviews with nine football clubs; four women-only, three men-only, and two with men and women's teams, and nine football sponsors, were undertaken in relation to sponsorship collaborations. These showed that gender is the most influential in the pre-phase and the start-up phase of a collaboration. Furthermore, aspects such as personal influence, continuous collaborations, and untargeted measurements that previously favored men to obtain and maintain sponsorship are still related to gender, but either one can experience the benefits. Gender per se was, however, not found to influence the management of the collaboration or evaluations, foremost related to the possibilities of maintaining sponsorship