ABSTRACT

Research question: Trust is a critical element within organisational and management literature. It reflects the decisions and behaviour of individual actors and the functioning of organisations and their management bodies. However, within the sport governance literature there is a notable absence of work focusing on trust. This study examines the association of trust and structural features within national governing bodies’ (NGBs) boards.

Research methods: 242 board members of 65 NGBs from Germany participated in an online survey which comprised questions on trust indicators and boards’ structural features. Probit models were employed to analyse the association between trust indicators, individual board membership characteristics, and the boards' structural features.

Results and findings: Results suggest that trust is a multifaceted phenomenon, affected by various (beneficial and detrimental) variables in the specific context of NGB boards. The study makes numerous interrelation and governance dynamics recognisable, with board size, board members’ skill differentiation and temporal stability of boards appearing to be particularly relevant.

Implications: The paper complements the professionalisation literature and the leadership discussion in the context of sport governance, particularly with regard to trust-enhancing working conditions within boards. The study also aligns to the good governance literature, revealing that in some respects the issue may be seen to be about trade-offs between trust-based effects and their resultant (positive or negative) outcomes for organisation, board or individual.

摘要

研究问题：信任是组织和管理文献中的一个关键因素。它反映了个体行为者的决策和行为以及组织及其管理机构的运作。然而，在体育治理文献中，明显缺乏关注信任的工作。本研究考察了国家管理机构 (NGB) 委员会内的信任和结构特征之间的关联。

研究方法：来自德国的 65 个 NGB 的 242 名董事会成员参与了一项在线调查，该调查包括关于信任指标和董事会结构特征的问题。Probit 模型被用来分析信任指标、个别董事会成员特征和董事会结构特征之间的关联。

结果和发现：结果表明，信任是一种多方面的现象，受 NGB 董事会特定环境中各种（有益和有害）变量的影响。该研究使许多相互关系和治理动态变得可识别，董事会规模、董事会成员的技能差异和董事会的时间稳定性似乎特别相关。

意义：本文补充了体育治理背景下的专业化文献和领导力讨论，特别是在董事会内增强信任的工作条件方面。该研究还与良好治理文献保持一致，揭示在某些方面，问题可能被视为关于基于信任的影响与其对组织、董事会或个人的结果（积极或消极）结果之间的权衡。