Chapter 5: Strategies And Struggles: The Governance of U.S. Collegiate Athletics

This project advances institutional theory by examining the strategic processes of one type of institution: interest associations. Institutional associations play an important role in organizational field evolution by developing institutional strategies. These strategies establish the rules of membership, create categories of participation directly connected with reinforcing the dominant institutional order, and define competitive strategies available for individual organizations. Using data from a case study of interest associations and governance in the field of U.S. intercollegiate athletics, we report on how the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) developed institutional strategies to compete against the National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics (NAIA) and the Association of Intercollegiate Athletics for Women (AIAW) in struggles to govern the field of collegiate athletics. We find the case of collegiate athletics interesting because the NCAA enacted these competitive strategies, not to gain revenue, but to gain status and legitimacy in the collegiate athletics field. This case extends the concepts of institutional strategy by focusing on the motivations and the benefits of enacting institutional strategy.