arrangements and courses of action which
would facilitate tangible outcomes such as
medals, records and gures indicating sport
participation growth. On the other hand, the
institutional environment promotes adherence
to work forms, norms and values on the
part of the NSOs which undermine these
technical requirements and sacrice performance
in order to ensure formal accountability
and political intentions. The
domination of the institutional processes
over the technical developments, which is
clearly manifested in many aspects of the
NSOs’ operation, inuences their ability to
grow and prosper.
The use of societal resources makes the
survival and performance of the NSOs externally
accountable for their outputs and
activities. However, Daft (1983) states that
organizations operating in institutional environments
are judged in terms of their
performance by social criteria such as the
satisfaction and approval of external constituencies.
Similarly, Powell (1991) points
out the appropriateness of internal procedures
as a priority, rather than output criteria,
in such circumstances. The quantitative findings
of this study do not report any signi
cant relationship between budget
changes and high performance results or
between funding rates and sport development
values. Furthermore, the qualitative
perceptions of the GSS respondents reveal
that satisfying the demands of those in the
NSOs’ environment does not necessarily involve
effective functioning and production of
outputs.
The ambiguity deeply embedded in current
institutional rules produces and sustains
the very centralized voluntary governance of
the NSOs. According to Pfeffer and Salancik
(1978), the organizational structure represents
an example of behavioural interdependence.
This means that the internal
organizational activities and structuring of
the NSOs depend on the actions of another
social actor. In this case, the GSS determines