Management Accounting in Sports Associations - A Study of Large Elite Sports Associations

Abstract

Background and Discussion of the Problem: Elite sports associations, especially in football and ice-hockey, are becoming more commercialised and professional. Many sports associations are non-profit organisations. The financial aspect has, however, gained a higher importance greater importance. When mentioning management accounting, thoughts immediately go to businesses, because most studies concerning management accounting are done on for-profit organisations. Nevertheless, every organisation works with management accounting in one way or the other. Research Question: How is management accounting used in large elite sports associations? Purpose: The purpose of this study is to investigate how two large elite sports associations use the traditional tools of management accounting in order to achieve their goals. Delimitations: The study focuses on two of the largest sports associations in Sweden, IFK Göteborg and HV71. It is more probable that large associations, with large budgets, use management accounting to achieve their goals. Method: We have chosen to base the study on empirical data that is gathered by interviewing management accountants at the selected elite sports associations. The theoretical framework has been used to analyse the empirical data, to see to what extent the associations use management accounting. Results: Management accounting is widely used in the studied organisations. For both associations, budget as a tool of management accounting is of great importance, and budgeting seems to have an important role. The organisations are still essentially non-profit organisations, but it does seem to be vital to provide goals and objectives, similar to the way it is done in traditional businesses. Incentive systems, however, are not used very often and the reason can be a lack of congruence between sports goals and financial goals. Moreover, there is a significant difference between football and ice-hockey elite associations concerning, i.e., the size of turnovers and equities. Suggestions to Further Research: It would be interesting to study the difference between management accounting in elite sports associations that are still non-profit and those who have chosen to become joint-stock companies. Furthermore, it would be of interest to study to what extent people will work for free in non-profit organisations in the future. Finally, elite ice-hockey associations are interested in fully owning their arenas in order to generate more revenues. Therefore it can be interesting to see if elite football associations are heading in the same directions.