Environmental sustainability as new institutional logic in German professional football?

The recent incorporation of a sustainability guideline into statutes and the introduction of sustainability criteria into licensing regulations by the German Football League (DFL), as the first major professional football league in Europe, is a clear commitment to more ecologically sustainable policies and actions. Thereby, the league wants to use the deep rootedness of football in German society to increase awareness for ecologically sustainable behaviour among citizens (DFL, 2023). Accordingly, the aim of our study is to analyze and discuss this strategic shift from an institutional perspective.

Scholars have argued that institutional theory is well-suited when analyzing organizations’ sustainable behavior. While traditional neo-institutionalists focus on exchange fields which exist around markets, recent studies highlight that fields also form around issues (Zietsma et al., 2017). A field usually follows a dominant logic that sets the limits for legitimate activities of its members. However, recently, research has highlighted the plurality of logics (Zietsma et al., 2017). Therefore, we argue that the new issue field logic environmental sustainability is challenging the dominant logics economic and sporting success and thereby initiating change processes. 

Our qualitative study follows a three-step procedure. First, we conduct a document analysis before we interview experts to gain detailed descriptions of how the shift evolved over time. Lastly, we run a focus group to use the dynamics of the different expert perspectives.

Our empirical study is currently in the conception phase. Notwithstanding, results can contribute to substantializing the literature criticizing traditional neo-institutionalists and to a better comprehension of change processes of field logics.

DFL (2023). Lizenzierungsordnung, URL:https://media.dfl.de/sites/2/2023/03/Lizenzierungsordnung-LO-2023-03-04-Stand.pdf [30 May 2023]

Zietsma, C., Groenewegen, P., Logue, D.M.,& (Bob) Hinings, C.R. (2017). Field or Fields? Building the Scaffolding for Cumulation of Research on Institutional Fields. Academy of Management Annals, 11(1), 391–450.