Systematic analysis of the fundamental propositions of good governance in sports

Acceptance and operationalization of good governance principles by sports organizations is a necessary step to restore the credibility of sports governance. At the same time, good governance has been conceptualized with different theoretical and methodological frameworks. This has created multiple views on this concept. However, developing a deep understanding of good governance in sport requires multi-level analyzes that integrate work done in different fields. Based on this, the current research is a systematic review that was conducted with the aim of developing a comprehensive understanding of the fundamental propositions of good governance in sports organizations and providing a qualitative model of semantic patterns related to governance. Internal and external research databases were reviewed for related research published in the period of 2010 to 2022. This systematic review identified 215 related documents from governance literature, which were examined through standard screening processes, 58 documents were examined by applying quality assessment processes. The findings showed the systemic and multidimensional nature of governance. The list of semantic patterns related to good governance, through inductive thematic analysis, was conceptualized in two macro patterns (input - output) and five key patterns (pattern related to structure - generality - communication - process and standard - output) and 38 initial propositions.