The impact of structure on marketing success in Australian Rules Football clubs

Abstract

As professional football clubs compete in increasingly equalised environments, there is a growing need to concentrate on organisational capabilities to achieve stakeholder satisfaction and through this, marketing success. One factor deemed to influence marketing success is organizational structure, and this paper reports the findings a study that examines the impact of organisational structure on the marketing success of professional Australian Rules (AFL) football clubs in Australia. Results show that most AFL clubs adopt a board of governance structure, which is believed to allow greater focus on strategic issues, and to facilitate more appropriate resource allocation to the various functional areas of clubs than other structures – specifically a board of management. In addition, this structure also appears to be linked to high levels of organizational performance through the satisfaction of stakeholder needs.