Why do well-intentioned pedagogical innovations so often fail in high-performance sport? This conceptual article argues that the answer lies not in individual deficits but in organisational structures that actively constrain what can be learned, by whom, and at what cost. Drawing on sociocultural learning theory, practice architectures, and organisational scholarship, I develop a three-dimensional analytical framework to analyse how high-performance organisations shape learning possibility. Existing research has predominantly focused on individual coaches and athletes, treating organisational arrangements as neutral background contexts. This article challenges that assumption by proposing that organisational structures – specifically architectures of authority, temporal regimes, and systems of knowledge legitimation – constitute powerful yet under-theorised structural conditions shaping learning. Through a theoretically guided conceptual synthesis, the framework illuminates how hierarchical authority relations constrain interpretive agency, how compressed temporal structures limit reflective practice, and how regimes of legitimacy systematically marginalise certain forms of knowledge. The framework offers researchers a conceptual architecture for comparative organisational analysis and practitioners a diagnostic lens for understanding structural barriers to learning. I conclude by outlining an agenda for empirical research to test and extend this framework across diverse high-performance contexts.
Jeremy Torrent (Fri,) studied this question.