The Bureaucratization of a Voluntary Sport Organization

In most western industrialized societies voluntary organizations play a large role in the delivery of amateur sport programs. Despite their importance in this area, sport sociologists still know little about the structure and processes of these organizations. One process that is being increasingly used to describe the development of this type of organization is that of bureaucratization. This paper examines the process of bureaucratization and the emergence of its corresponding organizational form, bureaucracy, in a Canadian voluntary sport organization. The paper provides a chronological account and analysis of the emergence of bureaucratic characteristics.