Indicators of good governance in sport organisations: Handle with care

Abstract

Arnout Geeraert explores the opportunities and limits of assessing good governance through indicators. Employing the concepts of validity and reliability, he demonstrates that the methodological dilemmas and tensions inherent to the construction of governance indicators also apply to indicators of good governance in sport. His brief case study of the National Sports Governance Observer indicators reveals that even when deliberate attention is paid to validity and reliability, necessary trade-offs with functionality and inescapable subjectivity renders governance indicators inherently flawed. These inherent shortcomings of governance indicators should inspire a critical attitude towards the use of governance indicators and the interpretation of governance indices. Though measuring good governance can be meaningful, openness about contingent methodological choices is required to provide insight into the meaning and implications of indicator and index scores.