En komparativ fallstudie om ishockeyföreningars förändringsförmåga vid en degradering

Sammanfattning: Disappointment spreads across the locker room, the crowd walks with heavy steps from the arena and the sports manager sits with the board trying to figure out where it all went wrong. The season is over and the ice hockey association stand before the reality that a relegation is a fact. Somewhere in the middle of the season the ice hockey association found themselves in a downward spiral and everything went south after that. Players, coaches and remaining staff feels uncertain over what is going to happen, they realize that some players are going to leave. The big question is what will happen to the remaining staff. A relegation implicates a big financial alteration to the ice hockey association and the budget for the upcoming season reduces significantly. The ice hockey associations preparation and ability to handle changes becomes crucial in this context. That makes it interesting to analyze what a relegation means to the organization and how it affects the structure and culture. The study has been carried out through qualitative interviews with a selection from the ice hockey associations that has recently been through a relegation, either from SHL or Hockeyallsvenskan.   The purpose of this study is to analyze how the ice hockey association can handle a relegation in terms of the organizations structure and culture:   • How are changes made within the organizations structure and culture during a relegation? • Is there a structural and cultural preparation for the various ice hockey associations in a change that involves a relegation? • How are ice hockey associations affected by external factors associated with a relegation? The results of the study show that ice hockey associations frequently are built in a similar way. During a relegation they see which part of the organization that are necessary and which part they can cut down on. The differences that may exist are by what changes they make depending on the size of the organization and how prepared they are for a relegation. There are share opinions on how external factor such as sponsor and audience affect the ice hockey associations in connection with a relegation. However, they agree that some form of plan must exist. In terms of culture, we could see the biggest differences among the ice hockey associations. One meant that culture is so strong that it does not change, while another ice hockey association took the opportunity to try to change the culture and their values.