Document Type : Original Article
Authors
1 Golf Federation Employee
2 Associate Professor of Sport Management, Payame Noor University, Tehran, Iran.
Abstract
Equipment intensive federations such as golf face persistent financial challenges due to their heavy reliance on government funding and currency fluctuations that affect the procurement of equipment. The present study aimed to explore strategies for the economic empowerment of provincial boards in line with the realization of a resistance economy and to propose a paradigmatic model within the Golf Federation. This research employed a qualitative approach using grounded theory (Strauss and Corbin’s systematic version). Data were collected through in depth semi structured interviews with 14 experts—including senior federation managers, leading provincial board presidents, and sports economics scholars—selected through purposive and snowball sampling. Data analysis was conducted in three stages: open, axial, and selective coding.
The extracted paradigmatic model consisted of six main categories: (1) the central phenomenon (agency based empowerment of provincial boards), (2) causal conditions (structural rigidity and currency shocks), (3) strategies (networked commercialization, equipment endogenization, and golf tourism development), (4) contextual conditions (territorial planning and the geoeconomic potential of provinces), (5) intervening conditions (administrative bureaucracy and managerial instability), and (6) consequences (achievement of strategic resilience and distributive justice).
The findings indicate that realizing a resistance economy within the Golf Federation requires transforming the role of the Provincial Affairs Committee from a supervisory unit into an “economic accelerator.” It is recommended that by delegating financial authority to provincial boards and localizing the equipment value chain at the provincial level, dependence on government funding can be reduced and resilience against sanctions can be strengthened.
Keywords
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