ABSTRACT
The growth of published papers in the last 20 years illustrates the attention that sport management gains in scholarly and professional circles. Many sport organisations around the world are undergoing change in terms of professionalisation of management – achieving the best sport results possible while at the same time using financial resources efficiently leads to the need for strategic planning methods and tools. Because of unique features of sports and sports governance, generic strategic management concepts and techniques must be modified to be effective. Not-for-profit sport organisations such as national sport federations have very important role in governing of a specific sport. Using the experience of Croatian judo federation (CJF), this chapter will illustrate characteristics of team work and team learning based on (1) the theoretical framework offered by Senge on learning organisations and fifth discipline (1990) and (2) the women leadership insights. Elements of strategic sport management applied to CJF will be evaluated in the period of 12 years. The research results will highlight the importance of a women’s perspective in governing of judo, a sport with dominantly men leadership.
