Physical education business in schools consists of two pillars: health and physical education within the curriculum, including special activities, and extracurricular school sports club activities. The recent policy of transitioning and expanding school club activities to the local community may lead to the reduction or loss of one of these pillars; therefore, this could significantly impact other physical education business in schools. This paper aimed to provide insights into such changes, particularly based on our research findings concerning the construction of interorganizational relationships.
Differences were observed in the “services” provided and the “partner selection” depending on the “central actor” (schools, comprehensive community sports clubs, or boards of education acting alone or in combination with other organizations) in collaborative alliances between schools and local sports organizations. Applying these interactions between schools and local sports organizations to the school physical education business revealed that, particularly during the former policy on transferring extracurricular activities from school to local community, the activities were supported not only by individual school teachers but also by multiple schools, comprehensive community sports clubs within school districts, resident organizations, and others. This was underpinned by a history of sharing challenges in school sports club activities and building relationships. Even if school sports club activities shrink or disappear as they transition to community club activities outside school management, schools routinely collecting information generated through sports participation opportunities can serve as a link connecting the physical education business expanded from school to community with those within the school curriculum. Furthermore, this approach not only safeguards the value of physical education business in schools when one of its two pillars is lost but also holds the potential for expansion.

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This paper examines the role of school physical education in guaranteeing “Diversified Sport Participation” for children and proposes creating new club services during the policy transition in which junior high school extracurricular sports activities are shifting into local communities. Historically, extracurricular sports activities in Japan have imposed a uniform sporting experience on children by emphasizing single-sport specialization and competitive results. More recently, evidence shows that Diversified Sport Participation, characterized by engagement in multiple sports, multiple organizational affiliations, and varying orientations, has a positive impact on adult sport participation and civic engagement. Building on these findings, this paper offers a theoretical and critical examination of the structural transformations that this regional shift in extracurricular sports activities brings to school physical education.
Through a review of relevant policies and prior literature, this paper analyzes the structural limitations inherent in this regional shift. Shifting operational responsibility to local communities, which promotes industrialization and a beneficiary-pays principle, risks widening the sports divide because of disparities in families' economic capital and regional resources, thereby undermining the guarantee of Diversified Sport Participation. Furthermore, if local coaches who are not professional educators lean toward performanceoriented instruction, there is a high likelihood of a substantial decline in the development of children's competence to create sports environments, including autonomously managing groups and collaborating with diverse others.
In light of these arguments, fully delegating extracurricular sports activities to local communities while reducing school physical education to curricular classes alone may hinder the development of autonomous lifelong sports participants. Because the regional shift introduces market principles and efficiency pressures into the sports environment, it is essential to maintain and rebuild a school-based system that guarantees Diversified Sport Participation for all children, supported by the school’s role in ensuring equal educational opportunity.
Therefore, this paper proposes viewing the regional shift of extracurricular sports activities not merely as an end, but as a catalyst for creating a new club service, specifically, after-school activities based on student autonomy, within school physical education. This approach enables students to participate in multiple sports across different groups over defined periods and allows diverse values, ranging from a competitive focus to a recreational orientation, to coexist. Building on this foundation, this paper outlines future research agendas in the management for physical education and sport.

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Today, against the backdrop of efforts to alleviate teachers' excessive workloads and rebuild students' sport environments, regional expansion of extracurricular club activities is being promoted. This study aims to derive discussion points from the perspective of sport management regarding how students' “physical education” changes through the regional expansion of extracurricular club activities. Specifically, this study examines the following two points. First, what structural changes occur in school physical education services through the regional expansion of extracurricular club activities? Second, how will students' sport life change through the regional expansion of extracurricular club activities? This study examined changes in students' sport life from the perspective of Amartya Sen's capability approach. The findings suggest that the regional expansion of extracurricular club activities has the possibility to change students' sport life. In particular, the change may occur in the following two aspects. First, the regional expansion could lead to a situation where students are unable to utilize the physical literacy they have learned in physical education classes within the school. Second, students may lose the freedom to autonomously create their own sport life. The regional expansion will change students' sport life, making it even more important to enhance physical education and related subjects at school. Specifically, this could involve enriching sport activities with diverse others and practices that create new sports within physical education classes. Through the discussions in this study, it becomes clear that discussing the regional expansion of extracurricular club activities also pertains to the public guarantee of students' sport life.

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This study aimed to clarify partner selection in collaborative alliances between schools and local sports organizations from three perspectives: the process leading up to the decision to partner, the conditions for partner selection, and the content of coordination with potential partners. A qualitative data analysis was conducted through semi-structured interviews with teachers, staff of local sports organizations (the central actors in the collaborative alliances) and school board officials. Interview questions and analytical framework were based on the “Four Phases of Strategic Alliance Development” of Bailey and Koney (2000), which describe the phases of interorganizational relationships in nonprofit human service organizations. The following conclusions were drawn from the analysis. First, the partner selection process was diverse, regardless of the classification or purpose. Second, when the school board was the main actor, the primary condition for partner selection was that the organization could manage and administer the club activities of all schools in the city. When the schools were the main actors, partners were organizations with a track record of relationships with schools or those that could be entrusted with managing sports club activities. Third, the coordination details with potential partners differed between cases in which a potential partner was selected and cases in which no potential partner was selected, based on conclusions of our analysis. In cases where a potential partner was selected, there was a sense of urgency, shared goals, and division of roles. In contrast, in cases where no potential partner was identified, coordination became an activity to evaluate and select partners.

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In professional sport clubs, where uncertainty is high, ability to perform flexible operations is an important issue. However, in research on the management of professional sport, the question of how professional sport clubs demonstrate flexibility has not been fully considered. In the field of service research, “operational flexibility” refers to the capability of an organization to effectively respond to uncertainty in business operations. In this context, empirical verification of operational flexibility that takes into account the nature of the service business, while integrating the results of previous research, is an important research issue. Therefore, the aim of this study was to develop a concept for capturing operational flexibility in professional sport clubs using the Gioia methodology, a systematic and inductive qualitative research method.
The survey was conducted through semi-structured interviews with a total of six people, including executive, administrative staff, and employees, of Fagiano Okayama Sports Club (a J-League club). The collected interview data were analyzed using the three-step coding process of the Gioia methodology.
The analysis revealed that operational flexibility of a professional sport club is related to its organizational capability to respond to uncertainty that occurs in the “provider sphere”, “joint sphere”, and “customer sphere” of the service value-creating process. The club’s operational flexibility is composed of the aggregate dimensions of “organizational flexibility”, “interaction flexibility”, and “flexibility in use”. The results of this analysis were derived with respect to the marketing theory of “service logic” of the Nordic school of service marketing. Organizational flexibility included the second order themes of “input flexibility”, “procedural flexibility”, “front office staff flexibility”, and “facility flexibility”. Interaction flexibility included the second order themes of “competition management flexibility”, “service space flexibility”, and “customer relationship flexibility”. Flexibility in use included the second order theme of “flexible information provision”. In addition, this study confirmed that flexibility is demonstrated when uncertainty moves among the three spheres of the service value-creating process. Future research topics include theoretical and empirical investigations of the issue of power in interaction flexibility.

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This study aimed to clarify the process of generational change of club managers for the sustainable management of community sport clubs. Specifically, we attempted to visualize the process of “why” and “how” the generational change of club managers take place in community sport clubs using a sensemaking framework, which is a continuous process for individuals and organizations to find meaning in events and situations, understand them, and act accordingly. Data were collected through interviews with predecessor and successor managers from three clubs, which served as case studies. As a result, we clarified the sensemaking regarding predecessor and successor managers of each club, and by contrasting them, we visualized the organizing process of generational change of club managers. The analytical perspective of focusing on individual differences in sensemaking more clearly explains how the various actions that are ultimately organized transcend individual interpretations and disagreements. The results suggest that the following two points contribute to the promotion of generational change of club managers: 1) Club managers should intentionally foster their successors’ growth by providing opportunities for experiential learning and development; and 2) Club managers should not exercise leadership alone, but rather, should build an emergent management team in which leadership is shared among members. The functional differentiation of management and operational leadership in club management has created a “chief executive stage” in the growth stage of club managers, suggesting a structure in which the generational change of club managers and succession of club management develop on different levels. Future research should clarify how clubs that have completed the generational change of club managers move toward the generational change of chief executives (succession of community sport clubs), and what processes and steps are required for successor managers to grow into chief executives.

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