The enactment processes of organizational environments in the creation of voluntary sport organizations (VSOs)

Organization theorists have conceptualized organizational environments as either objective (reified), perceived, or enacted. The study investigates the processes through which founders enact organizational environments and their significance for the emergence of voluntary sport organizations (VSOs). Founders' creation behaviours that are based on their perceptions and preconceptions are explored with an analysis of how those actions, over time, lead founders to "discover" more or less environmental munificence, complexity, and dynamism (Dess & Beard, 1984).;The findings of the study revealed that enacted environments emerge from founders' actions and interactions with their surroundings based on their perceptions and preconceptions. The environment, thus, only becomes meaningful when founders' background characteristics, preconceptions, and worldviews direct their creation behaviours, which over time brings the environment into being in certain ways. Based on the findings, a conceptual model of how enacted environments influence the emergence of VSOs is proposed.;A qualitative case study design (de Vaus, 2001; Yin, 1994) was adopted to investigate the formations of three VSOs: University of Alberta Scuba Appreciation Club (UOASCUBA), University of Alberta Powerlifting Association (UAPA), and the Recreational Soccer Club of Edmonton (RSC). The mode of data collection was a triangulation of participant observation, unstructured interviews, and documentary analysis techniques. Grounded theory and content analyses were done within Atlas.ti, a microcomputer textual analysis program, to bring meaning to the data generated with the said methods.