Impressionistic protectiveness, team formation and alignment building in coach education work: an ethnographic study

Studies on collective impression management in the sport coaching literature have begun to illuminate the backstage and frontstage techniques used by teams of professional sport coaches. This study is the first to examine team assembly, deployment and alignment building within a neoliberal employment context. Data were generated via participant observation, fieldnotes, and semi-structured interviews. The data were subject to multiple rounds of emic and etic analysis, which were primarily sensitised by Goffman’s dramaturgical theorising. Analysis revealed that (1) a neoliberal and contrived approach to team administration produced transient team relations and limited opportunities for alignment building, (2) short-term team associations resulted in cynical, pragmatic and instrumental orientations to staging activities, and (3) teams relied on deception and fabricated lines of action to translate curricula and navigate performativity culture. These findings offer a new agenda for researching practitioner collaboration and a stimulus to refine administrative procedures and role preparation programmes.