Is World Anti-doping Agency a Meta-organization? A unique Case Study.

This paper analyzes the World Anti-doping Agency (WADA) through the theoretical framework of meta-organizations that focuses on organizations that are themselves made up of organizations. The data are drawn from a unique case study based on interviews of WADA’s experts and documentary analysis. We analyzed WADA through two dimensions of meta-organizations, namely the organizational and strategic dimensions, which are themselves defined by two criteria each: the mission and scope as regards the strategic dimension, and the hierarchical stratification and the decision-making process for the organizational dimension. Our findings suggest that the World Anti-doping Agency can be apprehended through meta-organizational theory. However, the criterion of consensus decision-making process needs to be nuanced since it is not the only process used by WADA. The implications of our findings are twofold: first of all, we deepen our understanding of a specific international sport organization which is at the heart of current major sport issues and which is continuously evaluating its processes. Therefore WADA could benefit from our analysis to improve the way it works. Secondly, we enrich the literature on metaorganization’s theory, which has only been developed over the last few years.