About Us

Principal Investigator: Prof. Dr. Pamela Wicker

Pamela Wicker is a Professor for Sport Management and Sport Sociology at Bielefeld University, Germany. Previously, she was employed at the German Sport University Cologne, where she was awarded a PhD in 2009 and a Habilitation in 2015, and at Griffith University, Australia.

She holds Associate Editor positions at Sport Management Review (SMR), European Sport Management Quarterly (ESMQ), Journal of Sports Economics (JSE), European Journal for Sport and Society (EJSS), and Journal of Study and Teaching in Sports Science (ZSLS). She is on the Editorial Board of ten international journals and has guest edited a special issue on ‘Gender and Racial Bias in Sport Organizations‘ at Frontiers in Sociology.

Currently, she serves as President of the European Sport Economics Association (ESEA). Previously, she was an ESEA board member in her role as Youth Development Officer.

Her main research interests include sport organizations (incl. gender research); societal relevance of sport; sport participation, well-being, and public health; and sport and environmental sustainability.

In the last years, she has developed an increased interest in studying women in sport leadership. Her research is not limited to identifying the reasons for women under-representation in sport leadership, but also seeks to identify the (positive) consequences of a higher representation of women. Exemplary publications include:

Wicker, P., Feiler, S., & Breuer, C. (2022). Board gender diversity, critical masses, and organizational problems of non-profit sport clubs. European Sport Management Quarterly, 22(2), 251-271.

Wicker, P., & Kerwin, S. (2022). Women representation in the boardroom of Canadian sport governing bodies: Structural and financial characteristics of three organizational clusters. Managing Sport and Leisure, 27(5), 499-512.

Wicker, P., Cunningham, G., & Fields, D. (2019). Head coach changes in women’s college soccer: An investigation of women coaches through the lenses of gender stereotypes and the glass cliff. Sex Roles, 81, 797-807.

Cunningham, G. B., Wicker, P., & Kutsko, K. (2021). Gendered racial stereotypes and coaching intercollegiate athletic teams: The representation of Black and Asian women coaches on U.S. women’s and men’s teams. Sex Roles, 84, 574-583.

Wicker, P., Breuer, C., & Dallmeyer, S. (in press). The gender earnings gap among elite athletes in semi-professional sports. Managing Sport and Leisure.

Wicker, P., Breuer, C. & von Hanau, T. (2012). Gender effects on organizational problems – evidence from non-profit sports clubs in Germany. Sex Roles: A Journal of Research, 66(1), 105-116.

Project Management: Dr. Katrin Scharfenkamp

Katrin Scharfenkamp is a postdoctoral researcher at the Chair for Sport Management and Sport Sociology at Bielefeld University. Before she worked at the Mercator School of Management (University of Duisburg-Essen) and University of Tübingen. She was awarded a PhD in Economics from the University of Münster. Her research focuses on gender diversity in organizations and teams, and in particular on the mechanisms in corporate boards, political economy and sports economics.

Katrin Scharfenkamp is an Editorial Board member at European Sport Management Quarterly and a Youth Development Officer at the European Sport Economics Association (ESEA e.V.).

Her recent work centers on gender studies in sport and corporate governance, as well as the effects of sport volunteering. Her research has been published in leading journals such as:

Scharfenkamp, K., Kiefer, S., & Bade, L. B. (2021). Gender-specific impact of age diversity on the performance of small teams: Empirical evidence from professional biathlon relays. European Sport Management Quarterly, 1-18.

Bozhinov, V., Joecks, J., & Scharfenkamp, K. (2021). Gender spillovers from supervisory boards to management boards. Managerial and Decision Economics, 42(5), 1317-1331.

Dilger, A., & Scharfenkamp, K. (2020). Leistungsgerechte Vergütung im Fußball ist geschlechtergerecht. Sport und Gesellschaft, 17(3), 293-302.

Joecks, J., Pull, K., & Scharfenkamp, K. (2019). Perceived roles of women directors on supervisory boards: Insights from a qualitative study. German Journal of Human Resource Management, 33(1), 5-31.

Project Management: Dr. Lara Lesch

Lara Lesch is a postdoctoral researcher at the Chair for Sport Management and Sport Sociology at Bielefeld University. She studied Sport Sciences (B.A.) at Mainz University, followed by a Master Degree (M.Sc.) in Sport Management from University of Tübingen. She was awarded a PhD from Bielefeld University.

Her research is focused on sport organizations (incl. women sports leadership), sport governance, and sport and inclusion.

Lara’s research has been published in leading journals such as Economics of Governance, Sustainability, as well as Sport and Society:

Lesch, L., Kerwin, S., & Wicker, P. (2022). State politics and gender diversity in sport governance. Economics of Governance. In Press.

Lesch, L., Kerwin, S., Thormann, T., & Wicker, P. (2022). Critical masses and gender diversity in voluntary sport leadership: The role of economic and social state-level factors. Sustainability, 14: 6208.