Gender budgeting in sports: icing on the cake?

Abstract: This study seeks to explore what role the budget has in supporting gender equality. By adhering to sports management literature's concern for gender inequality in sports, and how it can be linked to resource allocation, we build upon the concept of gender budgeting through a budget's different roles. We investigate Riksidrottsförbundet through an exploratory single case study where semi-structured interviews with employees close to the budgeting process have been conducted. This thesis makes two main contributions. First, we contribute to accounting and sports research by integrating sports management's call for gender equality, showing how accounting, sports, and gender issues become an important research field that can solve large societal issues in terms of gender inequality. Second, we contribute to the research on gender budgeting and how different roles of a budget are used in supporting gender equality in a national sport governing body characterized by a dual identity - both acting in the place of a sports authority and being the spokesperson for the independent sports movement. This dual identity could help uncover whether gender budgeting is an "icing on the cake".