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Some sports organizations have a strategic objective of promoting human and social development through sports. However, it can be challenging to ensure that these objectives, conveyed by the board, are fully internalized by the athletes. From the perspective of inter-organizational networks, this dissemination can occur through strategic alignment and diffusion of social capital. Therefore, the authors wanted to analyze if organizational policies from sports organizations are related to athletes' perception of social capital and strategic alignment.

The authors conducted a sequential mixed-method research. Firstly, a pilot study was conducted with two exploratory interviews with key informants from a sports organization, supported by documentary data from this organization. A thematic content analysis was carried out to identify relevant categories and subcategories to prepare a quantitative research instrument. In the second phase, a questionnaire was applied to 159 student-athletes from this organization. The collected data were analyzed by multiple linear regression.

From the pilot study, a set of five elements of strategic alignment, and three elements of social capital in the sports organization context were provided. In the quantitative phase, the authors identified that social capital is related to athletes' perception of shared values internalization in a sports organization, but strategic systems were not.

Sports managers could better promote internal policies if there is social capital among athletes rather than implementing top-down deployed communications.

Policymakers could better predict the effectiveness of a foment request by sports organizations considering not only strategic systems communication deployment but also the existence of social capital in a sports organization. It is a broader mechanism to understand the capacity of a sports organization in disseminating good values among their members.

Different from traditional companies, in sports organizations, only social capital is related to the internalization of organizational policy by athletes rather than strategic alignment initiatives.

Mission statements are usually related to strategic management and elements related to the organization's identity. Catholic higher education organizations (CHEOs) identity is based on the Charisma of the founder of the Catholic order or congregation. If in contradiction, it puts their organizational legitimacy at risk. If organizations deviate from their identity, it means a mission drift. Even more severe is when mission statements are misaligned with the identity. In this study, the authors seek better understand the mission drift by the misalignment between the mission statement and the organizational identity of the CHEOs.

The authors examine the mission statements of 112 Catholic CHEOs in Brazil. They used lexical analysis based on descending hierarchical classification and post-factorial analysis. They analyzed the vocabularies of each class extracted from the descending hierarchical classification and determine the presence or absence of the Charisma.

The results indicate that aspects of Catholic identity through the Charisma are manifested in the organizational mission but are not predominant. There is a variation of the mission statements relative to the Charisma of the orders and congregations. A significant part manifests generically. They respond in a similar and isomorphic way or to internal institutional pressures of CHEOs.

The authors empirically identified a mission drift, considering the mismatch between the mission statement and the Charisma. The authors emphasize that for organizational identity to manifest, it should consider the identity that emerges from the founder's Charisma. This influence must appear in central elements of the organizational identity, such as the mission statements.