Africa Business of Sport Podcast

The Soccer Mad Boffins were thrilled that our recent book chapter on the business history of the FIFA World Cup was the subject of discussion for a recent podcast by the Africa Business of Sport podcast.

Hosts Edem Spio and Jabu Mtwa had really enjoyed reading our work and their in-depth coverage of our chapter, and of others which formed the basis for subsequent episodes, is a great endorsement of the book.

Hear the episode here.

The Africa Business of Sport Podcast offers dynamic African perspectives on the biggest topics, stories, developments and talking points in the global sports business industry from the leading figures in the African sport business.

The Africa Business of Sport Podcast is an Africo Media Network production.

Olympic Studies Centre 40th anniversary live event

On Wednesday 5th October 2022 we had the great pleasure to attend online the Olympic Studies Centre 40th anniversary event, broadcast from the OSC in Lausanne, Switzerland.

Speeches were given by several key figures including:

- International Olympic Committee (IOC) President Thomas Bach,  

- Head of the Olympic Studies Centre (OSC), Maria Bogner.

We have previously undertaken research within the OSC which is situated in Lausanne, Switzerland, using their library and archives to inform our research,  such as for our book 'foundations of managing sporting events'.

We congratulate the OSC on its anniversary and look forward to working there again in future.

International Olympic Committee (IOC) President Thomas Bach gives a rousing speech

 Head of the Olympic Studies Centre (OSC), Maria Bogner outlines fourty years of achievement

ROSES: Evolution of UK Leisure Centres in the 20th Century

On 20th August we co-presented a presentation to University of Reading's ROSES (Reading Online Sports Economics Seminars) on the development of leisure centres in the UK in the mid/late 20th century.

We really enjoyed doing the talk and are very grateful to Professor James Reade and the Department of Economics at University if Reading. We are also very grateful to everyone who attended or who emailed us with comments and questions.

ROSES is a fantastic weekly seminar series and we urge you to attend their online Friday afternoon seminars if you get the opportunity.

Here is a weblink to a recording of the seminar for those who wish to view it:

Reflections on the 2018 Soccer Mad Boffins Conference Tour

What a summer! Amazing weather, a fantastic World Cup, and a veritable plethora of Soccer Mad Boffins public talks and academic lectures to fill in the time we weren't watching England progress to the semi-finals.  Here is a recap and reflection as we remember it...




June 1st 'England 1966, USA 1994 and the World Cup: Thoughts on populism, the popular and public indifference' 

Populism and the Leisure Spectacle: A BSA Leisure & Recreation Study Group Workshop 

Venue: University of Bath

This British Sociological Association workshop combined contemporary history with event management, cultural studies and theory with studies of national cases, the binding theme being the whys and wherefores of the populist profile of particular sport and leisure practices and cultural formations.

The event included presentations and panels discussion with experts also including Professor Alan Tomlinson, author/academic/broadcaster David Goldblatt, Michael Willams, and Brian Clift.

Soccer Mad Boffins' Alex Gillett opened the day with a consideration of the 1966 football World Cup finals tournament, hosted and won by England. Drawing upon his work with co-author Kevin Tennant he presented data on the almost serendipitous way in which the British government lent financial support to the event, the disappointment of those English regions beyond London for whom the anticipated tourist bonanza was a washout if not disaster, and the small scale of commercialisation of the product that nevertheless hinted at the later, media-generated and sponsor-based global commodity that the World Cup has become. The broader context was informed by Flyvbjerg’s four sublimes of the mega-project, to which Alex and Kevin’s research has brought an ethnographic and qualitative dimension as applied to the study of event history and business history. These themes and approaches stimulated lively discussion on just how we understand contemporary history and the lived meanings of iconic cultural moments in our past. He also looked at how the 1994 World Cup in the United States sought, through targeted marketing strategies aimed at both established and potential audiences, to popularize the game in the crowded US market dominated by the Big 4 (American Football, basketball, baseball and ice hockey).

June 12th 'The Business of World Cup Football'

co-presented with Greg Dyke (former Chairman of the Football Association)

Venue: York Festival of Ideas, The King's Manor, York

It was our great honour to co-present this event with Greg Dyke, which was attended by a large enthusiastic audience on a warm summer's evening.  We began by presenting from our research of the 1966 and 1994 FIFA World Cups contextualising it with information about more recent and future events, such as Brazil, Russia, Qatar and USA 2026.  Then followed a round table discussion chaired by Greg, who then reflected on his own experiences of being FA Chairman and Director General of the BBC.  The audience posed some excellent questions which we were delighted to answer and everyone enjoyed hearing Greg's views on football and its broader social impact as well as the business side. There were some predictions of England's likely performance in the World Cup which were superseded by Gareth Southgate and his team's performance in Russia!   Two days after the presentation, the 2018 World Cup kicked off. To tie-in with the event our podcast on the story of football was released and we hope to participate in the Festival of Ideas in 2019 - watch this space!  


June 20th 'Project Managing and Marketing the Soccer World Cup: 1966 and 1994'

Aston Organizational History Workshop

Venue: Aston Business School 

A few days after the World Cup kicked off we contributed to this workshop organized by Professor Stephanie Decker, Head of Research at Aston Business School.  This was a great venue because of its links to the 1966 World Cup and the event included several presentations covering a range of organizational history topics from manufacturing to finance.  We must add the catering was excellent - the samosas and cake were particularly enjoyable.  Over the course of one hour we presented findings from our paper accepted for the International Journal of the History of Sport as well as findings from our Project Management Journal paper and book Foundations of Managing Sporting Events.  Our research was very well received and we look forward to returning to Aston at the BAM2019 Conference where we will further develop the theme of our Special Interest Group, Management and Business History.



June 22nd Poster Presentation: 'Using Archival Research in University Teaching'

Venue: University of York Teaching and Learning Conference 

We made our first ever poster presentation on home turf at the University of York Teaching and Learning Conference.  Our poster was about archival research in teaching and served as an excellent warm-up for our appearance at the BAM 2018 annual conference.  See below!



July 9th - 13th Critical Acclaim for Soccer Mad Boffins!

With the World Cup well under way we were able to compare our predictions to reality which created some fun on this blog with several articles which went viral and even caught the attention of Soccernomics author Stefan Szymanski who described it as 'a teachable moment'.

This blog was also considered worthy of archiving by the British Library in the  UK Web Archive, which preserves specially selected websites that represent different aspects of UK heritage on the web, as well as important global events.



July 12th - 13th Management History Research Group workshop 

Venue: Riddle's Court, 322 Lawnmarket in Edinburgh

Arriving in Edinburgh we had the pleasure of watching England crash out of the World Cup in the semi-final in a pub full of Scotland supporters! A traditional Scottish deep fried supper helped ease the pain. The MHRG was a major success and the venue was fantastic as this photo depicts.  Our paper developed the poster presentation about using archives and was well received by a prestigious panel of professors.




September 4th-6th 'Management and Business History Track' of the British Academy of Management Annual Conference

Venue: University of the West of England, Bristol

The start of September took us to the historic port town home of Triphop, Banksy and the British aircraft industry. We opened the conference with a dinner in the former Bristol Stock Exchange, now an Indian restaurant. The ornate surroundings complimented the excellent meal. On the first day of activities we delivered a Professional Development Workshop on publishing academic books, drawing on our experience and expertise as editors of the Emerald series Frontiers of Management History. We met many impressive and creative new authors and hope to work with at least some of them soon. On Day 2 we presented a full paper version of our work previously presented at the MHRG and University of York poster session (see above).  By now we had used the constructive feedback to craft a developed paper which we hoped to publish.  Our thanks to the esteemed audience for all their comments and suggestions.  In our roles as Special Interest Group committee members we were also involved in chairing sessions and mentoring early career academics and we thoroughly enjoy contributing to the development of our academic field.  The main conference dinner was held at Aerospace Bristol where we got to walk through Concorde and enjoy the Concorde museum then enjoy a selection of wines and food courses at a table situated underneath the aircraft, whilst listening to Jonathan Dimbleby perform an on-the-couch interview with Micheal Eavis the promoter of Glastonbury Festival.  We were pleased that BAM brought a bit of aeronautic and creative industry business histories to the heart of its conference!

Paper published in Journal of Management History

Now that the World Cup is over and summer is coming to an end, we at Soccer Mad Boffins think it a good time to reflect on a few achievements from the past few months.

As usual, we shall publish a summary of all our summer speaking events and conferences soon, but before that we'd like to bring your attention to a paper published recently in the Journal of Management History, in which we look at the institutional logic of professional soccer clubs and how attempts to work with local government were frustrated by the particular character of professional sport, using the near-bankruptcy of Middlesbrough football club in the 1980s as a case study.

In the paper we propose two concepts: 'Shadow Hybridity' and 'Institutional Logic of Professional Sport' which extend existing theories about organizational hybridity and also institutional logic.  

The paper should be of interest to anyone studying these areas, as well as sports and public management more generally.

The paper can be found by clicking on this link although you or your institution will need a subscription to the journal in order to read it.


Here is the full abstract and citation details:

Purpose

Existing studies of the finance of English Association Football (soccer) have tended to focus on the sport’s early years, or on the post-1992 Premiership era. The authors examine a case from the turbulent 1980s charting the struggle for economic survival of one club in a rapidly changing financial, economic, political and demographic landscape. The purpose of this paper is to examine not only the financial management of a football club during this time, but also the interventionist role of the local authority during this turbulent period.

Design/methodology/approach

The authors investigate the financial difficulties of a sport business, Middlesbrough Football and Athletic Company Limited, examining the broader economic context, drawing on unseen archival sources dating from the 1980s to analyze the relationship between club, local and national government and the regional economy.

Findings

They not only examine the financial management of the football club but also analyse the interventionist role of the local authority in supporting the club which had symbolic value for the local community.

Practical implications

This paper is relevant to policymakers interested in the provision of local sports facilities and the links between elite sport and participation.

Originality/value

The authors show that professional sports clubs are driven by a different institutional logic to state organizations and the findings enable them to define these differences, thereby refining Thornton et al.’s (2012) typology of institutional orders. Furthermore, the case study highlights practices involving informal partnership between state and sport that the authors label as shadow hybridity.

Keywords:

Cross-sector collaboration, Institutional logic, Hybrid organizations, Professional sport, Public sector intervention

Citation:

Alex G. Gillett, Kevin D. Tennent, (2018) "Shadow hybridity and the institutional logic of professional sport: Perpetuating a sporting business in times of rapid social and economic change", Journal of Management History, Vol. 24 Issue: 2, pp.228-259, https://doi.org/10.1108/JMH-11-2017-0060

British Academy of Management 2018 Paper Submission Now Open!

The British Academy of Management (BAM) is the UK's premier management studies conference, attracting scholars from a broad sweep of management sub-disciplines, from supply chain management to strategy!

Kevin has been organizing the British Academy of Management' (BAM) Management and Business History Track, which focuses on promoting Management and Business History work of theoretical importance to the BAM audience, since 2011.  Last year Alex joined him, along with Roy Edwards from the University of Southampton and Joe Lane from LSE, to establish a BAM Special Interest Group for Management and Business History which will continue to help promote the best of Management and Business History to the BAM audience.  

The British Academy of Management's 2018 Conference will take place at the University of the West of England in Bristol, UK, from 4-6 September 2018.  This year's conference theme is Driving Productivity in Uncertain and Challenging Times.  Paper submission is now open until the 28th February.

The Management and Business History Track will run again this year, in addition to the SIG which is in its second successful year.  We encourage all theoretically motivated submissions in the broad management and business history field.  This year we particularly look to encourage the submission of workshops and symposia around a broad theme, as well as Full (5-7,000 word) and Developmental paper submissions (1-2,000 word).  Submissions from PhD students are also welcome, and we also encourage PhD students to apply to participate in the BAM Doctoral Symposium.  Please note that those submitting papers are also expected to contribute to the paper review process.

Papers on management history in sport are, of course welcome! 

The track CfP is as follows:

BAM Management and Business History Track 2018

This track aims to encourage the growing number of management and business historians who work in business schools and social science departments to engage in constructive debate with a wide range of management scholars. The 2018 conference theme, ‘Driving Productivity in uncertain and challenging times’, is an ideal opportunity to explore the value of historical study for management research. Histories of organizations, industries and institutions give us the opportunity to understand how managers have responded to uncertain and challenging times in the past, whether it be through war, economic crisis, scandal or other disruptions to their activities. Inspired by Fayol, Ford and Taylor managers also attempted to boost productivity, often with mixed results. In this track we specialize in chronologically or longitudinally motivated research. We welcome papers, symposia or workshop proposals either using new and innovative methodologies, or applying archival methodology to a new disciplinary context. We are also interested in context specific papers using more traditional historical methodology but which take innovative approaches to relate their findings to wider social science concerns. In addition, we appreciate papers dealing with the legacy of uncertainty in the past in business and management more generally, and how it has influenced the diversity of experience in present day businesses, regions and communities.

This year we encourage cross-disciplinary papers and workshop submissions that link different Tracks, while the main conference theme ought to feature prominently in all submissions. As a group we are inherently multi-disciplinary and believe in the application of theory to historical analysis, and there is no single epistemology for approaching this. We aim to encourage theoretically orientated social science history with a clear relationship to present day debates in the management discipline.

Some theoretical and empirical examples of the genre of work that we seek to welcome include:

Maclean, M., Harvey, C. and Clegg, S.R., 2016. Conceptualizing historical organization studies. Academy of Management Review, 41(4), pp.609-632.

Cummings, S. and Bridgman, T., 2011. The relevant past: Why the history of management should be critical for our future. Academy of Management Learning & Education, 10(1), pp.77-93.

Edwards, R., 2010. Job analysis on the LMS: mechanisation and modernisation c. 1930–c. 1939. Accounting, Business & Financial History, 20(1), pp.91-105.

Mollan, S. and Tennent, K.D., 2015. International taxation and corporate strategy: evidence from British overseas business, circa 1900–1965. Business History, 57(7), pp.1054-1081.

Tennent, K.D. and Gillett, A.G., 2016. Foundations of Managing Sporting Events: Organising the 1966 FIFA World Cup. Routledge.

More details about this year's conference and venue can be found here goo.gl/nPZLe7 and you can find the paper submission website here goo.gl/V5VTwm.

We hope to see you at Bristol in September!