Public Management and Global Sporting
Mega-Events
A
call for papers for a special issue of Public
Management Review
Guest Editors:
Alex G. Gillett, Senior Lecturer/Associate Professor in Marketing – School for
Business & Society, University of York, United Kingdom.
Kevin D. Tennent, Reader in Management - School for Business & Society,
University of York, United Kingdom.
Michael Macaulay, Professor, School of Government, Victoria University of Wellington,
New Zealand.
This Special Issue proposes to
explore public management in the empirical context of global sporting
mega-events, such as the Olympic Games and the FIFA World Cup. Overall, the size of these events has grown about
60-fold over the past 50 years, thirteen times faster than world GDP (Müller et al, 2023). Papers may address any aspect of such events,
so long as the underlying focus remains on public management and its related
theories.
There has been a recent upsurge in
concern around the management and governance of large-scale sport tournaments,
not least of which are the innumerable controversies around the 2022 FIFA World
Cup in Qatar. These events, often termed
megaprojects (Flyvbjerg & Stewart, 2012; Grün, 2004) usually require the formation and
finance of a temporary project organization to plan and execute the large-scale
and complex fixed-duration event, and increasingly this also involves
overseeing its ‘legacy’ for a broad range of stakeholders in the post-event
period although evidence suggests that despite increased rhetoric the
sustainability has gradually decreased since the 1990s (Müller et al, 2021). These
temporary organizations require the application of knowledge and capabilities
from the past as well as anticipating the future (Grabher and Thiel, 2015).
The motives of decision-makers for
undertaking megaprojects, including global sporting mega-events, are summarized
by Flyvbjerg’s (2012; 2014a) “four sublimes”, which influence their objectives:
Technological, Political, Economic and Aesthetic. The emphasis or detail of each can change
over the duration of the project from initial conceptualization to delivery and
legacy management (Gillett and Tennent, 2017).
Of these the Political and Economic arguments are often used to justify
hosting events in terms of using public money and resources, for example
projections of generating immediate income for businesses through visiting
attendees and resulting local multiplier effects. These can be longitudinal in
the form of raising awareness amongst would be tourists and investors, in the
form of lasting legacy of the infrastructure developed from the event (Molloy
and Chetty, 2015), or from managing the profits as a legacy fund for social
investment (Gillett and Tennent, 2022).
Such temporary project
organizations are therefore complex to manage and might require the creation
and dissolution of specific not-for-profit organizations for different project
stage. They involve relationships of fluctuating intensity and duration with
diverse stakeholders including national, regional and local government,
development agencies and emergency services (Gillett and Tennent, 2022).
Motives
focus on long- and short-term potential benefits and legacies, which can be
tangible/ measurable, or intangible/difficult to measure (Preuss, 2007).
Projected benefits are not guaranteed to materialize, and as a result, global
sporting mega-events carry risks, yet they continue to receive public subsidy. Indeed, critics of global sporting
mega-events have questioned the actualization of proposed benefits identifying
reasons why Games might not justify political support and public investment as
their advocates claim. The literature points to the rationale for continued
investment as partly being the intangible, and therefore difficult to quantify,
nature of legacy (i.e., that megaprojects become in some way symbolic) as well
as the more tangible outcomes from economic “boosterism” that might not be
immediately measurable and may be difficult to untangle from other variables
(Baade & Matheson, 2004; Kuper & Syzmanski, 2012; Zimbalist, 2015).
Global sporting mega-events thus offer rich potential for debates around the
ethics of public sector involvement, beyond the essentials required to fulfil
statutory duties, such safety.
Running through these
issues is that of long-term governance, not only of megaprojects but of
sporting organisations themselves.
Sports governance establishes the procedures by which sporting
organisations can run major tournaments (Chappelet, 2018); collaborate and
negotiate with multiple stakeholders (Henry and Lee, 2004); and abide (or not)
by specific governance principles (Thompson et al, 2022). Governance speaks to all four of Flyberg’s
sublimes, and has a particular impact on building legacy. The 2012 London
Olympics continues to be accused of reneging on legacy promises of turning
accommodation into affordable housing (Foster, 2022). Megaprojects such as the 2022 FIFA World Cup,
as well as long-running competitions such as the English premier League, are
continually mired in accusations of ‘sports-washing’.
This is nothing new. Historically, mega-projects have served propagandistic purposes —for example, to legitimize political ideologies, such as the fascism of Italy and Germany in the 1930s (Archetti, 2006; Gordon & London, 2006; Guttmann, 2006), or Russia who have hosted or participated in events while breaking the Olympic Truce for peace (Gillett and Tennent, 2021) or to showcase and catalyze economic and societal development (e.g., Molloy & Chetty, 2015; Zimbalist, 2015). Sports organisations continue to be challenged through extreme governance failure; from the bribery and corruption in world rugby union leaderships, to the long-term cover up of abuse in US gymnastics.
- Do
global sporting mega-events create immediate or ‘legacy’ value for the
societies or localities in which they are situated? How is this achieved
and how could this be measured? In particular:
- What
types of strategic leadership can (or could be) effective in successfully
bidding and hosting global sporting mega-events (and where applicable,
their legacy)?
- Under
the strategic level, what are the public management organizing
approaches, process or practices, that have a positive impact on societal
outcomes? (see Gillett and Tennent, 2022 as an example).
- What
types of evaluation can (or could be) effective?
- With
reference to the mega-project ‘sublimes’ (Flyvberg, 2014; Gillett and
Tennent, 2017) what specific political and economic motives are given for
hosting global sporting mega-events? Which public management theories can
be used to hone and improve the explanatory power of the sublimes in a
public management context?
- Managing
stakeholder relationships: How can the public sector ensure that a
societal dividend (including immediate and/or legacy) be implemented
successfully by global sporting mega-event organizers situated outside the
public sector?
- Risks
and ethics:
- What
are the risks of using public funds to subsidize global sporting
mega-events? Who bares those risks? How can public administrators
mitigate or manage these risks?
- What
are the ethical choices or dilemmas that public managers may have to
navigate relating to global sporting mega-events? On what basis can the
use of public resources (time, money, skills, and the use or development
of related infrastructure) be justified?
- What
are the most appropriate governance principles and processes for sporting
mega-projects? How often are they
breached? What are the impacts of
governance failures on sporting organisations? On competitors? On the perception of the
sport itself?
We aim to include six to eight articles, including a geographic spread of authors and issues. Theoretical and empirical papers are encouraged that embrace a range of methodological approaches - though longitudinal studies would be of especial interest given their dearth in the public management literature (Wond and Macaulay, 2011).
To submit a proposal for this edited collection, please email a 1500 word abstract outlining the manuscript’s contents, including its application of theory, empirical context, methodology (including sources of data) and fit within this special issue, alongside a 50-word per author biographical statement, to the editors.
Timeline: (exact
dates to be confirmed with journal editor)
30th September,
2023 Deadline for proposals: A summary of 1500 words maximum (plus references list) including research
question/aim, key literature, proposed methods, and expected or indicative findings.
31st
October, 2023 Feedback from editors and
invitation to authors with successful proposals to submit a full paper.
30
April, 2024 Full paper submitted for review via PMR submission system
As per the above timeline, all submissions selected by the editors will be invited to submit a full article through the Public Management Review submission system, which will then be subject to the journal's usual peer review procedures. We emphasise that an invitation to submit a full article does not guarantee publication, and all decisions are ultimately those of the journal editors.
If you have any further
questions, please contact the special issue editors:
Alex G. Gillett
Kevin D. Tennent
Michael Macaulay
References
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