Dwight Zakus

Development through Sport: Building Social Capital in Disadvantaged Communities

Traditional delivery of sport development programs, especially at the community level, faces particular challenges under neoliberal ideology. While several issues are evident, this paper addresses only the issue of development through sport for disadvantaged communities. It reviews models where sport was employed to develop better community and citizen life outcomes and to deal with social issues previously addressed through “welfare state” processes. These new models flow out of neoliberalist state agendas to assist in fostering social inclusion and in building positive social capital in disadvantaged communities. Examples from England, Scotland, Northern Ireland and Canada are analysed and the implications for the Australian context are discussed. The discussion focuses on best practice success factors such as policy and strategy, partnerships, places and spaces, community/social development, evaluation and monitoring and sustainability. The role of traditional sports clubs and local government in delivering social inclusion programs and the emerging provision of community based sport activities by community/social development organisations is detailed. The implications for sport management, in terms of community development, community sport development and sport policy, are also discussed.

Culture and Organizational Climate: Nurses’ Insights Into Their Relationship With Physicians:

Within any organization (e.g. a hospital or clinic) the perception of the way things operate may vary dramatically as a function of one’s location in the organizational hierarchy as well as one’s professional discipline. Interorganizational variability depends on organizational coherence, safety, and stability. In this four-nation (Canada, Ireland, Australia, and Korea) qualitative study of 42 nurses, we explored their perception of how ethical decisions are made, the nurses’ hospital role, and the extent to which their voices were heard. These nurses suggested that their voices were silenced (often voluntarily) or were not expressed in terms of ethical decision making. Finally, they perceived that their approach to ethical decision making differed from physicians.

Coming in from the margins: ethnicity, community support and the rebranding of Australian soccer

Soccer in Australia exists at the margin of the professional sport landscape, although it enjoys popularity at the development levels. This historic position is the result of many social and political forces. With four football codes operating in Australia, amongst other elite and professional sport teams and leagues, soccer occupied a troubled position. The sustenance and growth of the sport emanates from a strong ethnic, immigrant basis of soccer, but this base also resulted in further marginalization of the code. Add to these difficulties organizational and governance issues, soccer was a management ‘basket‐case’ for some time. Marginalization in the Oceania federation and questionable qualifying processes for the World Cup exacerbated the problems in Australian soccer. This essay traces the various changes to soccer in Australia as it seeks to move into the mainstream of national and international sport. A reorganized national sport governing body, the Football Federation of Australia, a new national professional competition in the A‐League, new television revenues, and membership in the Asian Football Confederation point to the changes that will lead Australian soccer into the mainstream of the ‘world game’.

Modelling organizational change in the International Olympic Committee

Abstract The International Olympic Committee (IOC) has grown from a nineteenth-century amateur-based gentlemens club to a multi-national, non-governmental, professionally run sport organization in the twenty-first. Commercial development and subsequent high integration with webs of outside organizations wrought change to sport and to the IOC, especially under the impacts of environmental disturbances. The research is based on historical documents of the organization and secondary sources of data. These data were examined first in the context of Laughlins (1991) model of organizational change. Although this model reveals succinctly the way in which change can be represented historically, it does have limitations, so we subject Laughlins model to a critical post-modern framework as adopted by Skinner, Stewart, and Edwards (1999). In the end, organizational change is a complex phenomenon that filters through the organization with differing ramifications.

Critical and Ethical Thinking in Sport Management: Philosophical Rationales and Examples of Methods

Critical thinking is recognised as a necessary central competency of university graduates in a variety of professional fields. Many articles identify and expound on the need for critical thinking pedagogy allied with sound moral and ethical thought and behaviour. This paper seeks to identify the central aspects of critical thinking within the ethical conceptual terms of ontology, epistemology, and axiology for sport management pedagogy. Within the concept of axiology is the basis of ethical thinking and acting. We weave the discussion of critical thinking within an ethical basis toward practical pedagogical activities for developing and advancing critical thinking skills and abilities in sport management graduates.

Social capital in Australian sport

Socio-cultural studies of sport in society have employed various conceptual categories from a variety of theoretical perspectives, with the latest to gain wide currency being ‘social capital’. While there is much general debate on the concept and its measurement in the study of society, the number of studies using social capital has grown remarkably. Of the research using social capital as a central concept, little of this work focuses on understanding sports position and role in society. This study adds to this new focus by linking recent empirical work and published papers on sport and social capital in Australian society. Social capital is seen to add many positive features to life in society, to provide positive development for individuals, and for building community capacity.

Volunteer roles, involvement and commitment in voluntary sport organizations: evidence of core and peripheral volunteers

The nature and scope of volunteer involvement in sport is well established; however, research indicates that involvement in community sport volunteering is under threat (Cuskelly, G., 2005. ‘Volunteer Participation Trends in Australian Sport.’ In Volunteers in Sports Clubs, edited by G. Nichols and M. Collins. Eastbourne: Leisure Studies Association; Cuskelly, G., T. Taylor, R. Hoye, and S. Darcy, 2005. Volunteers in Community Rugby. Sydney: ARU). Trends indicate that volunteer hours per individual are decreasing and this can have significant implications for the successful operation of voluntary sport organizations (VSOs) and the subsequent benefits for participants and the communities in which they operate. This paper extends knowledge of the nature of volunteer engagement in sport by exploring the categorization of sport volunteers as ‘core’ or ‘peripheral’ based on self-reported levels of involvement and commitment within VSOs. Using a survey of 243 sport volunteers across three sports, we identified significant differences between core and peripheral volunteers based on their levels of involvement and commitment in their self-identified primary sport organization roles. Implications of these findings for volunteer recruitment and retention and for the provision of sport participation opportunities in the community are addressed.

Framing the 2007 National Basketball Association finals: An analysis of commentator discourse

Television broadcasters often exhibit bias in the reporting of sport events. Through framed discourse, networks embed multiple storylines to build and maintain audiences over the duration of an event. Research has typically focused on mega-events occurring every four years. This study, through content analysis of American Broadcast Company’s announcer discourse of a smaller annual event, the 2007 National Basketball Association finals series, found that the framing function of the media continued to be employed. Findings also revealed significant associations existed for play-by-play and colour commentary on the two competing teams that would serve to reinforce viewer beliefs. Commentary on the winning team emphasized skill, speed and creativity, whereas star players became the focus of the losing team. Sport marketers can gain practical utility for use of framing in broadcasts by providing commentators with prepared frames that could support viewer beliefs or expectations.

How Green Will My (Lea) Valley Be? Olympic Aspirations: Rhetoric or Reality

Much debate surrounds the nature and reality of the legacy left to host cities after they hold an Olympic or a Winter Olympic Games. We argue and provide evidence that the debate is more about sustainability. The sustainability of the International Olympic Committee (IOC) as an organization and of the games that deliver the aspirations and goals of the Olympic movement are central issues in this debate. The IOC identifies its aspirations and goals in the Olympic Charter and within it the philosophy of Olympism. To realize these, the IOC must select a bid submitted by various city, country and national Olympic committee consortia to deliver the games. There are two separate issues here. First, that the host city must meet IOC demands contained in the OC and hosting contracts; that is, that the IOCs aspirations and numerous contractual stipulations are met and that sufficient revenues from operating the games are met. Second, the delivery of the games is to leave a ‘legacy’ (sustainable outcomes) from delivering the games. Two issues arise about whether host cities can do both – deliver a successful games, within the confines of the agreements, towards achieving IOC aspirations and goals and also deliver sustainable environmental, social and economic outcomes – thereby sustaining the IOC, the Olympic movement, Olympism and the lofty aspirations and goals of the Olympic Charter.

Comparing the practices of USA Rugby against a global model for integrated development of mass and high performance sport

This study examines the current state of Rugby in the USA against an ideal-type model for developing high performance sport integrated with mass participation. A Rugby-specific questionnaire was developed for the following elements of the model: talent search and development; advanced athlete support; training centers; competition systems; intellectual services; partnerships with supporting agencies; and, balanced and integrated funding and structures of mass and elite sport. The questions were validated by 12 international experts and answered online by 127 USA Rugby coaches and administrators. Semi-structured telephone interviews with five Territorial Rugby Union Presidents or Vice-Presidents as well as USA Rugbys CEO were also conducted. Specific management actions proposed to improve USA Rugby were: certain types of organizational integration; development of coaching and training centers particularly for youth; communication with and education of current and potential members; and, partnerships with the mass media, corporations, and systems of education and government.