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Inspectorates and enforcement agencies increasingly depend on information from societal actors to detect and enforce business offenses, but little is known about the factors underlying external reporting. This paper aims to contribute to a better understanding of what drives external reporters to report offenses to enforcement agencies, and how reporters experience the reporting process. Potential reasons to report are derived of the literature on whistleblowing and on business relations within organizational fields. The article then presents findings of an extensive comparative, qualitative empirical study on reporting businesses. We find that reporters aim to incapacitate competitors who gain economic advantage by bending the rules, and regard inspectorates as their ally in maintaining a level playing field.

Existing research on bureaucratic encounters typically studies how bureaucrats’ and clients’ characteristics influence frontline decision making. How social interactions between street-level bureaucrats and between officials and citizens could directly affect case-related decisions largely remains an underexplored field of study, despite the fact that new forms of governance introduce social dynamics in the form of trust and collaboration as tools to increase legitimacy. Relying on in-depth qualitative data of the Belgian labor inspectorate and the Dutch tax authorities, this study scrutinizes how decisions about cases could be affected by their immediate social context.

This article focuses on the meaning of sport activities for refugees living in a reception centre. We conceptualise the reception centre as a liminal space and analyse how this liminal space affects the meanings of sport activities for refugees. Based on interviews with refugees living in a reception centre we show how sport in this liminal space is to a large extent experienced as a way to overcome the boredom experienced at the centre, to forget about their daily struggles, but also has a large social function as it is an easy opportunity to meet with others. We argue that liminal spaces constrain the organisation of sport activities and its possibilities for realising sport’s ascribed positive spill-overs, such as increasing feelings of belonging. We call for future research, including creative social research approaches, that focus on refugees’ own narratives in order to better understand the role social space plays for the meaning of sport activities for this particular vulnerable group.

Research question: The contribution frames the special issue ‘Social responsibility and the European sport context’. It investigates and aims to inspire the discussion around what constitutes a European approach in social responsibility and sport management research focussing on how the special historical and persisting features of the European (sport) context impact on knowledge creation and diffusion. Research methods: The article reflects on the contributions included in the special issue; is based on reviewing relevant management literature; and is guided by the authors’ rich observations derived from their deep involvement in the international space of social responsibility in and through sport, spanning research and practice. Results and findings: Four anchors are suggested and explored as promising avenues to constitute ‘European-ness’ in social responsibility and sport management research. In short, these are investigations driven by empirical data; a comparative approach; comprehensive literature review; and theoretical/conceptual development. It is argued that the theory anchor is the most critical and challenging, but not fully developed yet. Implications: The article contributes a critical view on the potential for American/English hegemony in sport management scholarly activity, also impacting on one of its popular and growing sub-fields: social responsibility. Enhanced intellectual fertility and diversity of perspectives will produce more accurate understandings of the role and conceptualisation of social responsibility in European sport, impacting on both theoretical richness and relevance for contextually-embedded sport organisations.

Non-profit associations are usually democratically organized, and this feature plays a legitimizing role for the public support to associations. This article examines which characteristics at country level, organizational level and individual level can explain variations with regard to member engagement in the association democracy in sports clubs in Europe. The statistical analyses use data on 12,755 members from 642 sports clubs in ten European countries. The findings show that the majority of the members in sports clubs participate in the association democracy, but the level and form of engagement varies considerably. At the country level, no link between the democratic strength and quality of the countries on the one hand and member engagement on the other could be identified. Instead, characteristics at the organizational and individual level were found to be relevant. More concretely, (1) the size of the sports club, (2) the socioeconomic background of the members (gender, age and education), and (3) the way in which the members are involved in and affiliated to the club (engaged in voluntary work, participating in social activities, etc.) were found to be significantly correlated with the engagement of members in the association democracy.

This study investigated the development of the legacies of the five World Conferences on Women and Sport that have been convened by the International Working Group on Women and Sport from 1994 to 2010. In particular, it examined the ways in which gender is constructed in these legacies in relation to gender equality in sport leadership. The theoretical framework was drawn from Connell’s four-dimensional gender model, which suggests that gender relations can be characterized in terms of four interwoven dimensions of social life: production, power, emotion and symbolism. The method used was a comparative case study of five legacies. We conducted a content analysis of documents relevant to the five legacies. Findings show that, in all five legacies, gender in relation to sport leadership was mainly constructed on the dimension of production and power relations (more women in leadership positions) and symbolic relations (creating a sporting culture that values women’s participation at all levels). By contrast, the gendered dimension of emotional relations – collaboration between men and women – received limited attention. The implications of these findings for the acceleration of gender equality in sport leadership are discussed.

This short reflective paper discusses collusion from a psychoanalytically informed social psychological perspective. From this perspective, collusion represents a non-conscious group dynamic in which the participants ‘play together’ to keep a threatening or painful reality out of awareness. To illustrate the dynamics, two examples from the world of infrastructure and from higher education are provided. Although collusion in itself is not criminal, it may lead to neglectful or criminal behavior. Since it is a system-level phenomenon, holding individuals accountable will not end the dynamics.

Contains fulltext : 183926.pdf (Publisher’s version ) (Open Access) This study investigates whether the shift from welfare state to participation society in the context of austerity in the Netherlands has had consequences for local sport policy. The central research questions are (1) do municipal sport budgets show evidence of a move away from classical welfare state values towards a participation society? and (2) do changes in local sport policy suggest a move away from classical welfare state values towards a participation society? First, we analysed spending on sport across all Dutch municipalities. Second, we quantitatively and qualitatively analysed 104 municipal coalition agreements for the 2014?2018 governing period. The approach used was interpretive, focusing on dominant or hegemonic discourses or storylines within local sport policy.It shows that Local sport policy in the Netherlands still hinges strongly on welfare state values and has not yet been hit by serious austerity measures. We found no evidence of a neoliberal slant or an emphasis on free-market and private entrepreneurship. Rather, the accent is on an expanded role for voluntary sport clubs (VSCs) in operating sport facilities and as policy implementer. We conclude that the shift in narrative from classical welfare state to participation society has, as yet, had limited effect on local sport policy. 16 p.

We review the literature (2007–2016) on the quality of sustainability decisions and we introduce an integrative conceptual framework that distinguishes between a beneficial and a detrimental path that explain the influence of stakeholder diversity on the comprehensiveness of sustainability decisions. We argue that decision quality increases when stakeholder interest diversity is expressed through task conflict (extensive information sharing and exploration). Decision quality is compromised if stakeholder diversity is suppressed and false consensus occurs, that is, when task conflict is not tolerated or when decision makers fail to acknowledge and work with their differences. We conclude by discussing three generic recommendations that focus on inclusive stakeholder selection, norms for engagement and process consultation as ways of developing constructive collaboration in multiparty systems.

Multiparty systems bring together various stakeholder parties and their representatives and offer a platform for sharing their diverse interests, knowledge and expertise in order to develop and realize joint goals. They display complex relational dynamics in which within-party interactions (interpersonal interactions within each stakeholder party) as well as between-party interactions (interactions between the stakeholder parties) intertwine to generate bottom-up and top-down influences. We investigate these influences in a behavioural simulation. Our results show that changes in task conflict at the stakeholder party level positively predict changes in perceived collaborativeness in the overall system, while changes in relationship conflict at the stakeholder party level positively predict changes in perceived conflictuality in the system. Moreover, we show that changes in perceived overall conflictuality leads to a proportional change in relationship conflict experienced within the stakeholder parties.

The governing of sport has recently shifted from self-regulation towards various forms of joint regulation. This study uses the concept of governmentality to analyse practices of governing full contact martial arts and combat sports (FCMACS) in the Netherlands to answer the question of how the concept of governmentality informs the current and future governing of FCMACS. Dean’s methodological guidelines were used in the analysis of the consensus and contradictions in the rationalities and related technologies of power (regimes of practices) expressed in the regulation of FCMACS. According to the study’s respondents, future practices of the governing of FCMACS must enact equitable restrictions for all gyms and fight events and highlight the social value of FCMACS to facilitate them gaining the same status as regular sports. Such change requires practices of governing that combine authority and mediation with a climate open to self-regulation.

It has long been established that voluntary sports clubs (VSCs) are ascribed a prominent social role by governments. Several scholars highlight the ascribed social values in sport policy to voluntary sports clubs and their possible implications for these voluntary organizations. Most of these studies focus on national sport policies. However, several studies signal a dominant role for local government in the public funding of sport. This discrepancy between local funding responsibility and scholarly attention to national sport policy legitimizes the following question: Which social roles do local governments ascribe to voluntary sports clubs? Further, the particularities of the social values of voluntary sports clubs have received only sparse attention. Using institutional theory as a theoretical lens, this paper addresses these lacunae through a systematic document analysis of the municipal sport policies of the twenty largest Dutch municipalities. These municipalities address four different social roles for voluntary sports clubs: (1) sports clubs as social infrastructure operators, (2) sports clubs as educational institutes, (3) sports clubs as service providers, and (4) sports clubs as project implementers. The article further elaborates on these four social roles and argues that these form a normative institutional framework for VSCs.

In recent decades, sport as a social practice has become relevant in many different fields: in health, economy, politics, education, work and leisure. The importance of sport transcends the confine...

The main aim of this paper is to test the extent to which social acceptance moderates the impact of minority dissent on group cognitive complexity (GCC). We hypothesize that divergent views expressed by a minority increase GCC especially when the group climate is open to divergent contributions (e.g., a socially accepting group climate). We also hypothesize that group size has a non-linear association with GCC in such a way that GCC increases as group size increases from low to average and then GCC decreases as group size further increases from average to high. We test these hypotheses in a sample of 537 students (258 women, with an average age of 23.37) organized in 92 groups that have worked together in the same group throughout the semester, and show that: (1) group size has a decreasing positive association with GCC, (2) both minority dissent and social acceptance are beneficial for GCC and (3) groups with the highest GCC are those that experience minority dissent and develop a socially accepting climate (in which group members can equally participate to the task), allowing the majority to process the dissenting views extensively.

Globalization has strongly influenced higher education during the last decades. As in many other sectors, this has generated contradictory outcomes. Higher education has opened up to the world and become more engaged at the global level. But how will this process continue with the current backlash against globalization in Europe and the United States, and what will be the impact of other major geopolitical trends such as the rise of China?

The continuation of emotional abuse as a normalized practice in elite youth sport has received scholarly attention, often with the use of a Foucauldian framework. The use of sense-making, a theoretical framework that focuses on how meaning is created in ambiguous situations, may give additional insights into the continuation of emotionally abusive coaching practices. The purpose of this study was to apply the seven properties of sense-making to explore how athletes and parents made sense of coaching practices in elite women’s gymnastics. We interviewed 14 elite women gymnasts and their parents to examine how they made sense of what occurred during practices. The results show how the sense-making of athletes and parents was an ongoing activity that resulted in a code of silence and a normalization of abusive coaching practices.

This study answers a recent call for research on the complexity, locality, and use of power in the governing of diversity in organizations. We used the concepts of governmentally and of governing sameness and difference to explore multiple and heterogeneous ways of regulating gender diversity in organizations. Governmentally was defined as interrelated ways of reasoning and of using technologies of power within a boxing organization. We found that in their management of the full participation of women, participants used both sport and gender rationalities, each of which relied on different technologies of power in specific settings. Ambiguous meanings were strategically used to manage the participation of women in boxing and to maintain heroic masculine practices.