The purpose of this thesis is to explore the intersection of sport for development and peace (SDP) and global corporate philanthropy through a case study of the National Basketball Association’s (NBA) “Basketball Without Borders” (BWB). The NBA promotes BWB as a means to social and economic development in the global South by wedding basketball with education on social issues and the development of sport-related infrastructure. However, the NBA’s participation in SDP is emblematic of broader issues in neoliberal globalization, and, as such, an historical and discursive analysis is undertaken to interrogate the seemingly divergent pursuits of capitalism and international development. I argue that the consequences of transnational corporations like the NBA entering developing nations for the purposes of promoting development through sport results in the prioritization of commercialism over development, and the (re)production of hegemonic and neocolonial ideologies and practices. / Thesis (Master, Kinesiology & Health Studies) -- Queen's University, 2010-03-17 14:51:15.919

Considered "the father of the science of human relations," Elton Mayo was instrumental in the development of industrial psychology and sociology in America. The career of Elton Mayo and his attraction to influential figures like John D. Rockefeller, Jr., provide a chronological order and interpretive force to understand this development. Mayo's concern about human behavior in the modern industrial world and management's concern over the future of industrial relations, found common ground in their support for the development of a science of human relations. It is not a coincidence then, that the social sciences developed at a time when industrial capitalism shifted its energies from organizing material resources to organizing human resources. The development of modern social science can best be understood, thus, as a phase of the social history of corporate capitalism. The career of Elton Mayo and his attraction to influential figures like John D. Rockefeller, Jr., provide a chronological order and interpretive force to understand this development.