A nomadic con artist, bent on inflating the price of his family land, deceives a small Irish town on the verge of bankruptcy into hosting an international sporting event.

This thesis examines the social and economic impacts of the 2014 FIFA World Cup in Fortaleza, Brazil. The study used a budget analysis, and in depth interviews to ascertain the economic impact of the world cup games and the distribution of revenue across different sectors and socio-economic divisions within the local economy. A historical and vulnerability analysis was conducted through the examination of secondary sources (historical documents, census data, previous research on vulnerable populations) to identify groups and spaces of high social vulnerability. Qualitative data was then collected through in depth interviews with sources from all facets of society during the World Cup games and the following summer to identify the social impacts on these vulnerable groups and spaces. The thesis found that the final economic costs for infrastructure and stadium refurbishments associated with the World Cup in Fortaleza far exceeded the projected costs and the final economic impact on the local economy was half of projected estimates. While the city saw social benefits in the celebratory atmosphere and public security provided during the World Cup, there were also negative impacts on socially vulnerable groups and spaces including forced community relocations, increases in cases of commercial sexual exploitation, and rises in violent crime.

Background: Marketing communication is constantly changing and one way to communicate with customer is to use sponsoring. Sponsorship in sport has changed over the past years and new opportunities has developed. It is therefore interesting to ask sponsors what their opinion about sponsoring is. Purpose: The purpose of this essay is to find out why companies choose to work with sport sponsorship and what there opinion about it is versus other marketing strategies. Method: A qualitative study based on interviews with non-probability sample. Conclusion: This study reveals that there are several reasons to sponsor sporting events. The main reason is the possibility to communicate with a large and diverse targetgroup and have the opportunity for a personal meeting with the targetgroup. In today's information society, it is important to be unique and to communicate on a platform where consumers are responsive. All sponsorship needs to be evaluated and measured to be justified. The study also indicate that sponsorship is different from other marketing methods but the message is the same as in other marketing channels. The primary difference is the relationship with the customer and also the companies commitment to the sporting event through activation.

Darbo problema: ar sporto renginiai yra populiarūs ir reikalingi mokyklose? Tyrimo objektas: mokinių ir mokytojų nuomonė apie mokykloje organizuojamus sporto renginius. Tyrimo tikslas: nustatyti ir palyginti mokinių ir mokytojų nuomonę apie mokykloje organizuojamus sportinius renginius. Baigiamojo darbo uždaviniai: 1. Nustatyti mokykloje organizuojamų sportinių renginių dažnį, rūšis ir požiūrį į juos mokytojų ir mokinių nuomone. 2. Nustatyti sportinių renginių lankomumą mokytojų ir mokinių nuomone. 3. Nustatyti veiksnius, skatinančius dalyvauti sportiniuose renginiuose mokytojų ir mokinių nuomone. 4. Nustatyti sportinių renginių poreikį ir jų poveikį kitiems dėstomiems dalykams mokytojų ir mokinių nuomone. Išvados: 1. Mokytojų ir mokinių nuomone sporto renginiai mokyklose yra organizuojami kas 3 – 6 mėnesius. Dažniausiai mokyklose yra organizuojami sporto renginiai susieti su krepšiniu. Mokiniams yra suteikiamos tinkamos sąlygos lankytis sportiniuose renginiuose, kurių laikas yra suderinamas su pamokų laiku ir renginiuose gali dalyvauti visi norintieji. Mokytojai dažniau nei mokiniai teigiamai vertina mokyklose organizuojamus sportinius renginius. 2. Mokiniai dažniau nei mokytojai mano, jog sportiniais renginiais labiau domisi berniukai. Mokiniai dažniau nei mokytojai mano, kad aktyviausi sporto renginiuose yra 8-10 klasių moksleiviai. Mokiniai dažniau nei mokytojai nurodė, kad moksleiviai dažniausiai lankosi tik tam tikro pobūdžio renginiuose. 3. Vyksiančiais sporto... [toliau žr. visą tekstą] / Problem: are sporting events popular and required at school? Object: teachers and students opinion about sporting events organized at school Purpose: to determine and to compare students' teachers' opinions about sports events organized at school. Tasks: 1. To set frequency, type, teachers and students approach to sporting events organized at school. 2. To set attendance of sporting events by students' and teachers' opinions. 3. To identify factors that encourage participation in sporting events by students' and teachers' opinions. 4. To identify need of sporting events and their effect to other taught school subject. Conclusions. 1. Teachers` and students` consider that school sporting events are held every 3-6 months (p = 0.209). More often at schools are organized sports activities related to basketball (p = 0.432). Students have right conditions to visit sporting events, which are consistent with their school time and open to all who want to participate in them (p = 0.251). Teachers more often than students assess sporting events at schools better (p = 0.000). 2. Students more often than teachers believe that boys are more interested in sporting events (p = 0.043). Students more often than teachers believe that the most active in sporting events are students of grade 8-10 (p = 0.041). Students more often than teachers indicate that students usually visit only certain types of events (p = 0.004). 3. Students are interested of ongoing sporting events presenting them... [to full text]

At large sporting events (LSEs), e.g. football matches and athletics events, the user experience has been shown to be highly variable (Nilsson, 2004; Nilsson et al. 2004). Reported problems include a lack of social interaction with fellow spectators, and insufficient relevant information on the events or the sporting action taking place (Nilsson, 2004; Nilsson et al. 2004; Esbjornsson et al. 2006; Jacucci et al. 2005). A possible solution is personalisation, making the mobile application adapt to the user, ensuring that only relevant information is retrieved and presented in a way that is suitable. This thesis is devoted to studying the user experience related to mobile personalization at LSEs. It aims to investigate how personalized mobile applications at LSEs can render the user experience more active and engaging in a contextually, socially and culturally relevant way. The thesis reviews different theoretical approaches to help to understand the concepts of interest e.g. personalization and user experience (Chapter 2). Research methods are also discussed including the challenge of adapting user-centred methods into the Chinese culture (Chapter 3). This thesis investigates the user experience of mobile personalization at LSEs by following the circle of user-centred research: It starts to consider user requirements and user experience at LSEs and derives the usage patterns that personalized mobile applications could usefully support (Chapter 4). Then it explores the relevant contextual factors at LSEs which could be used to prescribe the behaviour of a personalizable mobile application (Chapter 5). Next, it describes the user-centred process used to design personalizable interfaces for mobile applications used at LSEs. Four key elements of design are considered: content, conceptual, interaction and presentation design (Chapter 6). The final outputs of the design process were two personalized mobile prototypes for Chinese users at LSEs. These included versions based on either (1) user-initiated or (2) system-initiated personalisation. Finally it investigates the impact on user experience of mobile personalization at LSEs in two empirical studies (a field experiment and a lab-based experiment) with these prototypes (Chapters 7 and 8). Mobile personalization is shown to result in an enriched user experience across a range of activities that a spectator would undertake at a large sporting event. The thesis discusses primarily the effective design of mobile personalization, the design implications at LSEs, user experience design, and research methods for Chinese users (Chapter 9). In conclusion (Chapter 10), specific contributions and avenues for future work are highlighted.

M.Comm. (Economics) / The financial involvement of the public sector in bidding for and hosting major international sporting events has taken various forms, including guarantees of events, sponsorships and direct government expenditure. The primary argument for the substantial use of public funds in the hosting of major events focuses on the ability to generate economic benefits for the public that exceed the costs involved. The scarcity of public funds in the public sector has led to growing scrutiny of allocation of public funds to support sporting events. The dissertation assesses whether or not the overall impact of major sporting events can justify the public funds used. The socio-economic and other impacts of different events, in both developed and developing countries, based on their experiences in hosting different sporting events as well as South Africa’s own experience, have been evaluated in this study. It is the contention of this dissertation that although major international sporting events ostensibly have positive economic spin-offs for the host country, this does not appear to be supported by evidence. Given the weak evidence or lack of evidence that major international sporting events can produce net benefits, it is not clear what motivates countries to fiercely contest for hosting rights. This dissertation therefore questions whether the hosting of major international sporting events is pursued for pure economic reasons.

The thesis deals with the assessment of the sporting events impact. The main aim is to assess the impact of the running races organized by Prague International Marathon objectively and to verify the hypothesis that organizing sporting events can have a positive impact on tourism of the country. The theoretical part explains the basic approaches of sport tourism and deals with the typology of the sporting events. The practical part analyses the impact of the PIM running races on tourism. The aim is to quantify the number of participants, to examine their structure, to calculate the economic impact, to examine media coverage and the social impact of the events.

La responsabilité sociale des entreprises (RSE) fait l’objet d’un intérêt croissant au sein de la recherche en management des organisations sportives. Il apparaît de plus en plus évident qu’elle y revêt des caractéristiques spécifiques faisant écho aux nombreuses particularités déjà soulignées du secteur sportif. Cette thèse aborde plus précisément la responsabilité sociale dans le cadre des évènements sportifs. Celle-ci semble être influencée, à l’instar de celle d’autres organisations sportives (Babiak & Wolfe, 2009), par deux ensembles de déterminants, les premiers renvoyant aux « ressources internes uniques » dont ils disposent, les seconds aux « fortes pressions externes » dont ils font l’objet. Ce travail envisage donc la responsabilité sociale des évènements sportifs comme une « boîte noire » qu’il s’agit d’ouvrir pour comprendre comment chaque acteur lui donne du sens. Dans cette perspective, il vise deux objectifs : (1) analyser, à travers un modèle de sensemaking stratégique ou prospectif (Thomas, Clark & Gioia, 1993; Selsky & Parker, 2010), les processus de construction de sens de deux parties prenantes principales des évènements sportifs ; (2) rendre compte, en nous appuyant sur les concepts du sensegiving (Gioia & Chittipeddi, 1991 ; Maitlis, 2005), de la manière dont ces différents acteurs influencent la construction de sens collective qui aboutit à la stratégie de responsabilité sociale d’un évènement sportif. Ce travail s’articule autour de trois études. Les deux premières sont constituées d’entretiens semi-directifs (personnes-ressources) auprès d’entreprises sponsors (N=23) et de collectivités locales (N=23). La troisième est composée de quatre études de cas combinant des entretiens semi-directifs auprès des organisateurs et des principales parties prenantes concernées (N=27), d’observations sur site ainsi que d’une analyse documentaire. Les résultats permettent d’identifier, pour chaque catégorie d’acteur, plusieurs niveaux d’ambigüité qui balisent le processus de sensemaking. Pour les entreprises sponsors, il s’agit de leurs perceptions (positives ou négatives) du degré de proximité de l’évènement (ou des différentes entités sportives dont ils sont partenaires) vis-à-vis de la responsabilité sociale, des liens perçus entre la responsabilité sociale de l’évènement et leur propre RSE, du focus de leurs initiatives responsables (liées à la responsabilité sociale de l’évènement, à celle d’une entité sportive particulière ou à la leur) ainsi que des liens entre les objectifs spécifiques des initiatives responsables et leur stratégie globale sur l’évènement. Pour les collectivités locales, il s’agit de leurs perceptions (positives ou négatives) des impacts de l’évènement, de la contrôlabilité perçue de ces impacts ainsi que du lien entre leur politique évènementielle, leur politique sportive globale (en particulier ses aspects sociaux) et leur politique environnementale. Pour chacun de ces acteurs, la combinaison de ces niveaux d’ambigüité aboutit à une pluralité de stratégies et d’actions de responsabilité sociale. Les études de cas montrent quant à elles que les évènements sportifs étudiés prennent place au sein d’un continuum allant d’un sensemaking contraint à un sensemaking non-contraint en fonction de l’origine et de la force du sensegiving. Le sensemaking contraint résulte d’une situation où les organisateurs se conforment au sens que leurs parties prenantes donnent à la responsabilité sociale de l’évènement. Il semble associé à une légitimité de type morale, à un faible degré stratégique de la responsabilité sociale du point de vue de l’organisateur ainsi qu’à une praxis de type « réduction des effets négatifs ». Le sensemaking non-contraint résulte d’une situation où les organisateurs contrôlent le processus de sensegiving. Il semble lié à une légitimité de type pragmatique ou cognitive, à un degré stratégique plus élevé et à une praxis de type « propagation d’effets positifs ». / Since the early 2000’s, corporate social responsibility (CSR) has gained a growing interest in the sport management literature. It seems clear that CSR takes very particular forms in this field. This doctoral research more specifically deals with sporting events. Sporting events appear to be influenced, like other sport organizations, by two sets of determinants (Babiak & Wolfe, 2009), namely “unique internal resources” and “strong external pressures”. This work views sporting event’s social responsibility as a “black box” which the researcher has to open in order to understand how the different stakeholders make sense of it. It therefore aims two objectives: (1) to analyze the strategic sensemaking process (Thomas, Clark & Gioia, 1993; Selsky & Parker, 2010) of two main sporting events’ stakeholders – corporate sponsors and local governments; (2) to account on how the various stakeholders influence the collective sensegiving process (Gioia & Chittipeddi, 1991; Maitlis, 2005) resulting in social responsibility actions. This research is structured around three studies. The first-two are based on semi-structured interviews with corporate sponsors (N=23) and local governments (N=23). The third is composed of four case studies combining semi-structured interviews with sporting events organizers and their main stakeholders (N=27), on-site observation and document analysis. The results identify several levels of ambiguity which mark the sensemaking processes of both stakeholder categories. Concerning corporate sponsors, these levels include positive and negative perceptions about the link between sporting events and social responsibility, perceived links between sporting events’ social responsibility and their own CSR, perceived focus of social responsibility actions as well as perceived links bewtween these actions and their strategic objectives on the event. Concerning local governments, these levels include positive and negative perceptions about sporting events’ social impacts, perceived controllability of these impacts and perceived links between sporting events, the social aspects of global sport policies as well as environmental policies. For each of these actors, combinations of the various levels of ambiguity lead to the development of social responsibility strategies during the events. Case studies show that sporting events can be placed on a continuum between “constained” and “not-constrained” sensemaking depending on the origin and intensity of sensegiving activities. Constained sensemaking occurs when organizers conform to the sense imposed by stakeholders. It seems to be associated with moral legitimacy, a low strategic level and a “do no harm” praxis. Not-constrained sensemaking occurs when organizers keep the control of the sensemaking process. It seems to be associated with pragmatic and cognitive legitimacy, a strong strategic level and a “do good” praxis.

Uppsatsen behandlar personalekonomi och huruvida mänskliga resurser ska behandlas som en tillgång för organisationer eller inte och fokus ligger på ideella idrottsorganisationer. I teori och empiri påvisas att människan är en viktig resurs för en organisation. Fokus i uppsatsen ligger i att applicera beräkningen av värdet av personalen som en tillgång på ideella idrottsorganisationer, där personalen består till stor del av volontärer. Trots att det rör sig om donerad arbetskraft existerar ändå kostnader kring volontärer, vilket empirin bevisar. Det tydliggörs både av volontärer samt de som ansvarar för volontärer att viss ersättning som exempelvis mat och kläder förväntas, vilka är betydande kostnader att kalkylera. Det framkommer även att välmående och den sociala miljön kring eventet är av betydande vikt för ett fortsatt engagemang samt en positiv och motiverande miljö. / The essay deals with human resources and whether or not they should be treated as an asset or not for organisations and it focuses primarily on nonprofit sport organisations. Theory and empirics show that humans are an important asset in an organisation. The essay focuses on applicating the measurement of the value of personnel as an asset to nonprofit sport organisations, where the volunteers make up for a big part of the staff. In spite of it being donated workforce there are costs to consider in the usage of volunteers, which is proved in the empirics of the essay. It is made clear both by volunteers and people responsible for volunteers that some compensation, in the form of food and clothes for example, is expected by volunteers and these are significant cost to account for. Well-being and the social environment in events are shown to be of significance regarding a continued commitment from the volunteers and also to maintain a positive and motivating environment.

No abstract available. / Thesis (M.T.R.P.)-University of KwaZulu-Natal, 2006.