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A comparative analysis of Canadian and Belarussian sport organizations.

The purpose of this study was to examine the governmental organizations in charge of sport in Belarus (Goskomsport Belarus) and Canada (Sport Canada) from a comparative perspective. Data were collected in both Russian and English. Results of the study suggested that the sport organizations have a number of common elements, notably their complexity and formalization. Granted their instable, complex and heterogeneous environments, both Sport Canada and Goskomsport Belarus are heavily influenced by political and economic factors and are confronted with budget reductions and re-structuring. It was found that Sport Canada had a more flexible structure, less centralized decision making, and more advanced technology than Goskomsport Belarus. Results also suggest that Goskomsport Belarus operates in a more instable and complex environment, with a proportionally smaller budget, but that it is more aggressive in terms of its quest for a political power that would allow it to maintain its operations, and for corporate partners that would bring revenues from sources other than the traditional state contributions. The environment's high degree of instability and complexity in Canada and in Belarus was perhaps the main factor affecting the two focal organizations. Environmental turbulence demands a lot of flexibility and adaptiveness on the part of organizational structures for the latter to allow an organization to be effective. In the case of Sport Canada, better structural flexibility (because of the matrix system), lesser structural complexity, lesser formalization and more decentralized decision making processes made the organization apparently better equipped to adapt to the changing political and economic situation. In brief, Sport Canada had a structural arrangement that was more suited to the contextual situation than was the case for Goskomsport Belarus. This may explain why Sport Canada seemed to be more effective than Goskomsport Belarus in an unstable and dynamic environment. (Abstract shortened by UMI.)

Identiferoai:union.ndltd.org:uottawa.ca/oai:ruor.uottawa.ca:10393/9979
Date January 1995
CreatorsKondratovsky, Yavgeniy.
ContributorsRail, Genevieve,
PublisherUniversity of Ottawa (Canada)
Source SetsUniversité d’Ottawa
Detected LanguageEnglish
TypeThesis
Format309 p.

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