We are inviting colleagues to submit abstracts for a workshop on austerity measures and financial constraints relative to the contemporary sport setting. As many countries worldwide have adopted austerity-related measures and the subsequent impact on sport is evident, facilitating a platform of debate on this issue is timely and of importance. This platform will serve empirical research, foster critical discussion, and ensure sport management academics and practitioners will attend to the contemporary and applied management issue of austerity in sport.
Aim and Content
Citizens throughout the Eurozone are constantly exposed to terms such as economic recession, austerity measures, deficit, and institutional reforms. This terminology has become prevalent in social, electronic, and print media, as European policy dealers are debating on possible solutions to the gradual and deepening financial issues in the continent (Sen, 2015). European governments have been forced to adopt austerity measures as a way out for their heavily indebted economies. Nevertheless, some economists argue that austerity is essentially anti-growth, since public expenditure decline contributes to private income reduction and increased unemployment rate. These two factors formulate the primary outcomes of austerity, causing losses on prosperity and leading a substantial segment of the population into poverty (Marmot & Bell, 2009). Overall, the impact of austerity on public health, social cohesion, and citizens’ wellbeing is well documented. In such environments of reduced public spending and fiscal consolidation, funding mechanisms for sport also become complex, thus resulting in consequences relative to governance, management, power, and policy making (Jones, 2008).
The overarching purpose of this workshop is to gather theoretical and practical perspectives on the impact of austerity measures on the sport sector within the Eurozone. Subsequent goals include: (a) sport development and sport-for-development issues in the austerity era, (b) best practices for administrators and policy makers as related to sport funding, (c) identification of relevant research on austerity measures and sport, and (c) theoretical and practical implications for sport management. Historical and critical “memories and identities” of the Eurozone as related to funding mechanisms of sport are also going to discussed.
Potential topics suitable for this workshop include (but not limited to):
- Impact of public cuts on National Sport Federations and elite sport
- Human resource management implications and utilization of volunteer groups in sport
- National sport policies/strategies and institutional reforms
- Impact of financial cuts on mass participation, amateur sport, sport clubs (including health/fitness), local authority sport programs, and nonprofit organizations
- Interaction between private and local authorities (e.g., Municipality) on sport funding
- Social responsibility/enterprise, sport-for-development, and sport-for-health
- Reduced funding for youth, high school, and collegiate sport
- Changing ideology/discourse of sport in the financial hardship context
- Challenges and opportunities for the sport sector due to budgetary constraints
Format
Small symposium, 20-minute presentation.
Expected demand for papers
It is encouraged that submissions emphasize and address management issues in sport as related to austerity, funding cuts, reduced public funding, and economic recession. Although this workshop has a more Eurocentric approach, submissions concerning global financial issues/constraints in sport are welcome.
Submission Deadline: April 1st, 2016
Online Submission Information: http://easm2016.com/workshops/
Convenors
- Dr. Chrysostomos Giannoulakis (lead convenor) / Ball State University
- Dr. Dimitra Papadimitriou / University of Patras
- Dr. Kostas Alexandris / Aristotle University of Thessaloniki
- Dr. Daniel Parnell / Manchester Metropolitan University
