Aim: Self-organization in sport and leisure activities has increased in recent years but remains relatively unknown. This trend is also evident in equestrian activities, generating economic and societal challenges for institutions and professionals of the sector. Self-organization refers to the independent management of one or more tasks that could otherwise be subcontracted. For some practitioners, it is the result of a mismatch between their demand and the supply of available services. To better understand the determinants of equestrian self-organization, this article examines the consumer value associated with this choice.Question: The sports service, unlike material goods, involves an immaterial exchange contract requiring consumer participation. In this context, this article analyses the value components of sports self-organization, in the case of equestrian activities. Additionally, this exploratory research aims to understand which value components influence the overall value of self-organization and whether this overall value is also influenced by attachment to the animal and self-efficacy. Methodology: The methodology is based on a quantitative survey conducted online via social networks (Facebook, X - Twitter and Instagram) over six months in 2021, in France with 615 respondents. Structural equation models are used in the analysis. Results: The results reveal that attachment to the animal, self-efficacy, economic value, hedonic value, and ethical value associated […]
This article focuses on the governance of French national sports federations. The objective is to analyze the organizational processes that produce inequalities (gender, class, race, etc.). To this end, the study relies on five federation case studies (basketball, cycling, rugby union, dance and UFOLEP). The method is based on semi-structured interviews with board members (n=78) and a documentary study. It shows that behind a disembodied functioning, governance constitutes a poorly formalized space where sociability plays an essential role. Instead of equalizing the rules for participation in governance, the electoral system produces and legitimizes indirect discrimination. The votes unevenly distributed between the candidates favour those from the most important territories in terms of licensed practice. The recruitment of leaders is based on a system of clan recommendations, which contributes to their social reproduction. If these results support the literature on sports governance, the study also reveals new processes participating in the inequality regime. Evolving hierarchically also requires the acquisition of specific bodily and temporal dispositions. Finally, if positions are volunteers, they make an economic investment on their part in order to access the most important positions. These elements constitute organizational filters which contribute to restricting access to decision-making positions and the retention of men, perceived as white, and from the most […]
In France, under the Anti-Discrimination Act of 16th November 2001, "no person may be excluded from a recruitment procedure (...) on the grounds of (...) age (...) gender (...) or physical appearance". Yet despite the existence of this anti-discrimination law, discrimination in recruitment persists. Seven surveys carried out over the last fifteen years have shed light on the sociological mechanisms that contribute to discrimination on these three grounds in a sector of activity that offers a major source of jobs for students of Sport and Exercise Sciences programmes (STAPS) - companies trading in sports goods and services in large and/or medium-sized self-service retail outlets, such as Décathlon, Sport 2000, Intersport, etc. The results have been the subject of publications and research reports, but the conduct of research in this field, which is 'sensitive’ in many ways, deserved to be developed independently, particularly in terms of the ambivalent attitude of managers towards science in this sector. Encouraged by calls for introspection and the gains offered by reflexivity in sport social sciences of sport, this account of an investigation makes it possible to look back on experiences in the field, both successful and unsuccessful, and to open a reflection on the circulation of knowledge in so-called sports distribution. Examining the context, the researcher's identity and the possible instrumentalization of her scientific work helps to explain the difficult […]
How can we measure performance in sport organisations? The usual framework for organisational performance in sport federations is two-stage: measuring and managing performance. A new framework is proposed by adding two intermediate stages for analysing and reporting performance. The four-stage framework is applied to the French Federation of Hiking, a leisure-oriented federation with an aging and primarily female membership. Data comes from administrative membership records over a nine-year period (2011-2019), corresponding to 2 million multivariate observations, i.e. over 20 million available data. The analysing stage combines marketing and advanced sociodemographic statistics.A discrete-time logistic binomial model of the probability of leaving the federation demonstrates the importance of considering membership duration, age (albeit in a nonlinear way) and interesting interactions with members’ sex. Value for money is demonstrated for several stakeholders (e.g. 1 euro of public subsidies corresponds to 485 euros of volunteer work). The new framework proposes a cycle of measuring, analysing, reporting and managing performance. It can be entered at any stage and used to create or cocreate a specific performance system depending on the goals and means of the sport federation considered.
This article questions the leveraging effect of Olympic bids in kind of collaborative governance, by articulating federal-local interests. It is based on a case study of the collaborative relation between the Saint-Quentin-en-Yvelines Agglomeration Community and the French cycling federation from 2000 to 2020. The contribution retraces the local collaboration process in a specific context: first showing the role the 2012 Olympic bid played in the implementation of a federal-local partnership, 2nd explaining in which extent the 2024 Olympic bid has been used to foster the structuration of this partnership. This work uses Kingdon’ streams theory to put in light the capacity of Olympic bids to open up ‘policy windows’ for the implementation of collaborative sport policies.
While it is common thought that innovating is likely to procure competitive advantage within the industry of sports goods, it is also a risky activity which may lead to damaging consequences for companies. It therefore seems relevant to take an interest in the potential detrimental effects of innovation processes within small, particularly creative, companies in the sports sector. In this paper, we seek to know if, and how, engaging in an innovation process leads to singular forms of organizational vulnerability.Case studies were carried out in five French companies specializing in the outdoors: three small or medium entreprises (SME) and two very small (or micro) entreprises (VSE). We conducted a total of 48 interviews with different actors in the innovation processes, accompanied by field observations and analysis of secondary data. The priority frequently given to meeting technical challenges is likely to distance the product from the customer and real use. In certain cases, "innovation fever" generates internal imbalance. Second, some companies are too dependent on a key figure in their functioning, the inventor-entrepreneur; it sometimes implies a weakening of the innovation network during its vital decoupling stage. Finally, although the creation of innovation networks is necessary, it heightens the dependence on stakeholders and exposes to specific threats.Excessive confidence in the benefits of innovation can prove problematic. Innovators should not be discouraged, […]
The Covid-19 crisis had an impact on French professional and amateur sport with the suspension of competitions from 12th March 2020 and the premature and definitive closure of the 2019/20 season. This was the case for French men's professional rugby, for which the TOP 14 (1st division) and PRO D2 (2nd division) professional championships were suspended and then definitively closed. On 1st March 2020, the French National Rugby League (LNR) voted for a season without a championship winner or promoted and relegated teams, and with rankings stopped at day 17 for the TOP 14 and day 23 for the PRO D2. Based on academic work carried out on amateur football (Carin & Andreff, 2020) and professional basketball (Carin, Desquennes, Jaworski and Andreff, 2021), this study focuses on the economic models of French professional men's rugby clubs, their evolution over a period from 2008/09 to 2018/19 and the economic effects of the Covid-19 crisis on clubs’ finances. Access to the financial data of professional clubs in the first two divisions and exchanges with the Direction Nationale d'Aide au Contrôle de Gestion (DNACG) allowed us to better understand the distribution of revenues, expenses and financial performance before the Covid crisis and to assess the short-term economic effects of this crisis on the 2019/20 and 2020/21 seasons. In addition to the economic effects on the first two seasons of the Covid- 19, this study helps to highlight the crisis management of French professional […]
The French Handball Federation has put at the heart of its strategic project the will to see its clubs diversify their financial resources and multiply the practice offers (health, leisure...) to remain attractive in a changing sport context. In order to accompany this process, this research focuses on the economic models of handball clubs in order to categorize them and identify development levers. Different statistical methods were applied to achieve this. A principal component analysis and a K-means classification allow us to propose a double taxonomy of the clubs: their economic models and their level of professionalization. These methods were applied to the clubs of the Comité Nord (59 clubs), which were contacted by sending a questionnaire. The reading grid created allows to characterize the current situation of the French handball clubs and to identify different opportunities and threats for each of the identified categories.
This article assesses the effectiveness of the UEFA Financial Fair Play (FFP) regulations, one of the few financial regulatory tools for open leagues in Europe in two top divisions in Europe. The objective of FFP borrows from the theoretical concept of ‘soft budget constraint’ in sport finance and regulation literature. Introduced by UEFA in 2011 and fully implemented from 2013, FFP requires clubs qualifying for European competitions to comply with the financial concept of “break-even”, where football expenses should not exceed football revenues. This study uses the French Ligue 1 (L1) and the English Premier League (PL) as a case study for analysing the effectiveness of FFP and includes thirteen clubs (seven French and six English) in total. The selection of clubs was guided firstly by data access but was also restricted to clubs regularly participating in European competitions between 2011, when FFP came into effect, and 2018. The scope of the study enabled us to measure the effect of FFP with regard to the break-even rule and the payroll ratios before and after its full application by comparing the periods 2008-2013 and 2013-2018 using descriptive statistics and tests of comparisons. The results are contrasted according to the national context of the clubs studied and the indicators analysed. First, they show a general improvement in the profitability of the clubs in the sample, although the results are statistically significant only in the case of the PL. […]
