Doomed to fail? A study of how junior managers at a major sport event cope with leadership issues

• Due to lack of leadership combined with occasional and haphazard top-level management, the 2012 Oslo World Snowboard Championships (WSC) were faced with wicked and critical problems (Grint, 2005) resulting in uncertainty and chaos. Simultaneously, the event was declared a success externally. This paper draws on the works of Parent and Seguin (2007) pinpointing organizational shortcomings resulting in event failure, and Parent, Beaupre and Seguin (2009) examining key-leadership factors leading to event success. It does so with the purpose of examining how junior middle managers cope with uncertainty and solve problems, possibly contributing to an external impression of a successful event. The study is based on data from semi-structured interviews (17), documents, participant-observations pre, during and post WSC. Findings show how there is variety of mechanisms between organizational levels causing uncertainty, including all factors leading to event failure pinpointed by Parent and Seguin (2007). While existing event and project management literature use leadership to explain why events succeed or not, this case provides us with an opportunity to understand how an event can succeed despite displaying factors allegedly leading to event failure. In addition, it provides an identification of additional factors for event success. By that, this study contributes to the understanding of factors leading to event success and failure of sport events, but also adds to a broader discussion on what constitutes event success in the first place.

Ämnesord

SAMHÄLLSVETENSKAP  -- Utbildningsvetenskap -- Pedagogik (hsv//swe)

SOCIAL SCIENCES  -- Educational Sciences -- Pedagogy (hsv//eng)

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