Sport Management Cultures

This is the first book to address the link between culture and sport management. The aim is to demonstrate that culture profoundly affects how we research, teach and practice sport management. The book engages with the concept of culture both as an abstract analytical category and specific beliefs and practices. It recognizes that a single best way of managing does not exist; that the applicability of management theories may stop at national boundaries; and that fundamental cultural values act as a strong determinant to managerial ideology and practice. Culture makes the study of sport management interesting because it challenges many taken-for-granted assumptions about management, yet it reinforces our belief in the existence of common management problems.

The book offers a comprehensive review of the conceptualisations of culture and its relation with sport management by examining a range of issues: the emergence of multiculturalism as a policy issue; the impact of commonly shared cultural values within the fitness industry on managers and organisations behaviour; building cultural bridges in community sport organisations; cultural meanings attached to the consumption of Olympic merchandise, and culturally-informed interpretation through a reflective analysis of sport management texts.

This book was published as a special issue of European Sport Management Quarterly.

Vassil Girginov is Reader in Sport Management/Development at Brunel University. He has systematically researched and published in the field of sport management and development, and Olympism. His recent books include The Olympics: A Critical Reader (2010) and Management of Sports Development (Elsevier, 2008). He is also Executive Editor of Routledge 2012 Olympic Special Issue involving some 40 journals from a range of academic disciplines to be launched at the 2012 ICSEMIS Scientific Convention in Glasgow before the London Olympic Games.