A social capital view of an Olympic and Paralympic Games bid exploration process

ABSTRACT

Research question: The purpose of this study is to examine the Olympic and Paralympic bid exploration process adopted by Calgary, Canada (‘Calgary Model’) to explore whether it provides a template on how future communities could leverage bid exploration processes to generate social capital though increased network connectivity and community ownership. In doing so, we examine the four research questions:

Research Question 1: How did the Calgary Model embed community values as central to all decision-making processes?

Research Question 2: How did the Calgary Model engage diverse stakeholders, particularly community interest groups, in the strategic activities?

Research Question 3: How did the Calgary Model empower communities to become agents of change?

Research Question 4: How did the Calgary Model provide sustained open communication towards mutual learning?

Research methods: Guided by social capital theory, the researchers conducted 19 in-depth, one-on-one interviews with a sample of individuals engaged in the Calgary bid exploration process.

Results and findings: The results identified ten composite themes with an overall conclusion that the process Calgary used did not sufficiently generate social capital through maximizing network connectivity and community ownership.

Implications: Resulting from our data analysis we developed a conceptual social capital assessment tool and five principles to support event organizers in designing processes that help to maximize the generation of community social capital.

KEYWORDS:

• Olympics
• mega-events
• sports
• social capital
• bidding

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 At one point, 33 cities had shown a preliminary interest in hosting the 2024 Games. However, all but two withdrew at different stages due to a variety of pressures, including a plebiscite loss in Hamburg and a petition in Budapest.

2 For additional information on Agenda 2020 and the New Norm please refer to https://stillmed.olympic.org/media/Document%20Library/OlympicOrg/News/2018/02/2018-02-06-Olympic-Games-the-New-Norm-Report.pdf#_ga=2.220025945.1996935984.1547690861-71489179.1545196960