Big games in small places: the African Youth Games and organisational capacity in Botswana sport federations

ABSTRACT

Research Question

With more transition or developing economies hosting major sports events (MSE), it is increasingly relevant to research how they can impact sport organisations’ capacity in such environments. Using the Gaborone 2014 African Youth Games (AYG) as its research setting, the goal of this paper is to investigate how hosting a MSE can impact the perceived organisational capacity of sporting organisations within the context of a developing or transition economy.

Research Method

Data were gathered through 13 semi-structured interviews. Results are deductively coded and presented according to Hall et al.’s (2003) conceptualisation of organisational capacity.

Results and Findings

Results show that individuals perceived positive capacity outcomes related to skill development, international relationships and, in some instances, material resources. Conversely, adverse outcomes included lack of opportunities to apply new skills, strained relationships, and unmet financial expectations. Moreover, the findings reveal that the AYG generated similar capacity outcomes as other MSEs, but that the relative impact of those outcomes may differ.

Implications

The findings re-emphasise the need for hosts to engage in strategic management to maximise positive capacity outcomes. Researchers are encouraged to investigate the impact of MSEs on sport organisations using multiple methods and settings.

KEYWORDS:

• Organisational capacity
• major sport events
• Youth Games
• Botswana

Acknowledgements

Dr Karen Petry, for her support in supervising the initial research that led to this paper (see Moustakas, 2016). Helena Gey who provided invaluable feedback on the content and language of this paper.

Disclosure statement

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

Notes

1 As the term ‘infrastructure’ is not widely used in the African context, the term ‘process capacity’ will be used for the rest of this paper.