Creating a Corporate Anti-doping Culture: The Role of Bulgarian Sports Governing Bodies

Abstract

The World Anti-Doping Agency's (WADA) vision to promote a new moral order in sport and new forms of organization and management through the World Anti Doping Code (WADC) amount to creating a new corporate culture. The WADC's emphasis on policy implementation places sport governing bodies (SGBs) and managers at the heart of the enterprise. This represents a double challenge: (i) to the organizational culture of SGBs as it entails creating shared systems of meaning that are accepted, internalized, and acted on at every level of an organization, and (ii) to the International Olympic Committee (IOC) and the WADA in regard to universality and particularity, where the general organizational difficulty is how they are to operate at a global (universal) level whilst such apparently intractable differences exist at the particular (local) level. This essay employs Morgan's metaphor of organizations as cultures to develop an understanding of the process of endorsing a global anti-doping policy. It explores the enactment of the WADC using the Bulgarian Weightlifting Federation as a case in point. While a good level of universal approval of the WADC has been achieved, the main issue remains how to get SGBs' practices in line with it.

Notes

 [1] Morgan, Images of Organization.

 [2] Morgan, Images of Organization, 141.

 [3] Morgan, Images of Organization, 141

 [4] Morgan, Images of Organization, 141

 [5] Morgan, Images of Organization, 146.

 [6] Morgan, Images of Organization, 146–50.

 [7] Guttman, From Record to Ritual .

 [8] As cited in Goodbody, ‘Drugs Enquiry Criticises Governing Bodies’, 5.

 [9] Tayeb, ‘Organisations and National Culture’, 429–46.

[10] Parry, ‘Sport, Universals and Multiculturalism’.

[11] Morgan, Images of Organization, 140.

[12] Houlihan, Dying to Win .

[13] Houlihan, Dying to Win , 171.

[14] Girginov and Parry, The Olympic Games Explained , 13.

[15] Hampden-Turner and Trompenaars, The Seven Cultures of Capitalism .

[16] Hampden-Turner and Trompenaars, The Seven Cultures of Capitalism

[17] Hofstede, Culture Consequences .

[18] Hickson, and Pugh, Management Worldwide .

[19] Morden, ‘Models of National Cultures – A Management Review’, 19–44.

[20] Hampden-Turner and Trompenaars, Building Cross-cultural Competence .

[21] Girginov, Papadimitriou and D'Amico, Cultural Orientations of Sport Managers .

[22] World Anti-Doping Agency, World Anti-Doping Code , 1.

[23] Council of Europe, European Anti-Doping Convention.

[24] Data from Dawson, ‘The War on Drugs’, 1–3.

[25] Data from Dawson, ‘Drugs in Sport – the Role of the Physician’, 55–61.

[26] Data from Morgan, Images of Organization , 142.

[27] Morgan, Riding the Waves of Change , 49.

[28] Smith, ‘Changing an Organisation's Culture’, 249–61.

[29] Troy, Change Management .

[30] Carr, Hard and Trahant, Managing the Change Process .

[31] Collins, ‘Does a new Philosophy Change the Structure?’, 204–16.

[32] Martin, Cultures in Organisations: ThreePperspectives .

[33] Harris and Ogbonna, ‘A Three-perspective Approach to Understanding Culture in Retail Organisations’, 104–23.

[34] For an account of the system approach to the management of sport organizations see Bobev et al., Organization and management of physical culture (in Bulgarian), and P. Chelladurai, Managing Organizations for Sport and Physical Activity: A Systems Perspective (in English).

[35] Dimitrov, Vdiganeto na tezesti v Bulgaria: Ocertchi po istoria (Weightlifting in Bulgaria: Sketches on History), part 2.

[36] Dunning and Waddington, ‘Sport as Drug and Drugs in Sport’, 352.

[37] Morgan, Images of Organization, 147.

[38] See, for example, Oakley and Green, ‘The Production of Olympic Champions: International Perspectives on Elite Sport Development System’, 83–106; Guidelines for Subsidizing Sport Clubs from the State Fund for the Support of Physical Education and Sport ; and Sport England, A Sporting Future for All .

[39] Dimitrov, Vdiganeto na tezesti v Bulgaria: Ocertchi po istoria (Weightlifting in Bulgaria: Sketches on History), parts 1 and 2.

[40] Personal communication with BWF Secretary General (Sofia, 16 Feb. 2004).

[41] Morgan, Images of Organization, 256.

[42] Higgins and Mcallister, ‘If you want strategic change, don't forget to change your cultural artefacts’, 65.

[43] Personal communication with BWF former President (Sofia, 16 Feb. 2004).

[44] Morgan, Images of Organization, 256.

[45] Personal communications with BWF former Secretary General (Sofia, 1994)

[46] Denham, ‘Sport Illustrated, the Mainstream Press and the Enactment of Drug Policy in Major League Baseball’, 51–68.

[47] Personal communication with BWF former President (Sofia, 16 Feb. 2004).

[48] International Olympic Committee, Programme Commission Report to the 117 IOC Session.

[49] 7 Days Sport,_3438 (16 Nov. 2003).

[50] Morgan, Images of Organization, 150.

[51] Dawson, “The War on Drugs”, 19.

[52] Savulescu, Foddy and Clayton, ‘Why we should allow Performance Enhancing Drugs in Sport’.

[53] Houlihan, ‘Managing Compliance in International Anti-Doping Policy: The World Anti-Doping Code’, 199.

[54] Donovan, Egger, Kapernik and Mendoza, ‘A Conceptual Framework for Achieving Performance Enhancing Drug Compliance in Sport’, 269–84.

[55] Personal communication with A. Kodjabashev.