Innovation in sport for development and peace

The field of Sport for Development and Peace (SDP) has evolved since the Magglingen Declaration in 2003, which formally recognized sport as a useful means for promoting social change. Today, organizations operating grassroots SDP initiatives are found in more than 120 countries (Svensson & Woods, 2017) and the field includes stakeholder groups from across a wide range of different sectors such as the nonprofit community, government affiliated programs, and private corporations. Additionally, SDP programming is utilized across a broad spectrum of global issues ranging from health to gender equality to peace-building.

The past decade has advanced beyond defining the industry and conducting surface level empirical studies and attracted researchers to study SDP from diverse perspectives and unique approaches (Langer, 2015; Schulenkorf, Sherry, & Rowe, 2016; Whitley, Massey, et al., 2019). One major category focused on has been the management and performance of SDP agencies (Schulenkorf, 2017). While initial research within the field of SDP often focused on highlighting positive impact and outcomes, the focus has shifted towards a more critical perspective aiming to highlight pathways towards sustainability and long-term change.

Organizations implementing SDP initiatives continue to face many challenges as their capacity levels often remain low, resources are scarce, and the environments they operate within are often highly uncertain (Clutterbuck & Doherty, 2019; Cohen, Taylor, & Hanrahan, 2019; Dixon & Svensson, 2019; Svensson, Andersson, & Faulk, 2018; Whitley, Farrell, Wolff, & Hillyer, 2019). While the concept of “doing more with less” can be seen across all types of nonprofits, this can especially be the case in the SDP community considering the relative newness of the field and limited available resources. Even so, recent policy documents (e.g. the Kazan Action Plan) call for innovative new solutions to be developed if the SDP community is to make a meaningful contribution to the Sustainable Development Goals, warranting attention to how organizations can develop and implement innovations in SDP. Thus the purpose of this special issue was to highlight research on the role of innovation in SDP practice and call for future efforts to contribute to the growth and sustainability of the industry.

Innovation is increasingly prevalent in SDP. Play International, for example, created an incubator program to support innovative new programs and solutions for the social inclusion of refugees in sport in 2018 and has also developed a PlayLab to experiment with new pedagogies for SDP program delivery (Play International, 2019a, 2019b). At the same time, funding organizations have also pursued innovation as their goals have often advanced beyond short-term impact and focused further on sustainable practice. One reputable funder in the industry, the Laureus Sport for Good Foundation, teamed up with the SOL Foundation to create the Sport for Development Social Innovation Fund. This effort challenged the organizations to rethink how they evaluate and support grantees. The inaugural program received over 100 submissions with a total of six organizations receiving the innovation grant in 2019 and an additional group of eight organizations were recently selected for the 2020 program. Another example of innovative developments in the SDP field are the growing number of organizations which have adopted non-traditional organizational forms (i.e. hybrid organizations) in response to the institutional complexity of today’s SDP environment (Dixon & Svensson, 2019; Raw, Sherry, & Rowe, 2019; Svensson & Seifried, 2017).

The concept of innovation has been extensively investigated in the context of private firms (e.g. Crossan & Apaydin, 2010; Damanpour, 1991) and has also generated increased interest among nonprofit scholars due to the growth and scope of this multi-billion dollar industry (Dover & Lawrence, 2012; Jaskyte, 2011; McDonald, 2007). Researchers have made valuable contributions to the knowledge base around innovation and broadly identified potential drivers and outcomes of innovation. An important question to ask, which has great relevancy in the SDP community, is to what extent do their findings apply in the context of community-based organizations seeking to address complex and deeply rooted social issues? Most prior studies of innovation in nonprofits were guided by frameworks from the business literature focused on efficiency, profit maximization, and competitive advantage. Findings from a recent large qualitative inquiry of the meanings of innovation to leaders of SDP-focused nonprofits highlighted the multifaceted nature of nonprofit innovation and indicated clear discrepancies between theory and practice in prior literature (Svensson, Mahoney, & Hambrick, 2019). As the nonprofit community has grown and become more competitive over grants, donors, volunteers, and participants, so has its needs to attract stakeholders to fulfill those needs. For the purpose of this special issue, innovation was therefore grounded in the concept of social innovation and broadly defined as the implementation of new ways of addressing a problem to better promote social change (Shier & Handy, 2015).

Innovation has the potential to help advance SDP practice yet, until now, the specific benefits and challenges and the conditions for when innovation is developed in SDP remains to be determined. There has been some limited, yet important scholarly work examining aspects of innovation in the field of sport for social change including social entrepreneurship (Cohen & Welty Peachey, 2015; Hayhurst, 2014), the role of new technology (Hambrick & Svensson, 2015), the use of alternative sports or non-traditional sports (Cohen, Melton, & Welty Peachey, 2014; Thorpe & Rinehart, 2013), innovative work behavior among SDP employees (Svensson, Kang, & Ha, 2019), and non-traditional program models (Cohen & Ballouli, 2018). Even so, few prior studies have directly examined the nature of innovation in SDP although there have been calls by researchers for more work around both innovation and the structures, processes, and management of SDP organizations (Schulenkorf, 2017; Welty Peachey, 2019).

This special issue was commissioned as an initial response to these calls and the growing discussions of innovation in both industry and academic settings. The aim of this special issue was to focus on innovative practices and empirical findings and serve as an outlet for uniquely designed organizations and programming that have received limited attention in prior literature. As noted in earlier examples, innovation is increasingly prevalent in the SDP field. We believe that the contributions in this issue serve as a critical starting point for stimulating greater scholarly dialogue on the role of innovation in SDP to ensure that the academic body of knowledge on sport for social change align with the current trends in the field.

Overview of contributions

The articles featured in this special issue cover a diverse range of topics, highlighting the multifaceted nature of innovation. Recent exploratory work on innovation in SDP indicates the significant role funding agencies have in shaping social innovation within grassroots SDP organizations. The special issue received tremendous interest from a global network of scholars. As a result, two articles were included in recent issues of Managing Sport and Leisure outside of the special issue. Both of these papers were submitted as a result of this call for papers and were crafted under the editorial supervision of the special issues editors. In this regard, Whitley (2019) challenges funding agencies to critical reflect on how they may promote innovation within their own organizations in order to better support grantees and stimulate the development of creative new solutions for in the use of sport as a means for social change. Drawing on concepts from behavioral economics, she introduces nine different tools for driving innovative change along with specific strategies for how funders can integrate these tools in their current practices. Moreover, Whitley (2019) also identifies important questions for critically examining the benefits and potential unintended consequences of applying behavioral economics in SDP.

Webb, Richelieu, and Cloutier (2019) explore the process of innovation as SFD managers develop new organizational reports. Based on their exploratory study, the authors develop a model conceptualizing how social innovations can be created through the process of four fact management functions. Their work provides insight about how and why different organizational actors engage in collective efforts to develop product-focused social innovations and further identify how a number of process-focused innovations also emerged. Specifically, Webb et al. (2019) identify how SDP managers need to engage in collecting, connecting, collating, and communicating efforts as part of these types of innovations.

Pate, Scheadler, Spellings, Malnati, and Hillyer (2020) explore the role of innovation in the creation of a new immersive training program for engaging community leaders in how they can leverage sport as a tool for promoting social change for people with disabilities. Specifically, their work highlights the importance of considering how training programs in SDP are structured and the extent to which they help participants develop the skill sets and flexibility needed to respond to local needs. Moreover, findings from their study also provide accounts of how larger organizations can develop innovative training programs that enable participants to grow and become champions for change within their respective communities.

Jones, Carlton, Hyun, Kanters, and Bocarro (2020) took a different approach and introduce a new perspective on social innovation through an analysis of how spaces used by SDP organizations are utilized for informal sport outside of regular program hours. Their findings point to the need for substantial innovation if SDP organizations want to better contribute to the broader health-focused goals that many of them have. Specifically, their work suggests more emphasis need to be placed on how SDP organizations are developing, supporting, and providing access to safe spaces in local communities where youth and community members can engage in informal sport and play outside of regular programming.

In his review of the current state of research on SDP in sport management, Schulenkorf (2017) identified design thinking as a noteworthy area of future exploration. In this special issue, Joachim, Schulenkorf, Schlenker, and Crawley (2020) answer this call by providing a detailed introduction to the concept grounded in seminal literature on design thinking and offer support for the alignment between design thinking and SDP. Specifically, their work indicates the value of human-centered design as a means for enhancing innovation in the sport for social change space. Joachim et al. (2020) provide conceptual clarity that can serve as a foundation for future inquires of design thinking in SFD. Moreover, the authors also identify important suggestions for how researchers can improve future inquiries in SFD based on their scoping review of prior literature.

Brake and Misener’s (2020) study of an inner-city SDP program in Canada provides an example of innovation through the involvement of public sector agencies in the development and implementation of domestic SDP programs. Their findings point to the critical importance of being open to understanding the needs of local communities in order to develop relevant programming. Moreover, Brake and Misener’s (2020) study also highlights the importance of having champions for change within organizations as well as the necessary human, financial, and partnership resources needed for successfully implementing innovations which facilitate intergroup contact among youth in SDP programs. These findings extend recent literature on the significance of innovation capacity for ideas to be translated into innovative practices (Svensson, Andersson, Mahoney, & Ha, in press).

Svensson and Mahoney (2020) explore the intraorganizational conditions necessary for social innovation through a qualitative inquiry of over 50 SDP organizations recognized as innovative leaders in the sport for social change domain. Their work identifies specific conditions needed with respect to an SDP organization’s culture, leadership, paid staff, organizational infrastructure, and financial resources to catalyze social innovation. In line with Joachim et al.’s (2020) argument, Svensson and Mahoney found design thinking to be a critical part of a culture supportive of social innovation. Additionally, their findings also point to the need for greater engagement with how SDP stakeholders identify, discuss, and learn from failures.

Future directions

Understanding the opportunities and challenges of innovation is imperative in order to identify how and when SDP organizations may develop innovative solutions for fulfilling their social change-focused missions. The SDP community is no longer a niche endeavor, it is a global field aiming to address worldwide issues. In turn, these goals and objectives have led to recognition that key stakeholders running these programs need to implement innovative strategies to yield successful solutions. The articles in this special issue provide a foundation for future explorations of innovation in SDP. We see several different pathways for such research. There are a number of different concepts and topics worthy of future investigation to develop a more holistic understanding of innovation in sport for social change efforts. From a broad scope, we hope this issue inspires future empirical and conceptual work expanding on innovation within an SDP setting. Furthermore, we hope the work in this journal along with future research furthers the key perspectives of prominent SDP scholars whom have pushed the field to focus on sustainability and lasting impact. In light of the often-reported resource and capacity limitations among many SDP organizations, the concepts of entrepreneurial bricolage (Baker & Nelson, 2005) and effectuation (Sarasvathy, 2001) could serve as fruitful frameworks for exploring how innovative organizations creatively bundle together their scarce resources to make do with what they have to work with and how they make such decisions in times of uncertainty.

The knowledge base around how SDP agencies can be better supported in their formative and early life stages also remains scarce. The use of organizational support mechanisms including incubators and accelerators are increasingly common in other segments of the sport industry (e.g. leAD SPORT1 Accelerator, Stadia Ventures Accelerator, Play Labs, Sixers Innovation Lab, Blue Star Accelerator, Techstars Sports Accelerator) as means for supporting innovation. There are several examples of SDP organizations who have gone through similar initiatives outside of the sport sector. Despite these developments, there is a noticeable knowledge gap requiring greater scholarly engagement with these potential solutions to critically explore the extent to which similar initiatives may be useful in SDP for supporting innovation. Furthermore, understanding the concept of nascent nonprofit entrepreneurs (Andersson, 2017) could provide a useful framework for better understanding innovation from the moment when someone develops the intention to create their own SDP organization. At the same time, more work is also needed to advance knowledge around social entrepreneurship in SDP considering this is a rapidly growing concept both in academia and practice (Cohen & Welty Peachey, 2015; McSweeney, 2018).

The articles in this special issue also highlight the importance of flexibility, open-mindedness, and learning if more meaningful new solutions are to be realized, especially in a younger subsector of the nonprofit industry such as SDP. Opportunities for future studies to address this knowledge gap include investigations of different types of learning processes (formal and informal) within organizations and innovative solutions for how SDP managers can mobilize existing resources to better learn from their prior experiences. Developing an in-depth understanding of the role of innovation in SDP also requires attention beyond the boundaries of any single organization since external stakeholders shape social innovation in different ways (Svensson & Hambrick, 2019). Future investigations of innovation through the lens of institutional theory could help us develop a better understanding of how the innovative abilities of SDP organizations are shaped by institutional demands, but also how innovative SDP organizations can disrupt existing institutional logics (McSweeney, Kikulis, Thibault, Hayhurst, & van Ingen, 2019). Prior literature on institutional entrepreneurship (DiMaggio, 1988; Hardy & Maguire, 2008) could serve as a useful framework to examine how and when such changes occur. At the same time, we need to recognize the prevalence of inter-organizational partnerships in SDP (Welty Peachey, Cohen, Shin, & Fusaro, 2018) and the need for improved systems that support and protect innovation within multiorganizational collaboratives (Svensson & Loat, 2019). Future inquiries of how innovation in SDP is influenced from outside organizational boundaries warrants consideration of the role of policy for enacting and supporting innovation. We encourage researchers to explore both innovation within existing SDP policy pathways (Lindsey & Chapman, 2017; Lindsey, Chapman, & Dudfield, 2020) as well as how innovation policy (e.g. Edler & Fagerberg, 2017) may influence the ability of organizations to develop innovative solutions for social challenges. At the same time, we call on researchers in the SDP space to explore innovative and alternative methodologies (e.g. photovoice, participatory social interaction research, creative movement, narrative inquiry) for gathering data to ensure local perspectives and knowledge are represented.

Finally, it is important to recognize the main goal of any research within the SDP field, to ultimately contribute to the success and growth of the SDP field. While it is important to introduce and further the topic of innovation within the academic community, it is just as crucial to relay these findings to SDP stakeholders. The saying “you don’t know, what you don’t know”, is often relevant with many key stakeholders in the SDP industry. While their knowledge and passion about sport and social justice is often second to none, many do not have access to the necessary resources for developing their entrepreneurial and management skillsets. We hope the work in this special issue provides practical insight for SDP leaders to further their objective as they continue to make meaningful progress towards achieving their mission and ultimately create sustainable change.

Disclosure statement

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

ORCID

Per G. Svensson http://orcid.org/0000-0003-3575-1157