Overview of governance

As a starting point, governance is about leading, or more specifically directing, and managing. Directing refers to setting the mission, the vision and values and creating the strategic plan for the overall organization. Managing is more about defining the roles and responsibilities, the authority structure of the Board and senior management, and overseeing the financial controls, outcomes and results (Gassewitz, Crawford & O’Donnell, 2017).

So, examining governance means distinguishing between the Board, which governs, and the staff, who operationalize. Operationalization is about implementing the strategic plan, roles and responsibilities set by the Board, as well as defining and implementing the roles and responsibilities for lower-level members. In smaller organizations, however, these aspects may end up merging.

Next, governance can be viewed through a political or an administrative lens. Political aspects include granting powers and figuring out who makes the decisions and who benefits. Administrative aspects focus on, for example, setting the rules and procedures for decision-making, facilitating effective management, figuring out how to be more efficient, ensuring compliance, meeting ethical standards, and assessing risks. In this lecture, I will focus on the administrative aspects, and especially on structural aspects.

As this is the International Olympic Academy, I will use the IOC as an example to talk about governance and good governance from an administrative perspective. But, because governance is a rather broad concept, I will then narrow it down to the concept of democratic governance, and I will do this within the context of sports events to provide you with an example of how the components of democratic governance interact and are used. I will end with a more concrete example of Canada’s approach to governing the Olympic Games.

So let us look at the IOC’s governance structures. Pérez (2003) suggested there were five levels of governance when looking at an enterprise or firm. Kübler and Chappelet (2007) adapted these levels to the IOC, so we can see them in action.

At the base is Level One, where you have the daily management of the IOC.

Above this, Level Two refers to how management is controlled. In the IOC’s case, this would include the Olympic Session, the Executive Board, and the various commissions.

Level Three, the management of governance, refers to the regulatory mechanisms and so to who controls the controllers. In the case of the IOC, this would be the Ethics and Nominations commissions.

Level Four is about the governance of governance, meaning where you can appeal against decisions, where regulations are harmonized. For the IOC, this would be the national courts along with the World Anti-Doping Agency and the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS).

The final level, Level Five, is your meta-governance, which is made up of constitutional and societal frameworks. In the IOC’s case, this would be Swiss law and various international frameworks such as international treaties.

Although these five levels provide us with an overview of the governance structure of the IOC, they do not explain the quality of the governance, nor do they tell us how you actually “govern”.

There are three narratives that can be used to describe governance and start figuring out how you govern: steering, networks, and good governance. Governance as steering is about creating strategies to improve performance and accountability. It is predicated on compliance measures and adherence to various parameters from central organizations, such as governments. It is therefore more of a top-down narrative with contracts that are usually legally-binding; think of compliance measures to follow when you get government funding. Governance as networks, in contrast, is not so much about legally-binding contracts as it is about socially binding, horizontal, formal or informal arrangements that create resource dependencies or interdependencies between the stakeholders in the network.

Governance as steering and governance as networks can happen within the same system. In the Olympic Movement, we can argue that there is a steering narrative from the IOC down to the Organizing Committees of Olympic Games (OCOGs) or NOCs. But, OCOGs also have a network of stakeholders on which they depend to obtain resources, to plan and to host their edition of the Olympic Games.

The third narrative, good governance, should be visible throughout these organizations.

Good Governance

But what is good governance? Good governance is about how organizations operate, how they “should be governed” or how they “could be governed” (King, 2017, p. 39, emphasis in original). When you ask people about good governance, they note a number of different elements, most of which I assume you have heard of, like accountability, transparency, effectiveness, efficiency, needing to follow the rule of law, and participation.

The IOC actually set out seven basic, universal principles of good governance for the Olympic Movement (2008). As you can see in this figure, these include aspects such as the vision, mission and strategy of the organization, as well as the structures, regulations and democratic processes, accountability, transparency and control. These basic principles also include a consideration of the athletes’ involvement and the balance between harmonious government relations and the autonomy of sport organizations.

The assumption underlying everything I have mentioned so far is that if you do “good governance”, you should be more effective, which should in turn lead to stakeholder satisfaction.

But is this actually true? A study by Shahin in 2016 showed that implementing good governance indicators in an organization actually does lead to higher job satisfaction in employees. And I would argue that stakeholder satisfaction helps you be more effective, and figures among good governance practices.

So let us look at good governance in major international sports events. In my research on the governance of sports events (Parent, 2016a), one national sport federation representative noted that good governance means “building relationships and establishing external accountability, through clear roles, responsibilities, accountability, and expectations for all. This impacts on performance”. A media representative concurred and added that good governance should be about “sharing information, being open, or externally transparent [which] would be better for performance and make people happier”.

Now, the highlighted words you see here actually point to key aspects of good governance, which you saw above with the IOC’s basic principles, and which can be put under the umbrella of democratic governance.

Democratic governance

Democratic governance, as a concept, goes further than simply having elected positions. It is about performance, accountability, transparency, and participation.

First, performance refers to the standard issues of effectiveness, efficiency and economy.

Second, accountability comes in multiple forms, such as administrative or bureaucratic, legal, financial, network, professional, personal, and political accountability (see Parent, 2016a). Accountability can also be formal or informal (see Callahan, 2007; Parent, 2016a).

Third, transparency is often discussed in conjunction with accountability, despite it being a distinct concept. The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) defines transparency as the “timely and accurate disclosure [of] all material matters regarding the corporation, including the financial situation, performance, ownership, and governance of the company” (OECD, 1999, p. 21). Transparency is also seen to be the foundation for trust and confidence in an organization’s operations (Callahan, 2007).

Finally, participation can refer to: 1) citizen participation or the role of the public in administrative procedures; 2) political participation or the actual act of voting; 3) civic engagement or involvement in community activities; or 4) public participation, which is participation in the broadest sense (Callahan, 2007). As with accountability, you can have direct or indirect participation.

If you look at what participation would mean in the Olympic Movement, there are a lot of stakeholders to consider, from OCOGs to NOCs, from IFs to governments, sponsors to the media, fans, athletes, their entourages and parents.

Major international sports events, in turn, have to deal with a variety of stakeholders including the municipal, regional and national host governments, the community, the media, sponsors, international delegations and sport organizations (Parent & Smith-swan, 2013). But they also need these stakeholders to actually prepare and host the event.

As daunting as this stakeholder map may seem for an organizing committee, it is actually misleading, since it makes it look as though all the stakeholders communicate exclusively through the organizing committee’s Board of Directors and not directly with each other. The map also fails to make sense if we think of governance versus operationalization, since the Board of Directors is not responsible for the day-to-day preparations of the event.

In fact, the network of stakeholder communication for a given sport event would more likely look like this.

This is an image of the relationships of the host government stakeholder group for the 2010 Olympic Winter Games in Vancouver, Canada. Since it does not even include all the event’s stakeholders, just those associated with the government stakeholder group, you can imagine what the full network would look like!

Because of this large, complex network, sport event governance is a complex endeavour. Some of the issues I found in my research on the governance of major sports events (see Parent et al., in press) include the challenges associated with coordinating and controlling the various stakeholders, and the blurring of lines of accountability within the sport event network. We also see these issues in the governance of international sport today.

So, in the context of major sports events, what does accountability—as well as performance, transparency and participation—look like, given the network governance issues? How do you do “good governance” in this context?

Performance in the context of major sports events includes traditional strategic planning aspects and the three pillars of efficiency, effectiveness and economy.

Accountability, however, is a little more complex. In a major sport event context, accountability, as we would expect, includes the principles of fairness, equity, ethics and transparency. It also focuses on accountability for performance. But accountability is different depending on whether we look at it internally or externally. On the one hand, internally, accountability includes bureaucratic or hierarchical accountability, meaning you are accountable to your superiors within the organizing committee. On the other hand, externally, it also includes accountability to the stakeholder network outside the organizing committee.

In addition, as I just mentioned, transparency also seems to be an element of accountability. Event stakeholders see transparency as being about openness, communication, clarity, and a clear, traceable line of decision-making. The degree of transparency differs, however, depending on whether we look inside the organizing committee or outside it to the stakeholders. Stakeholders believe you will be more transparent internally than externally. Still, in both cases, transparency is about obtaining the right information at the right time, which in turn affects the organizing committee’s performance.

However, based on my research (Parent, 2016a), if the key to governing a major sport event is stakeholder relationships, then stakeholder participation becomes the central concept. Again, we have differences in internal versus external participation. Internally, participation means responsibility, so there is a link to accountability there. Externally, it is about relationships with stakeholders. In both cases, organizing committees should foster physical, mental and emotional participation in the event. It has to be a lived experience, which in turn will result in active engagement and participation in the event.

So, putting all this information together, we come up with this figure 2, which illustrates the relationships between the four concepts associated with democratic governance in the context of sports events. In it, performance is linked to accountability, transparency and participation, which is the crux of the matter, while the differences between internal and external aspects is made clear.

To enact the four principles of democratic governance in sports events, stakeholders will use a variety of ties or relationships from the basic communication relationship to pure transactions or more legal forms of partnerships. They will also use coordinating bridges, which is about putting people on various committees so they can coordinate between groups. Stakeholders will prefer different approaches based on their specific goals for the event; some stakeholders will mainly use collaborations, whereas others may primarily use coordinating bridges (Parent et al., in press).

Canada’s Approach to Governing the Olympic Games

This last part of this lecture will provide a more concrete example of good governance structures within sports events. It is based on an analysis I made of the governance of the 1988 Calgary and 2010 Vancouver Olympic Winter Games in Canada (Parent, 2016b).

There seem to be five elements in Canada’s approach to governing an Olympic Games.

First, Canadian OCOGs develop and implement a nationwide planned and coordinated stakeholder engagement strategy (Parent, 2016a). This is the active engagement or participation aspect in action. This element includes a strong partnership focus, a democratic governance approach, the co-location of key partners, and the introduction of new actors to fulfil specific goals, roles and responsibilities. One such actor was “Own the Podium”, which was created to boost Canada’s chances of winning an Olympic gold medal on home soil.

This is a good point at which to talk about the co-location aspect. Based on experiences from Sydney 2000 and Athens 2004, as well as some of the challenges organizers faced in 1988, the 2010 Games partners promoted their own co-location (London 2012 would do the same). This means that representatives from the municipal, provincial and federal host governments, the Canadian Olympic Committee, the Canadian Paralympic Committee, and the Four Host First Nations, all had offices in the headquarters of the OCOG (in this case, the VANOC) with a view to developing and promoting relationships and cooperation. Many problems were avoided by people simply walking down the hall or going one floor down to speak to a counterpart about an issue. This face-to-face aspect was critical despite our being in a technological era.

The second element in Canada’s approach to governing an Olympic Games was leadership. Appropriate leadership means finding one or a group of individuals with the right set of leadership skills and networks in business, politics, sport and events. It also means maintaining consistent leadership from the bid through to the wrap-up period (Parent, 2016a).

As we know, the only constant in events is change. This means that the third element is the OCOG’s structure, which should be flexible so it can adapt to ongoing changes. Part of this structural flexibility includes having a venue team (Vteam) management system. The OCOG structure also means including volunteers throughout the planning and hosting, though especially during the Games period itself, with an understanding that they are equally, if not more, important than paid staff (Parent, 2016a).

The fourth element is knowledge. Canadian OCOGs were striving to develop a knowledge management system to gather and disseminate information, lessons learned and experiences even prior to the founding of the OGKM.

Finally, Canadian OCOGs and Games stakeholders must be willing to innovate, not only for Games-time processes, such as using new technologies, but more importantly for behind-the-scenes management processes based on lessons learned from previous events (Parent, 2016a). Examples here include signing a multi-party agreement during the bid phase, establishing clear roles and responsibilities for all Games partners, and developing workplace safety, legacy and sustainability standards.

Summary

In summary, governance is both political and administrative. You can look at governance as steering, as networks, and as good governance. Good governance requires appropriate structures and processes.

In a sport event context, performance, accountability, transparency and participation are important, but stakeholder participation and satisfaction are key. In addition, accountability, transparency and participation processes look different when viewed internally and externally.

However, I want to point out the caveat that some of the specific examples of structures and processes I mentioned in the Canadian context may be just that: specific to Canada. While there is a belief in universal principles of good governance, we do need, to a certain degree, to consider the context when seeking to implement good governance principles. There are also threats to the good governance of sports posed by issues such as corruption, doping and compliance. Proper leadership, accountability and stakeholder relationships will be critical in addressing these issues.

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References

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Callahan, K. (2007). Elements of Effective Governance: Measurement, Accountability and Participation (Vol. 126). New York: CRC Press.

Chappelet, J.-L. (2012). Mega Sports Event Legacy: The Case of Innsbruck. Paper presented at the 4th International Sport Business Symposium, Innsbruck, Austria. http:// www.uibk.ac.at/isw/unterlagen/pdf-management-symposium/hall-1-keynotes/1-iv_keynote_mega-sports-event-legacy-%5Bkompatibilitaetsmodus%5D%29.pdf

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Gassewitz, D., Crawford, M., & O’Donnell, J. (2016). Governance: Building your best Board. Ottawa Sport Council video podcast. Retrieved April 6, 2017 from http:// sportottawa.ca/educational-resources-dropdown/video-podcasts/governance-building-your-best-board/

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King, N. (2017). Sport governance: An introduction. London: Routledge

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Kübler, B. & Chappelet, J.-L. (2007). The governance of the International Olympic Committee. In Parent, M. M. & Slack, T. (Eds.). International perspectives on the management of sport (pp. 207–227). Burlington, MA: Butterworth-Heinemann.

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Parent, M. M. (2016b). Stakeholder perceptions on the democratic governance of major sports events. Sport Management Review, 19(4), 402–416. doi: http://dx.doi. org/10.1016/j.smr.2015.11.003

Parent, M. M., Rouillard, C., & Naraine, M. L. (in press). Network governance of a multi-level, multi-sectoral sport event: Differences in coordinating ties and actors. Sport

Management Review. doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.smr.2017.02.001Parent, M.M., & Smith-Swan, S. (2013). Managing Major Sports Events: Theory and Practice.

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Shahin, M. (2016). The effect of good governance mixture in governmental organizations on promotion of employees’ job satisfaction (case study: Employees and faculty members of Lorestan University). Asian Social Science, 12(5), 108–117.

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PARENT Milena ,"The Structures of Sport and “Good Governance”", in:K. Georgiadis(ed.), Ethics,Education and Governance in the Olympic Movement, 57thInternational Session for Young Participants (Ancient Olympia,17/6-1/7/2017),International Olympic Academy, Athens, 2018, pp.98-107.

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