ABSTRACT

Research question

Major sports events promises are often unrealised, despite locals facing protracted periods of socio-economic disruption. This is a pervasive and empirically verified trend, but little work theorises how and why host community interests become deprioritised. We look at one prominent host community stakeholder group, small businesses, and use a stakeholder salience lens and power-legitimacy-urgency attributes to discern how actual and perceived salience shifted between bidding and live staging, whilst juxtaposing promised outcomes versus realised outcomes.

Research methods

38 interviews with businesses dis/affected by 2018 Commonwealth Games planning alongside documentary analysis.

Results and findings

(1) significant differences between actual and perceived salience, with perceived salience seemingly playing a more instrumental role when explaining stakeholder actions and outcomes; (2) perceived salience appeared lower than actual salience. Therefore, businesses felt a) they had little power to leverage opportunities, b) delegitimised with interests’ counter to the event’s objectives, c) unlistened-to with no claim urgency and limited access to support to have interests addressed.

Implications

Although initially positioned as a definitive stakeholder, come Games-time, businesses possessed no attributes, questioning whether they were a stakeholder at all. This is a key contribution, alongside demonstrating how salience shifts over time, and distinctions between actual and perceived salience. Researchers can apply this theoretical lens to study stakeholder deprioritisation in the maelstrom of event planning, including businesses, residents, to vulnerable social groups.

中文翻译：

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大型体育赛事规划中主办社区的显着性损失

摘要

研究问题

尽管当地人面临长期的社会经济混乱，但大型体育赛事的承诺往往无法实现。这是一种普遍存在且经过经验验证的趋势，但很少有工作理论解释东道主社区的利益如何以及为何被忽视。我们研究了一个著名的主办社区利益相关者群体——小型企业，并使用利益相关者显着性镜头和权力-合法性-紧迫性属性来辨别实际和感知的显着性在投标和现场表演之间如何变化，同时将承诺的结果与实现的结果并列。

研究方法

38 项对受 2018 年英联邦运动会规划不满/影响的企业的采访以及文献分析。

结果和发现

(1) 实际显着性和感知显着性之间存在显着差异，感知显着性在解释利益相关者行为和结果时似乎发挥着更重要的作用；(2)感知的显着性似乎低于实际的显着性。因此，企业认为：a) 他们几乎没有能力利用机会，b) 由于利益与活动目标相反而失去合法性，c) 没有听取他们的意见，没有索赔紧迫性，并且获得解决利益的支持的机会有限。

影响

尽管最初被定位为明确的利益相关者，但到了奥运会期间，企业却没有任何属性，质疑自己是否是利益相关者。这是一个关键的贡献，同时展示了显着性如何随着时间的推移而变化，以及实际显着性和感知显着性之间的区别。研究人员可以应用这一理论视角来研究利益相关者在活动策划的漩涡中的优先顺序，包括企业、居民和弱势社会群体。