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This paper aims to evaluate the applicability of the concept of benchmarking as a research tool for furthering understanding of the management of élite sport systems.

The research used semi‐structured interviews and documentary analysis to investigate the élite sport services offered by two successful Scandinavian sports.

It was found that a number of the services that led to the success of the two investigated systems are strongly context dependent. This suggests that benchmarking is only appropriate as a tool to further understanding of élite sport systems if it is approached as a way of learning, rather than copying.

The research does not consider all élite sport system services.

The research suggests that managers should be careful about tranferring practices directly from other élite sport systems.

This is the first research study to apply benchmarking to the élite sport system context.

Between 1997 and 2002, Shell changed the way it organised its advertising activity, switching from a local approach to a global organisation. The transition was significant, given the group's long history of decentralisation. It was also very successful. This paper explores how this transition was made by applying the theoretical lenses of the resource‐based view (RBV) and dynamic capability view (DCV).

Qualitative data were collected in 2002 from key executives in Shell and J.W. Thompson from which observations were made about Shell's transition and the change process. These observations are then explored further by applying the theoretical lens of the RBV and its natural extension, the DCV, testing what could be learned from the practical application of these theories.

A dynamic capability is identified as a significant reason for Shell's success. A second important factor was that Shell did not attempt to copy an organisation with an apparent superior capability. The paper concludes that firms generally should search for internal asymmetries on which to build resources.

The RBV and DCV are not new as approaches to strategic thinking, but they do remain mainly of interest to the academic community at the theoretical level. There is little empirical work that makes the concepts easily accessible to practitioners through example and translation into “everyday” experience. This paper makes a contribution in this area.

Major changes have taken place in sport in recent years, which has consequently led to the emergence and development of an associated sport management literature. To date, this literature has been confined to the margins of management theory and research, although the development of sport has been such that a multitude of opportunities now exist for academics and practitioners to address the most pertinent issues facing sport management. This paper aims to focus on the changes and to address the issues arising from them.

The paper begins by providing a brief overview of the development of sport. It then explores the fundamental elements of sport that mark it out as being different from other products or industrial sectors. This covers the following areas: the uncertainty of outcome; competitive balance; contest management; collaboration and competition; and performance measurement. The paper then considers the management issues pertaining to the models of sport employed in, for example, the United States and Europe. Following on from this, the internationalisation and globalisation of sport, linked to developments in new media technology, are examined.

Some emerging issues in functional management areas are highlighted, including the development of sponsorships; the need for sport to adopt a strategic approach to PR; and ensuring the needs of multiple market places are met through appropriate scheduling of games and events, alongside a range of possible foci for future sport management researchers.

This paper highlights a range of issues for sport management researchers and highlights which aspects of sport management require the specific attention of researchers.

The UK has often looked abroad in search of a successful approach to managing the economy, e.g. lessons were taken up in the 1960s from French planning, from worker participation in Germany in the 1970s, from monetarism in the USA in the 1980s and, in the 1990s, from Japan and South East Asia, until the current crisis. Shows how economic policies from outside the UK have influenced the UK economy. Also questions whether now, in the late 1990s, there has been a change in direction and a situation has been reached whereby other countries in Europe and beyond are actually looking towards the UK for guidance in the field of economic policy making. Much was made of the benefits of UK economic policy making during the recent Blair Government’s presidency of the EU. Moreover, it needs to be questioned whether individual governments will, in future, have much influence on economic policy making, with the creation of a single currency. Draws upon evidence from countries including Spain, France and Germany and considers various theoretical explanations concerning globalisation and European integration; also questions whether the UK economic model will continue to prosper or whether, like its fashion equivalent, it comes and goes. The current weaknesses are considered.

The objective of this paper is to provide insight into how the practice of sports, commonly known as a pastime or leisure activity, highlights the human agent as an organisational resource and pulling force, and how it can lie within the framework of general employee management policies. But which functions can sport fulfil?

In order to answer this question, qualitative surveys were conducted at ten company sites in France (Adidas France, Apple, 3M, Caisse d'Epargne, Crédit Immobilier de France, Lilly France, Lohr Industrie, Nestlé France, Steelcase International, Würth France). A total of 14 interviews with decision makers on company sport policies were conducted. The empirical data were then cross‐examined in two competitor observations: Steelcase and 3M France.

The study illustrates that sport at companies can take on multiple functions and forms: structures in situ, events, company sporting associations, sponsorship, and so forth. Its functions are often interrelated and integrated into human resources management (as training and motivational tools) and both internal and external communication policies. Furthermore, they contribute to the social policy of the company. Therefore, sport in business is a contributor to defining a company's identity by highlighting intangible and human resources.

This research, completed in large manufacturing and service companies, does not mention the range of sports actions carried out within the framework of intercultural management of multinationals. It could be extended to cover small and medium‐sized enterprises (SMEs) to verify the findings. The research does not deal with the effectiveness of sports actions on employees. Only an employee investigation on accepting management practices would permit the verbalization their feeling of belonging to a company and their job involvement.

This paper describes possibilities to evolve human relations through a sporting means. Collective mobilizing around sports attracts just as much top management as “secondary executives”. It creates network relations outside traditional work circuits and helps develop governance methods, management and human resources management practices, and the nature of human relations.

This paper shows how companies – although obsessed by economic performance – give the opportunity to empower staff through the means of sporting leisure activities for the purpose of a managerial target. This study unveils the uses and functions of sport in companies, and its associated attributes. It furthermore reveals contemporary transformations in the entrepreneurial world: new management styles and re‐enchantment of the company by diffusing the image of an entrepreneurial employee. Henceforth, the man or woman in the company is more than ever considered as a social being endowed with assets in the form of available resources for the purpose of management practices.

This paper contrasts two perspectives on the distinction between tacit and explicit knowledge: on the one hand, the perspective that categorises knowledge as belonging to either one or the other class; and, on the other hand, the perspective that views knowledge type as a graded continuum.

The paper explores the extensive literature on the topic, and from this literature engages in conceptual development.

The paper adopts the view that the continuum perspective, in which knowledge in a particular context has both tacit and explicit characteristics, is of particular value when considering the knowledge strategy of an organisation. Whereas the former perspective presents a well‐known dilemma, the continuum perspective permits the specification of a strategy in which the advantages of both tacit and explicit knowledge can, in principle, be obtained. One such strategy might be one that renders organisational knowledge as internally explicit, but externally tacit.

The paper develops a view of the explicit/tacit dilemma that leads to a possible way forward in resolving the dilemma for organisations.

The purpose of this paper is to explain that corporate citizenship refers to the specific activities that an organisation engages in to meet social obligations, and which has become an issue of growing importance within the business community. A key area in academic literature concentrates on justifying corporate citizenship initiatives to the corporate sector by illustrating a range of strategic benefits that a firm can achieve. This study is located within this body of work and aims to illustrate the strategic benefits that a football club can gain from the implementation of corporate citizenship activities through the community trust model of governance.

The study draws from qualitative primary and secondary data gathered from Charlton Athletic and Brentford football clubs.

Analysis of the data resulted in the identification of six strategic benefits that a football club can realise through the creation of a community trust model of governance. These are the removal of commercial and community tensions; reputation management; brand building; local authority partnerships; commercial partnerships; and player identification.

The paper considers the importance of these findings for a generic business audience, discussing how organisations can also benefit from the creation of partnerships with football clubs focused on the delivery of corporate citizenship initiatives.

The paper provides information regarding the application of management practice evident in football to other forms of business organisation.

The paper is the first to consider how corporate citizenship initiatives in football can assist firms in other sectors to achieve a range of strategic benefits.

The paper advocates a Darwinian explanation of the process of firm transformation. Existing but generally opposing views related to the selection‐adaptation debates are united to consider the dialogic nature of both approaches. It is argued that a Darwinian approach, as opposed to a neo‐Darwinian or Lamarckian approach, provides the means to scale the sides of a debate that has for too long divided scholars interested in firm and industry transformation.

The paper addresses three specific issues to develop its Darwinian argument. First, the various works of Geoff Hodgson that have for many years advanced Darwin's evolutionary ideas are used to argue the nature and application of Darwinism in the socio‐economic domain. Second, the nature of what constitutes the elements of firm‐environment interaction is considered to establish basic areas of focus through which the process of firm transformation is more understandable. Finally, the construct absorptive capacity is likened to a mechanism of transmission through which the learning processes associated with the acquisition of favoured variations can be reconciled with the generic evolutionary processes of variation, selection, and retention.

To understand the process of firm learning, the role of habits and routines must be outlined in specific detail. They cannot be assumed to perform interacting and replicating roles simultaneously. To do so undermines the fundamental qualities of an evolutionary theory.

The preliminary framework advanced takes us beyond the Darwinian‐Lamarckian debate and provides elements of focus from which a greater understanding of the process of firm/industry transformation is possible.

To apply the theories of project management to the transformation of the British Expeditionary Force (BEF) from the colonial‐style army of 1914 into the victorious continental‐style armies of 1918.

The methodological approach examines ten elements in the transformation. They range from the resources required to the necessary governmental changes. Emphasis is given to analysing the application of the new technologies, the political and social changes needed for eventual success, and the learning achieved.

Transforming the BEF was not to be an easy process. Obviously, the German nation, allies and armies did all they could to thwart this transformation. The “total war” waged is the ultimate form of “competition”. Thus, difficult lessons of strategic management, people (both men and women) management, and resources utilisation had to be learned. Through the many innovations, the experience curve was climbed to achieve mastery over the German field army.

To turn the BEF from a force of 120,000 at the battle of Mons to nearly 2 million at the Armistice on the western front was a remarkable achievement. Despite the strains imposed by German military prowess, the many elements were combined successfully. Although applying warfare principles to company management has become popular in the past decade, this paper avoids coming to simplistic conclusions. Rather it presents the transformation as a case study and suggests linkages to modern project management practices though leaving it to the reader to consider how these might be best applied.

The purpose of this study is to document and analyse Standard Bank of South Africa's sponsorship of Standard Bank Pro20 Cricket as a case study of effective cricket, stadium and broadcast sponsorship activation.

An in‐depth case study methodology is employed, drawing on quantitative and qualitative data.

The main conclusion is that a partnership approach to sponsorship and the creative use of multiple sponsorship activations contributes to the achievement of sponsorship objectives.

The study is limited to one case of a large‐scale sponsor of a major international sport. As such, it has limited generalisability to dissimilar sponsorship situations.

The case documented and analysed suggests that sponsoring organisations may increase their return on sponsorship investment through the adoption of a partnership approach to sponsorship.

The study answers the call of Irwin, Zwick and Sutton, Chadwick and others to significantly increase the researching of sports marketing theory and practice outside traditional Western markets. It documents the creative leverage of a new cricket format that has received no attention in the academic literature, although the 20‐over game continues to enjoy widespread and strong sponsor, media and fan support.