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This article analyses how different configurations of stakeholders create opportunities for the production of popular TV sports contests. Based on qualitative methodologies, biathlon and cross-country skiing are used as contrasting cases. The paper concludes that the relative success of the International Biathlon Union is due to a favourable network position in relation to stakeholders. By comparison, the International Ski Federation suffers from a weak position within a dense stakeholder network.

This paper aims to propose the concept of market potential analysis, which is commonly applied in economics, as a method to enable these investment decisions to be based on sound evidence.

The markets for Olympic awards, i.e. medals (top three places) and diplomas (i.e. top eight places) are compared in alpine skiing, biathlon, cross country, speed skating, freestyle skiing, short track and snowboarding from 1992 to 2018.

The most notable changes are identified in cross country (2002), biathlon (2006), freestyle skiing (2014), snowboarding (2006 and 2014) and speed skating (2018).

In spite of the evidence of nations investing strategically in their elite sport systems to produce Olympic success, there is a lack of knowledge on how national-level decision makers can use a strategy to analyse the competitive environment concerning sports contested in the Olympic Winter Games.

The implementation of whistleblowing policies is emblematic of the reforms undertaken by international sports organisations in the aftermath of major governance and integrity scandals. However, sport has particular organisational and cultural characteristics that reduce the likelihood of whistleblowing behaviour. This article looks at the quality of reporting policies in sports to assess how far the reporting mechanisms encourage whistleblowers.

A whistleblowing policy quality assessment system was built and applied to 45 international sport organisations.

The research identified 23 reporting mechanisms but, despite marked differences between them, most policies are of low quality. In particular, whistle-blower protection regimes and promotion strategies are lacking.

The research suggests that reporting mechanisms currently in place are not likely to encourage whistle-blowers and questions the performance of these mechanisms as well as the objectives of the organisations, which may reflect “window-dressing” strategies. This may have implications for other areas of “good governance” reform.

An assessment questionnaire for sport reporting policies has been created and tested. It was sent to international sport organisations to assist them in identifying policy gaps and improving their policy.

The analysis does not limit itself to the presence or absence of “good governance” measures. It also explores their quality. It proposes a comprehensive assessment grid for whistleblowing policies in international sport that practitioners and researchers may wish to use in future.

Since the 1990s, the International Olympic Committee has offered nations more medal-winning opportunities at every Winter Games. Meanwhile, many countries are constrained by their limited financial resources to target sports strategically. The purpose of this paper is to examine the targeting approaches to Olympic Winter Sports of National Sports Agencies (NSAs), and to identify the factors they assess in the decision-making process.

The data were collected through semi-structured interviews with 11 decision makers of medal-winning NSAs at the 2014 Sochi Games. The data were then analysed with reference to strategic management in an approach which combines a resource-based view (RBV) with a market-based view (MBV) to build a competitive advantage.

The results show that NSAs, like firms, combine an internal analysis that reflects the RBV on resources and capabilities (e.g. athletes’ performance per sport and sport-specific elite sport system), with an external analysis of the competitive environment that reflects an MBV (e.g. sport’s medal market size and intensity of competition at Games) to target sports. Using this information, two phases were distinguished: first, the target sports are identified and finance is prioritised accordingly; second, the allocation of the nation’s resources is constantly reviewed in order to optimise it.

Even though social desirability bias in the responses could not be fully excluded, the findings can help policy-makers to distinguish between the internal and external factors identified in this study, and to make more strategic decisions by combining RBV and MBV approaches to build-up their nation’s competitive advantage.

This paper models the targeting strategies of NSAs during an Olympic cycle by introducing the competitive positioning of firms to sports management.

This study aims to identify perceptions of financial crime among students in six different countries.

Survey research was conducted among students in India, Iran, Malaysia, Norway, Romania and the USA to compare the ranking of perceptions.

The following three propositions for financial crime had most agreement among respondents: lack of oversight and guardianship, legitimate access to resources and heroic offender status.

Scholars involved in various countries conducted survey research at different points in time with little knowledge of each other’s survey populations and response rates.

Crime convenience and, thus, attractiveness can be addressed by focusing on propositions finding the strongest agreement in the surveys.

Agreement and lack of agreement indicate priorities in fighting financial crime.

The diversity of nations involved in survey research makes this study interesting.