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This study aims to explore the impact of board size, board gender diversity and federation age on the likelihood of having a female chair in National Sports Federations (NSF).

A quantitative methodology compares 300 sports boards in five countries (Italy, Portugal, Spain, Turkey and the UK), using data collected from NSF’s websites.

The board size and federation age have no significant impact on having a female board chair when the countries and the percentage of female directors are included in the model. When the number of women is measured in absolute value rather than in relative terms, the only variable that predicts a woman chair is the country. When the model does not include country differences, the percentage of female directors is key in predicting a chairwoman, and when the number of women is used as a variable instead of the percentage, a board’s smaller size increases the odds of having a chairwoman.

There are some limitations to this study which we believe provide useful directions for future research. Firstly, the authors have not considered the role of gender typing in sports activities which explains the extent that women participate in specific sports (Sobal and Milgrim, 2019) and the related perception of such sports in society. The social representation of sports activities classified as masculine, feminine or gender-neutral can hypothetically influence women’s access to that specific federations’s leadership. The authors included the country factor only partially, as a control variable, as the social representation of sports usually goes beyond national boundaries.

This study has implications for sport policymakers and stakeholders, and for institutions such as the IOC or the European Union that implement equality policies. If the aim is to increase female presence in the highest position of a sports board and to achieve gender equality more generally, other policies need to be implemented alongside gender quotas for the sports boards, namely, those specifically related to the recruitment and selection of the sports board chairs (Mikkonen et al., 2021). For example, given the implications of critical mass and its ability to increase more female’s engagement then the role of existing chairs acting as mentors and taking initiative in this objective may be warranted. Furthermore, attention should be paid to the existing gender portfolio of each board and its subsequent influence on recruiting a female chair, regardless of the organization’s age. Knoppers et al. (2021) concluded that resistance to gender balance by board members is often related to discriminatory discourses against women. The normalization of the discourses of meritocracy, neoliberalism, silence/passivity about the responsibility of structures and an artificial defence of diversity emphasise that equality should not only be determined by women (Knoppers et al., 2021).

When countries are included in the model, the results suggest that the social representation of a female board member is different from that of a female board chair.

The originality of the study is that it shows the factors that constrain women taking up a chair position on NSFs. Theoretically, it contributes to existing literature by demonstrating how a critical mass of females on boards may also extend to the higher and most powerful position of chair.

As main mode of modern service industry and future economy society, the research on crowd network can greatly facilitate governances of economy society and make it more efficient, humane, sustainable and at the same time avoid disorders. However, because most results cannot be observed in real world, the research of crowd network cannot follow a traditional way. Simulation is the main means to put forward related research studies. Compared with other large-scale interactive simulations, simulation for crowd network has challenges of dynamic, diversification and massive participants. Fortunately, known as the most famous and widely accepted standard, high level architecture (HLA) has been widely used in large-scale simulations. But when it comes to crowd network, HLA has shortcomings like fixed federation, limited scale and agreement outside the software system.

This paper proposes a novel reflective memory-based framework for crowd network simulations. The proposed framework adopts a two-level federation-based architecture, which separates simulation-related environments into physical and logical aspect to enhance the flexibility of simulations. Simulation definition is introduced in this architecture to resolve the problem of outside agreements and share resources pool (constructed by reflective memory) is used to address the systemic emergence and scale problem.

With reference to HLA, this paper proposes a novel reflective memory-based framework toward crowd network simulations. The proposed framework adopts a two-level federation-based architecture, system-level simulation (system federation) and application-level simulation (application federations), which separates simulation-related environments into physical and logical aspect to enhance the flexibility of simulations. Simulation definition is introduced in this architecture to resolve the problem of outside agreements and share resources pool (constructed by reflective memory) is used to address the systemic emergence and scale problem.

Simulation syntax and semantic are all settled under this framework by templates, especially interface templates, as simulations are separated by two-level federations, physical and logical simulation environment are considered separately; the definition of simulation execution is flexible. When developing new simulations, recompile is not necessary, which can acquire much more reusability, because reflective memory is adopted as share memory within given simulation execution in this framework; population can be perceived by all federates, which greatly enhances the scalability of this kind of simulations; communication efficiency and capability has greatly improved by this share memory-based framework.

This paper aims that digital transformation (DT) is crucial for companies to stay competitive. While research on DT has quickly gained great popularity, the intersection of trade associations (TAs) and their role in the DT of their members is not yet researched.

In this paper, the authors conducted 20 interviews with Belgian TAs to investigate the role of a TAs in the DT of its members, and how they drive the DT of its members. In addition, the authors investigate the core tasks of TAs, the need of the different industries to digitalize, and the digital projects the different industries are working on.

The findings indicate that TAs can be in a prime position to steer the DT of their members, especially for industries comprised of smaller players. Their roles can range from informing roles to true leaders of DT by creating novel products, such as online platforms and driving the entire sector forwards.

These findings call for more research into TAs and how their role can be optimized for steering DT of their members.

This is the first study to extensively study the role of TAs on the DT of their members.

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to consolidate knowledge and benchmark the progress being made across the 32 International Federations (IFs) in the Summer Olympic Programme.

Design/methodology/approach: A website content analysis, analytical hierarchy of information, and social media research was conducted to triangulate the barriers and drivers of environmental sustainability (ES) progress. This data was then analysed to empirically substantiate the findings of previous methods by exploring potential drivers of IF ES progress and communication and refining the ranking of IF ES progress.

Results and findings: World Sailing is by far the most advanced IF in terms of ES progress, followed by World Athletics. Only 4 out of 32 have any sort of strategic ES plans. Only golf, surfing, football, sailing, and hockey have received any academic attention. There is a significant lack of understanding of environmental practices across sport, and their drivers/barriers. There is limited accountability with regards to ES progress and activities throughout the Olympic Movement. This has resulted in uneven diffusion of environmental activities.

Originality: This paper is a new contribution to sport management and ES literature. It provides a benchmark of understanding for ES in the Summer Olympic Programme for the first time using a hierarchy of information to ground results. The exploration and comparison of the perspectives of separate sports adds to the paper's originality.

The purpose of this article is to analyze main principles, forms and approaches to education quality evaluation in the process of establishment, development and crucial changes in the state accreditation of educational institutions and study programmes in Russian higher education in the last 20 years.

The major research method used in the paper is the qualitative analysis of legal and statistical documents, research papers and accreditation practices, which impacted the development and transformation of accreditation forms in Russia.

The transformation process of state accreditation during the last 20 years was conditioned by the changes in the state education policy and socio-economic situation. In a short period, under the influence of internal and external factors, Russian higher education has experienced significant changes in the structure of higher education and quality assurance. This resulted in different approaches to accreditation: state and independent, mandatory and voluntary, national and international.

The research outcomes may be applicable in the countries with developing accreditation systems and comparable scope of education.

The study identifies the tendencies in the development of higher education and quality evaluation.

The paper systematizes the tendencies of development in quality assurance and distinguishes specific features and diversity of forms of the quality assurance in one of the largest systems of higher education.

Scandia, Inc., is a commercial vessel management company located in the New York Metropolitan area and is part of a family of firms including Scandia Technical; International Tankers, Ltd.; Global Tankers, Ltd.; Sun Maritime S.A.;Adger Tankers AS; Leeward Tankers, Inc.; Manhattan Tankers, Ltd.; and Liuʼs Tankers, S.A. The companyʼs current market niche is the commercial management of chemical tankers serving the transatlantic market with a focus on the east and gulf coast of the United States and Northern Europe. This three-part case describes the commercial shipping industry as well as several mishaps that the company and its President, Chris Haas, have had to deal with including withdrawal of financial support by creditors, intercorporate firm conflict, and employee retention. Part A presents an overview of the commercial vessel industry and sets the stage for Parts B and C (to be published in the Spring 2011 issue) where the firmʼs operation is discussed.