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Alcohol stands in an ambiguous relationship to sports, and there is a common belief that participation in sports prevents alcohol consumption. Although this is not always the case, sports clubs can be important settings for health promoting alcohol policy interventions .The purpose of this paper is to explore the process of implementing alcohol policies in eight football clubs in Sweden and, in particular, how the implementation process is conveyed in the clubs’ alcohol policy projects, the similarities and differences between this case study and Durlak and DuPre's implementation model and the recommendations for successful alcohol policy implementation in relation to the result.

In total, 15 semi‐structured interviews on the subject of sports’ club alcohol policies were conducted with project leaders and board members from eight sports clubs. The interviews were analysed using Durlak and DuPre's model of factors affecting implementation processes.

The results show that almost all the factors in Durlak and DuPre's model were comprehensively manifested in the football clubs’ alcohol policy projects, although with slightly different significance and emphases.

The results are discussed in relation to recommendations for successful alcohol policy implementation in sports clubs. Recommendations are presented in six areas: an explicit message; fit; internal policy dissemination; alcohol policy as a part of overall policy; support; and actors.

Many sports clubs do an excellent job of implementing alcohol policies successfully and it is imperative to incorporate their “good” practices into research and provide assistance to those whose policies and practice are less developed.

This paper aims to examine the effect of innovation-driven polices on innovation efficiency of sport firms listed on the new Third Board in China.

Firm innovation efficiency, including comprehensive innovation efficiency, pure technical efficiency and scale innovation efficiency were calculated by using data envelopment analysis (DEA) models. The input variables and output variable in the DEA model were selected through correlation analysis. The effects of several innovation-driven policies on the innovation efficiency of sport firms were analyzed by a series of multiple regression analyses.

Regarding the innovation efficiency evaluation of sport firms, total research and development (R&D) investment and total R&D staff are two suitable input variables, and total profit, sales revenue and new effective patent are three suitable output variables. Income tax relief for high-tech enterprise has a positive effect on comprehensive innovation efficiency and pure technical efficiency, and governmental subsidies have a negative effect on comprehensive innovation efficiency and pure technical efficiency. However, pretax deduction of R&D expenses does not have a significant effect on comprehensive innovation efficiency, pure technical efficiency and scale innovation efficiency, and income tax relief for high-tech enterprise and pretax deduction of R&D expenses also have no effect on scale innovation efficiency. For a large-scale sport firm, the negative effect of “governmental subsidies” and the positive effect of “income tax relief for high-tech enterprise” on its pure technical efficiency are more significant. For a sport firm with more R&D staff, governmental subsides and “income tax relief for high-tech enterprise” have more positive effect on its innovation efficiency.

The study findings could potentially provide practical guidance to both managers and government-industry policymakers in the sports industry.

Firstly, this paper focused on Chinese sport firms from a rising industry in a developing country (China). The related conclusions are conducive to the governmental management of new industries and the innovation management of new enterprises. Second, this paper analyzed the effect of three special innovation-driven policies on three types of innovation efficiency and explored enterprise innovation development in more detail. Third, this paper not only discusses the effect of innovation-driven policies on innovation efficiency, but also the heterogeneity of their effects.

Some sports organizations have a strategic objective of promoting human and social development through sports. However, it can be challenging to ensure that these objectives, conveyed by the board, are fully internalized by the athletes. From the perspective of inter-organizational networks, this dissemination can occur through strategic alignment and diffusion of social capital. Therefore, the authors wanted to analyze if organizational policies from sports organizations are related to athletes' perception of social capital and strategic alignment.

The authors conducted a sequential mixed-method research. Firstly, a pilot study was conducted with two exploratory interviews with key informants from a sports organization, supported by documentary data from this organization. A thematic content analysis was carried out to identify relevant categories and subcategories to prepare a quantitative research instrument. In the second phase, a questionnaire was applied to 159 student-athletes from this organization. The collected data were analyzed by multiple linear regression.

From the pilot study, a set of five elements of strategic alignment, and three elements of social capital in the sports organization context were provided. In the quantitative phase, the authors identified that social capital is related to athletes' perception of shared values internalization in a sports organization, but strategic systems were not.

Sports managers could better promote internal policies if there is social capital among athletes rather than implementing top-down deployed communications.

Policymakers could better predict the effectiveness of a foment request by sports organizations considering not only strategic systems communication deployment but also the existence of social capital in a sports organization. It is a broader mechanism to understand the capacity of a sports organization in disseminating good values among their members.

Different from traditional companies, in sports organizations, only social capital is related to the internalization of organizational policy by athletes rather than strategic alignment initiatives.

Local authorities around the world provide different forms and different amounts of direct and/or indirect assistance to professional sport teams, which in most cases are owned by private business entrepreneurs. Findings from various studies indicate that professional sports teams do not make a significant contribution to a city in terms of its economy, tourism or even image. The purpose of this paper is to explore and question, from a local public policy standpoint, the justification for financial assistance from the local authority to privately owned professional sports teams that provide a public service or a public good.

In order to shed light on the process, a two‐staged study was used: an examination of the financial subsidies of ten cities in Israel, focusing in particular on Herzliya, an affluent community north of Tel Aviv. In the second stage, a representative sample of Herzliya's adult residents (18 years old and above) was surveyed with regard to the city's current policy on sports and the policy they would like to see enacted.

The findings show that both public officials and professional sports officials place subsidizing popular sports rather than professional sports higher on their priorities. The study concludes that the combination of a number of processes has brought about a democratic deficit.

Lack of transparency and the exclusion of the public in decision making processes has led to a democratic deficit in the local authorities. Once it was armed with empirical information and included in the decision making process, the public was able to reallocate the budget to meet its needs.

The purpose of this research is to investigate equality policy development through an examination of The Equality Standard: A Framework for Sport and consider implications for practitioners and research‐based alternatives.

A textual analysis of The Equality Standard: A Framework for Sport.

The Equality Standard represents a shift from historic “one suit fits all” versions of equality policy creation in sports organisations. It is limited, however, by a reliance on formalised audit measures, limited encouragement of organisational involvement in creating equality policies, a reluctance to acknowledge powerful, taken‐for‐granted assumptions about equality, and an inability to encourage organisations to reflect on their history and culture.

Calls for future research into the further critique of audit‐based approaches to equality implementation and stronger links between academic research and practitioner experience.

To encourage individuals to critically examine equality within sports organisations with a view to adopting a more reflective framework of equality in which to address organisational processes.

This research contributes an analysis of recent equality policy development in UK sport. It uses textual analysis to examine policy in order to offer alternative avenues for policy development.

The function, utilization, and resource allocation of sport facilities in residential areas have attracted increasing attention in China along with the country's rapid economic development and the popularization of the health concept. To optimize the allocation of public sports resources and develop functions for sports facilities in China, this study analyzed existing policies concerning the planning and construction of sports facilities in residential areas and actual problems in the operation, management, and construction of sports facilities in the country. The analysis was conducted using document, investigation and expert consultation methods. Corresponding improvement measures were proposed by combining actual situations of urban sport participation of residents. Sports facilities in urban residential areas in China are facing various problems, such as inadequate quantity, uneven layout, poor management, and imperfect related laws and regulations as well as planning policies. Formulating sports facility planning policies and updating existing sports facilities are beneficial in relieving the sports facility shortage caused by the increased, diversified, and actual demands of residents. These measures could also guide the future construction of sports facilities in residential areas in high-density cities in China.

In 1993, the Sports Council's new policy document, Women and Sport, recommended that all national governing bodies of sport ‘establish a single governing body’. Throughout the late 1980s and 1990s, almost all women sports that were administered separately to their male counterparts therefore ‘merged’ with the men's governing body: squash in 1989, football and athletics in 1992, lacrosse and hockey in 1996 and cricket in 1998. In practice, these mergers became ‘takeovers’, whereby female administrators were forced to cede governance of their sports to male-run bodies whose priority and focus remained men's sport. Work has been conducted on the impact of this process on individual sports, while internationally, studies of similar amalgamations between men's and women's sporting organisations have found that such processes increase male control at the expense of female autonomy. However, there has been no study which considers the impact of the Sports Council's policy on the UK sporting landscape as a whole. Via use of oral histories and archival material, this chapter seeks to begin this process, assessing the impact of a government policy of forced integration of women's and men's sport, which still has potent ramifications in sport governance today.

Collaboration is now an important part of public sector management. The purpose of this paper is to examine the factors that have helped shape the relationships between public agencies involved in sports tourism.

Using critical case sampling 54 in‐depth interviews were conducted with public officials in Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland.

The authors have produced the “Theory of collaborative advantage in relation to sports tourism”. This model captures the dynamics of collaboration in the sports tourism policy arena. A total of 12 practitioner themes and four cross‐cutting themes were identified and although each theme and the issues and tensions identified within it can affect inter‐organizational relationships in a particular way, the model illustrates how each theme is interlinked and is part of a larger, more complex picture.

Like all empirical research, this paper has its limitations but if the issues that affect collaboration are not identified then they cannot be addressed. Although no two collaborative settings are the same, public sector managers need to be aware of the factors that affect, or may affect, inter‐organizational relationships so that they can pre‐empt problems and maximise the use of resources.

Hopefully this paper will, in some way, lead to better planning and management of sports tourism and encourage those involved in sports tourism policy to adapt a collaborative, rather than an isolated, approach.

This study has contributed to knowledge by providing a better understanding of the inter‐relationships in the sports tourism policy arena.