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Courses in strategic management should teach future strategists how to react to unexpected strategic events such as the appearance of innovative technologies, proposed mergers, drastic changes in production costs, or major actions by competitors or customers. Strategic events often trigger important changes in strategies, and reactions to strategic events make the difference between long-run success and failure. Courses can teach students about the philosophical and psychological difficulties posed by complex environments and uncertain futures and teach some procedures that help to assure that important issues receive consideration. Research may be able to identify some decision-making heuristics that foster success.

The purpose of this paper is to identify the strategic leveraging goals associated with a portfolio of small-scale events and to analyze their implementation process (actors/tactics: who did what?) in order to propose new leverage typologies through new empirical research evidence.

Three techniques of data collection conducted the fieldwork: qualitative interviewing, direct observation and documental research. Based on the principles of grounded theory and using qualitative data analysis software (Nvivo) data were inductively analyzed.

Results showed the coexistence of a plurality of strategic leveraging goals, namely: “strengthen political advantage”; “integrate and retain partners/sponsors”; and “develop sports dynamics”. There was a set of tactics and actions identified and successfully implemented due to the coordination of the network of organizations part of the events, which included local and external actors.

Researchers realized that it was impossible to take a neutral research stand. In fact, in qualitative research, the investigator is the first instrument of data collection. In this sense, it was important for researchers to constantly reflect on their role, as Pelias (2011) says “reflexive writing strategies include indicating how the researcher emerged as a contaminant, how the researcher´s insider status was revelatory or blinding, and how the researcher is implicated in the problem being addressed” (p. 662). It is also considered that, when organizing events, the network of interactions is extremely complex, making it difficult to capture all the actors’ perspectives.

In relation to the practical implications, it is important that sports event managers have in-depth knowledge and skills on event leveraging; it is also important that managers understand the sports culture in order to recognize the multidimensionality of strategic leveraging in sporting events. The strategic dynamic should be developed and coevolved with community/local and external actors. The coordination between the actors is a key point to achieve successful leveraging.

A theoretical implication related to the event leverage is the creation of a new strategic objective – “developing the sport dynamics”. The sport participation tactic among other tactics were found, namely “enhancing of the sports shows” and “tuning of skills in sports management”.

The dynamics and plurality of strategic goals associated with the leverage of an event portfolio, namely the actions that were developed and also the actors’ interaction in small-scale events. Another factor is the identification of the prominent role of the external event organization committee in the dynamics of event leveraging, as well as the deep analysis of the leveraging process supported by the observation of all the events.

The paper aims to introduce a framework within which to interpret and manage organisational events that have marketing significance. It also seeks to introduce associated concepts to further this area of study and practice.

The paper introduces and appraises the marketing event landscape and goes on to examine the unique DNA of marketing events evaluating their specific relevance and role in the contemporary marketing environment. The final section of the paper explores a range of strategic event objectives as the starting point for event design, delivery, and evaluation. Couched between the author's previous and future (ongoing) empirical work in this area, this article provides much needed conceptual development.

The framework provides a structured approach through which practitioners and academics can interpret and realise the value of marketing events. The discussion demonstrates that there exists a wide and rich array of organisational events that have marketing utility, marketing events is therefore an inclusive term. Underpinning the framework, and associated discussion, is how the marketing events feed into a wider marketing strategy. The connection between event objectives and marketing strategy is therefore pivotal, and is a prevailing theme of the paper.

The paper demonstrates how the inherent qualities of marketing events are very relevant given the contemporary marketing environment. Despite this, there is a lack of academic literature and events remain a poor relation to other forms of marketing communication. This detracts from them realising their potential as a relevant and high impact marketing delivery method. The models, concepts, and ideas in this paper are original, inspired by a range of fragmented literature relevant to the topic of marketing and events.

The purpose of this paper is to develop a better understanding of the relationship between firm-level entrepreneurship and organizational performance in an emerging economy through assessing the mediating influence of strategic entrepreneurship between entrepreneurial orientation and organizational performance. The extant literature on the relationship between firm-level entrepreneurship and organizational performance points to a lack of clarification of the link between real entrepreneurial events and organizational performance.

Data are collected from 324 respondents in 118 companies in four different industries. The paper adopts structural equation modeling to test the mediated relationship.

The results show that strategic entrepreneurship fully mediates the relationship between entrepreneurial orientation and organizational performance, assessed as two major categories of financial and non-financial performance.

The dominance of four industries in the data set limits the generalizability of the findings.

Findings highlight strategic and practical implications for managers especially in emerging economies who seek to enhance competitive advantage and exploit market opportunities through entrepreneurial initiatives.

The current study develops a measure of strategic entrepreneurship concept and attempts to contribute to the literature through differentiating between behavioral intentions toward entrepreneurship and real entrepreneurial events at the firm-level to serve as a step to reduce the ambiguity present in the field.

This chapter aims to conceptualise the role of gastronomy and events in destination strategic development and explore the possibility for destination management organisations (DMOs) to capitalise their potential. Thus, it firstly explores the role of gastronomy and events in contemporary tourism and their impact on destination appeal, authenticity and development. Secondly, it delves into the possible ways by which DMOs can utilise events to achieve destination goals and competitiveness. As gastro events are a common denominator of gastro-tourism and events, they are given special attention. In the empirical part, two prominent destinations in the most developed tourism country of the Western Balkans, Croatia, are analysed. Also, in the empirical part, archival analysis is used to analyse relevant documentation and sources covering the 2016–2018 period. In the analysis, the strategic role of gastronomy, events and DMOs' activities and budgets are explored to unveil the existing interlinkages and patterns among them. The contribution of the study is the systematisation and critical review of existing literature on the role of gastronomy and events in the destination offer and of DMOs' usage of events for achieving destination goals and competitiveness. The chapter provides valuable implications for destination strategic management and marketing as well as for future academic studies on the subject.

The article tackles the under-defined notion of communication in strategic communication research and elaborates a taxonomy of semiotic processes, which distinguishes different types of communicative and signalling events. The purpose is to offer an improved analysis of the processes by which meaning emerges from strategic communication situations.

The proposed taxonomy is based on a conceptual framework combining semiotics, linguistic pragmatics and signalling theory. Several real cases of strategic communication are analysed to exemplify the taxonomy.

Different sub-types of signalling events are highlighted and explained. The communicative function of performed behaviours (i.e. when actions speak and do it louder than words) depends on how informative and communicative intentions are managed by the message source and inferentially interpreted by different receivers. It is suggested that the ways in which meaning is signalled can be best understood with an argumentative perspective that foregrounds the inferential processes of persuasion, interpretation and decision-making. The limitations of the transmission vs. ritual and the one-way vs. two-way theories of strategic communication are highlighted.

The article discusses strategic communication events with the under-considered perspective of communication theories in the fields of semiotics and pragmatics. Signalling phenomena are interpreted from a communicative viewpoint, emphasising the argumentative dynamics that constitute them.

The organization of several small-scale events throughout the year is called event portfolio and may contribute to the development of the city strategy in the touristic, social and economic fields. The organization of a set of sporting events represents an important innovation in the development of city marketing. This paper analyzing the scarce literature on event portfolio provides the main elements to benefit from this innovative strategy to achieve sustainable sports tourism for host cities. Among the innovative strategies, the inclusion of leverage and cross-leverage approaches in the management of event portfolios is studied in depth.

The study is divided into two phases. First, the Web of Science (WOS) and SCOPUS databases are searched using keywords. Once the selection of scientific studies that analyze the phenomenon of event portfolios has been obtained, an exhaustive review is carried out, allowing us to obtain novel findings on the field of study.

The work provides a classification of the portfolios of sports events analyzed in science considering the configuration (formal vs informal) and whether there is an integrated strategy. Second, the delimitation of the deficiencies and the most important aspects to be developed in sports-events portfolio management.

This study contributes with a summary of the main elements to consider when managing sports events portfolios. Moreover, the importance of integrated strategies is underlined, as well as the relevance of leveraging the strategies. The contributions are of interest in being a novel field with room for scientific development and with an eminently practical nature.

This study extends the event leverage model and applies the community development theory to explore how event managers can leverage recurring, non-mega sporting events for sustainable socio-economic development.

The authors conduct a survey comprising 6 semi-structured interviews by targeting recurring participatory events in Japan with an average 37.7 years of history.

The model highlights the strategic objectives (community needs) for socio-economic community development by attracting tourists during both event and event-free periods. Social development comprises three factors: social capital, sport participation and health promotion. Economic development comprises two factors: event revenue and tourism revenue. To achieve strategic objectives, the uniqueness of the event, good relationships with the media and locals, a platform to enjoy the local culture and sport event infrastructure are identified as means (community assets). Furthermore, locals and media are added to the model as key stakeholders, an additional category of the event leverage model.

Event managers need to make efforts to identify local resources and should optimize the event to attract participants and tourists for socio-economic development. In particular, local experience, local products, local culture and good relationship with locals could be key resources to produce sustainable benefits for the local city. The proposed model adding locals and media as key stakeholders could be useful for other similar contexts/future events aimed at socio-economic benefits for community development.

The proposed model extends the theoretical explanations in the literature on leveraging strategies through events to the perspective of the community development theory. Specifically, this study sheds light on community needs and assets for community development in the context of recurring non-mega sporting events.

The purpose of this paper is to explore how non-host cities strategically plan to leverage pre-Games training for the 2018 Gold Coast Commonwealth Games to maximize benefits to the city.

Eight semi-structured interviews were conducted with key tourism and government stakeholders involved in developing leveraging strategies for pre-Games training in a non-host city. Interviews were conducted a little over 18 months before the 2018 Gold Coast Commonwealth Games.

A model of the strategic planning of leveraging pre-Games training is presented. Pre-Games training was positioned as a leverageable resource. The non-host city was well positioned to host pre-Games training given its existing sport focus and facilities and its proximity to the host city and its similar climate. Opportunities, objectives, means, and considerations were constantly developed. The city strategically targeted teams to maximize the use of the training facilities and make the most of the value of well-known athletes, while being cautious of overcrowding. The teams had to be secured before strategies were devised to achieve other opportunities and objectives. Short-term benefits included generating tourism through visiting teams and entourages and integrating visiting teams into the local community through education and sport programming. Long-term benefits included building the destination’s capacity and reputation as a place for elite training camps and tourism.

Understanding how to develop strategies to leverage pre-Games training can inform those responsible for developing and implementing pre-Games training strategies and lead to maximizing the benefits to a city or region.

Limited research has examined the strategic planning process used to develop tactics to leverage mega-events. This study provides insight into the strategic planning process of non-host cities to increase short- and long-term benefits by leveraging pre-Games training.

An event portfolio is a vital part of economic and socio-cultural processes designed around the use of public events in cities and destinations around the world. The purpose of this paper is to suggest a new research framework for comparative studies of diverse event portfolio strategies.

The discussion in this paper is based on a review of the literature and content analysis of event strategies from two New Zealand cities: Auckland and Dunedin.

The paper suggests an empirically tested framework for exploring event portfolios. It entails such dimensions as the event portfolio strategy, event portfolio focus, portfolio objectives and evaluation tools and event portfolio configuration.

This exploratory research provides a comparative analysis of diverse portfolio contexts and offers insights on developing sustainable event strategies while considering diverse local contexts. Core conditions and processes shaping event portfolio design and management are evaluated and strategic factors articulated.