Event leverage research has traditionally focused on economic and social impacts, but organizational outcomes within sport organizations remain understudied. This special issue establishes organizational outcomes—sustainable changes resulting from strategic event leveraging—as a distinct research domain, encompassing effectiveness, governance, partnerships, volunteer systems, learning, innovation, and financial sustainability.
The special issue shifts focus to sport organizations as primary units of analysis within the sport ecosystem. Rather than treating organizational benefits as incidental byproducts, the call positions them as explicit strategic objectives. This responds to demands from governments and funding agencies for evidence that publicly funded events generate meaningful, sustained public value.
Contributions should advance conceptual and methodological foundations by integrating organizational capacity and institutional theory frameworks. The special issue seeks empirical, theoretical, and conceptual papers using innovative methods such as longitudinal designs and mixed methods to improve measurement of organizational outcomes across different contexts.