Marijke Taks, University of Ottawa

Paul Hover, Mulier Institute

Koen Breedveld, The Hague University of Applied Sciences

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.

Appel publié par European Sport Management Quarterly. Voir l'appel sur le site de l'éditeur. Fiche de l'appel sur kerostig.

Potential topics

• Organizational outcomes in sport events
• Event leverage theory
• Organizational effectiveness and efficiency
• Strategic partnerships in sport
• Volunteer recruitment and retention
• Organizational learning and innovation
• Organizational capacity development
• Financial sustainability of sport organizations
• Governance in sport organizations
• Sport ecosystem and stakeholder networks
• Methodological approaches to measuring organizational change
• Sport event legacy and impact evaluation
• Policy implications of organizational outcomes

Timeline

• March 15, 2027: Full manuscript submission deadline