The Impact of the Pandemic-Driven Uncertainty on Managing Major Sport Events

Abstract

The recent COVID-19 pandemic profoundly impacted the management of major sport events. However, the pandemic’s distinct nature, differing from sources of uncertainty on which previous researchers have focused, as well as our society that is more networked than ever before, posed challenges existing research could not fully explain. Therefore, I aimed to understand the impact of pandemic-driven uncertainty on managing major sport events. To achieve this, I conducted multiple case studies focusing on the Kyoto Marathon and Osaka Marathon. Based on critical realism, which I adopted as my philosophical position and meta-theory, I established the following three research questions (RQs) for a theoretical explanation of the phenomenon: (1) How did the marathon secretariat members experience uncertainty over time due to the pandemic? (2) How can the impact of pandemic-driven uncertainty on the marathon secretariat members’ activities be explained using an embeddedness perspective? and (3) How did pandemic-driven uncertainty change the way agency influences social structures in managing marathons? Adopting a descriptive approach for RQ1, I categorized the experiences of secretariat members into the following five types: (1) Difficulty in ensuring safety, (2) A trade-off between empty expenses and accurate judgement, (3) Sponsor Considerations, (4) Concern about reputational damage, and (5) Conflict between institutional logics and stakeholders’ organizational logics. Using an embeddedness perspective for RQ2, I developed five theoretical frameworks that explain how various social structures (e.g., social networks, temporality, institutions, politics, and territory) were activated by the pandemic with other contextual factors so they could generate the secretariat members’ activities. Using Archer’s (1995) dualism approach for RQ3, I found human agency, which can transform social structures by engaging certain emanating practices, was constrained during the pandemic compared to before the pandemic period. By exploring and explaining the impact of this novel type of uncertainty from multiple perspectives, this research contributes to our understanding of why and how unprecedented challenges like a global pandemic can constrain or reshape the landscape of major sport event management.