Mega Sport Events Research Papers (original) (raw)

Often recognised as “quintessentially Canadian,” curling has long enjoyed a reputation as a quirky,
accessible, and sociable winter sport (Weiting and Lamoureux 2001; Mair 2007, 2009). While first introduced as a medal
sport (for men) at the Olympic Games in France (1924), sport leaders struggled for many years before its official status
as an Olympic sport was cemented in 1998. Since then, Canadian athletes have dominated the Olympic podium and
exposure to the sport has grown around the world. Nonetheless, efforts to grow the sport at the grassroots level have
been less successful. The paper presents the results of an investigation into the impact of Olympic medal designation on
curling. Twelve in-depth, qualitative interviews were conducted with participants with a variety of connections to curling
(e.g., high and mid-level administrators, high performance trainers, sport journalists, Olympic medal winning curlers).
Data analysis illustrates a number of tensions have surfaced since its acceptance as a full medal sport, especially in
regards to local club development and mid-level competition. Indeed, as curling becomes increasingly professionalised,
the benefits are not being felt at all levels. We conclude by situating these findings within the context of implications for
Olympic medal sport designation and sport development more generally.

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- Olympics and Olympism, Mega Sport Events, Curling, Sports Mega Events

This theoretically based paper will explore the relationship between the 2006 FIFA World Cup as a global media event, and the role of (tans-)national representations within this framework. What significance do forms of nationality have in the context of global, transnational media events?
I would like to discuss this question by using the example of the construction of national identity through media discourse. Due to the limited extent of the paper, the focus will be on specifically selected studies with regard to constructing German national identity through national narratives and media coverage within the scope of the 2006 World Cup.

- by Ann-Christin Westphal
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- Communication, Media Studies, Nationalism, National Identity

Nations realising the political and developmental possibilities in hosting a mega sport event is a trend that has been increasing in recent decades. To take one example, Qatar is one of the most prolific nations in bidding and hosting sports events as a means of augmenting the nation’s image. Building on Joseph Nye’s conception of soft power, this paper examines how Qatar deliberately uses sport as a tool for global nation branding to promote their political objectives. We set out by explaining how nations can benefit from hosting these mega events and the underlying rationale for Qatar’s investment in them. We then focus on Athletics and explore the links between the International Association of Athletics Federation (IAAF) and Qatar in relation to the bidding process for the World Athletics Championships. We conclude by arguing why the IAAF 2019 World Athletics Championships in Doha backfired on Qatar’s soft power and nation branding strategy. The athletics championships, which were the last key test ahead of the 2022 FIFA World Cup, has created doubt as to whether nations like Qatar, with a questionable human rights record and extreme climatic challenges; heat, should be allowed to host sport mega events.

Back cover text: Real Social Science presents a new, hands-on approach to social inquiry. The theoretical and methodological ideas behind the book, inspired by Aristotelian phronesis, represent an original perspective within the social sciences, and this volume gives readers for the first time a set of studies exemplifying what applied phronesis looks like in practice. The reflexive analysis of values and power gives new meaning to the impact of research on policy and practice. Real Social Science is a major step forward in a novel and thriving field of research. This book will benefit scholars, researchers, and students who want to make a difference in practice, not just in the academy. Its message will make it essential reading for students and academics across the social sciences.

- by Bent Flyvbjerg and +1
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- Screenwriting, Critical Theory, Critical Theory, Critical Theory

The rapid increase in the number of events and the growing awareness of Beach Handball is expected in the
next years. The World Games flavour make a definitive contribution to boosting Beach Handball in terms of audiences, participants, media and partners’ interest. The IHF Development Plan has helped the sport to
progress from a basic level to highly competitive competitions and, ultimately, to one of its most successful
activities, thus allowing effective product integration and developing a compelling lifestyle. As this growth
continues over the next years IHF will further boost the sport. To support this growth, it was apparent that was needed to develop and implement a very detailed and at the same time “user friendly” system to smoothly run all the events scheduled during this critical period of Beach Handball history.
The book is designed to assist in staging, promoting, and marketing all Beach Handball events, focusing on the Men’s and Women’s World Championships as well as the World Games. It reflects all the latest decisions made by all the relevant sections and working groups in the IHF to better shape the future of the sport. The book aims to help all parties concerned in order to produce successful marketing, television and financial plans. It also provides a valuable resource, highlighting the conditions required to conduct an IHF-calibre event.

- by George S Bebetsos
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- Event Management, Sports Management, Sporting Events, Events management
- by Nikolaos Zahariadis
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- Critical Theory, Business, Entrepreneurship, Organizational Behavior

This article examines five common misunderstandings about case-study research: (a) theoretical knowledge is more valuable than practical knowledge; (b) one cannot generalize from a single case, therefore, the single-case study cannot contribute to scientific development; (c) the case study is most useful for generating hypotheses, whereas other methods are more suitable for hypotheses testing and theory building; (d) the case study contains a bias toward verification; and (e) it is often difficult to summarize specific case studies. This article explains and corrects these misunderstandings one by one and concludes with the Kuhnian insight that a scientific discipline without a large number of thoroughly executed case studies is a discipline without systematic production of exemplars, and a discipline without exemplars is an ineffective one. Social science may be strengthened by the execution of a greater number of good case studies.

- by Bent Flyvbjerg
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- Critical Theory, Business, Entrepreneurship, Organizational Behavior
- by Noel B. Salazar
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- Critical Theory, Anthropology, Mobility/Mobilities, Migration mobilities
- by Frank Meier
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- Critical Theory, Business, Entrepreneurship, Organizational Behavior

Phronetic organizational research is an approach to the study of management and organizations focusing on ethics and power. It is based on a contemporary interpretation of the Aristotelian concept phronesis, usually as ‘prudence’. Phronesis is the ability to think and act in relation to values, to deliberate about ‘things that are good or bad for humans’ in the words of Aristotle (1976:1140a24–b12). Phronetic organizational research effectively provides answers to the following four value-rational questions, for specific problematics in management and organization studies: 1. Where are we going with this specific management problematic? 2. Who gains and who loses, and by which mechanisms of power? 3. Is this development desirable? 4. What, if anything, should we do about it?

- by Bent Flyvbjerg
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- Screenwriting, Critical Theory, Business, Entrepreneurship

The Aalborg Project may be interpreted as a metaphor of modern politics, modern administration and planning, and of modernity itself. The basic idea of the project was comprehensive, coherent, and innovative, and it was based on rational and democratic argument. During implementation, however, when idea met reality, the play of Machiavellian princes, Nietzschean will to power, and Foucauldian rationality-as-rationalization resulted in the fragmentation of the project.

- by Bent Flyvbjerg
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- Critical Theory, Business, Entrepreneurship, Organizational Behavior

At the same time that case studies are widely used and have produced canonical texts, it may be observed that the case study as a methodology is generally held in low regard, or is simply ignored, within the academy. For example, only 2 of the 30 top-ranked U.S. graduate programs in political science require a dedicated graduate course in case study or qualitative methods, and a full third of these programs do not even offer such a course. In contrast, all of the top 30 programs offer courses in quantitative methods and almost all of them require training in such methods, often several courses. In identifying this paradox of the case study’s wide use and low regard, Gerring rightly remarks that the case study survives in a “curious methodological limbo,” and that the reason is that the method is poorly understood. In what follows, we will try to resolve Gerring’s paradox and help case study research gain wider use and acceptance.

- by Bent Flyvbjerg
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- Critical Theory, Business, Entrepreneurship, Organizational Behavior

The cities of today are anything but virtuous, and the majority of the population currently living in urban areas consume the majority of our planet's energy, producing the great part of greenhouse gases. These figures are sufficient to make us aware of how the quality of life of billions of people will depend upon the extent to which urban agglomerations will be capable of becoming virtuous. Transforming the cities of today into sustainable cities, therefore, has become an inevitable course of action. In this context, planning mega events can be the occasion for the transformation of large urban areas that, in the ordinary practice, they would hardly find occasion and means for their implementation. Mega events, from the Olympics to soccer World Cup, are often regarded as a key driver for the overall redevelopment of a city. Mega-events have driven the urban transformation of cities such as Barcelona, London, Rio, Beijing, and Shanghai, but while the prospect of economic growth is the driving force for hosting a major event, the legacies that follow their hosting, especially in terms of sustainability, are difficult to design and quantify. Focusing specifically on mega sports events, the paper intends to identify how they can be used as catalysts for promoting sustainability awareness, and sustainable urban regeneration and growth. This paper discusses the urban legacies from two main case studies (i.e.: 2006 South Africa World Cup and 2012 London Olympic Games), and analyses major processes involved in the design and development of a sports event. The conclusions question how an emerging global city as Doha, which will be the first Middle Eastern and Gulf city to host a soccer World Cup, will benefit by hosting this event, and indicate potential directions for further research, framed particularly around Gulf countries.

- by Simona Azzali
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- Mega Sport Events, Qatar Doha, Sports Mega Events, Sustainability
- by HAKAN TURKKUSU
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- Marketing, Intercultural Communication, Tourism Marketing, Festivals and music

In this paper we argue that the use of the communicative theory of Jürgen Habermas in planning theory is problematic because it hampers an understanding of how power shapes planning. We posit an alternative approach based on the power analytics of Michel Foucault which focuses on ‘what is actually done’, as opposed to Habermas’s focus on ‘what should be done’. We discuss how the Foucauldian stance problematises planning, asking difficult questions about the treatment of legitimacy, rationality, knowledge and spatiality. We conclude that Foucault offers a type of analytic planning theory which offers better prospects than does Habermas for those interested in understanding and bringing about democratic social change through planning.

- by Bent Flyvbjerg
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- Critical Theory, Business, Entrepreneurship, Organizational Behavior
- by Renata Włoch
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- Sociology, International Relations, Mega Sport Events, Sports Mega Events

This article presents results from the first statistically significant study of cost escalation in transportation infrastructure projects. Based on a sample of 258 transportation infrastructure projects worth US$90 billion and representing different project types, geographical regions, and historical periods, it is found with overwhelming statistical significance that the cost estimates used to decide whether such projects should be built are highly and systematically misleading. Underestimation cannot be explained by error and is best explained by strategic misrepresentation, that is, lying. The policy implications are clear: legislators, administrators, investors, media representatives, and members of the public who value honest numbers should not trust cost estimates and cost-benefit analyses produced by project promoters and their analysts.

- by Bent Flyvbjerg
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- Critical Theory, Business, Entrepreneurship, Organizational Behavior

La città di Valencia ha vissuto un processo di trasformazione urbana e di progressiva espansione e avvicinamento alla costa, sostenuto negli ultimi venti anni dalla realizzazione di importanti infrastrutture. Questo significativa evoluzione si è fondata su una visione della città che ha inteso recuperare e valorizzare la propria identità culturale e marittima attraverso iniziative e progetti coerenti, mirando alla rivitalizzazione urbana e alla valorizzazione dell’area costiera.
La designazione come città ospitante, nel 2007, la 32ª edizione dell’America’s Cup suggella per Valencia un percorso di rigenerazione che, a sua volta, è frutto di un percorso di crescita socioeconomica durato cinquant’anni, fornendo l’opportunità di proiettare la città sulla scena internazionale e rafforzare processi e strategie già in atto. La riqualificazione del waterfront in occasione della più importante competizione velica nel panorama mondiale si inserisce, infatti, in un piano più ampio di ricucitura tra la città e il suo fronte a mare.
La sua conferma come sede dell’edizione dell’America’s Cup nel 2010 è un ulteriore risultato determinato dalla volontà e dalla capacità di ritrovare e valorizzare la propria identità di città di mare.

- by Stefania Oppido
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- Urban Regeneration, Mega Sport Events, Waterfront Regeneration

Río de Janeiro, agosto de 2016, albergue de la primera cita en Sudamérica en 120 años de Juegos Olímpicos de verano en su edición XXXI. La historia de los Juegos modernos se asocia, invariablemente, con la transición entre el siglo XIX y el XX como lo mostrará el historiador Jean Saint-Martin, el recorrido del siglo XX y las primeras décadas del actual milenio tal como lo plasmarán los autores de este número. Pasadas las ediciones de Atenas 2004, Pekín 2008 y Londres 2012, la expectativa por los Juegos Olímpicos de Río de Janeiro 2016 aparece en escena, en un contexto donde vale la pena detenerse para apuntar algunas cuestiones que formarán parte de la historia que se escribirá en el futuro.

- by Fernando Segura M. Trejo and +9
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- Sociology of Sport, Brazilian History, Sports History, Sports Management
- by Wayne Pedranti
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- Olympic Social Legacies, Urban Planning, Urban Morphology, Urbanism

This article presents the theoretical and methodological considerations behind a research method which the author calls ‘phronetic planning research’. Such research sets out to answer four questions of power and values for specific instances of planning: (1) Where are we going with planning? (2) Who gains and who loses, and by which mechanisms of power? (3) Is this development desirable? (4) What, if anything, should we do about it? A central task of phronetic planning research is to provide concrete examples and detailed narratives of the ways in which power and values work in planning and with what consequences to whom, and to suggest how relations of power and values could be changed to work with other consequences. Insofar as planning situations become clear, they are clarified by detailed stories of who is doing what to whom. Clarifications of that kind are a principal concern for phronetic planning research and provide the main link to praxis.

- by Bent Flyvbjerg
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- Critical Theory, Business, Entrepreneurship, Organizational Behavior

Megaproject Planning and Management: Essential Readings contains the seminal articles from the growing body of research on megaproject planning and management along with an original introduction by the editor, Bent Flyvbjerg. The leading and most cited authority in the field, Flyvbjerg has used crowdsourcing and 25 years of experience to cherry-pick from several hundred articles and books the writings that define the field. This volume will be an indispensable source for those wishing to speak with authority about how megaprojects are prepared, delivered, and fought over. The target audience is students, academics, practitioners, and media pundits alike, as well as communities affected by megaprojects.

- by Bent Flyvbjerg
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- Critical Theory, Entrepreneurship, Organizational Behavior, Information Systems

Back cover text: If the new fin de siècle marks a recurrence of the real, Bent Flyvbjerg’s Rationality and Power epitomizes that development and sets new standards for social and political inquiry. The Danish town of Aalborg is to Flyvbjerg what Florence was to Machiavelli: a laboratory for understanding the real workings of power, and for grasping what they mean to our more general concerns of social and political organization. Politics, administration, and planning are examined in ways that allow a rare, in-depth understanding. The reader witnesses, firsthand, the classic and endless drama which defines what modernity and democracy are and can be.

- by Bent Flyvbjerg
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- Critical Theory, Business, Entrepreneurship, Organizational Behavior

Back cover text: Megaprojects and Risk provides the first detailed examination of the phenomenon of megaprojects. It is a fascinating account of how the promoters of multi-billion dollar megaprojects systematically and self-servingly misinform parliaments, the public and the media in order to get projects approved and built. It shows, in unusual depth, how the formula for approval is an unhealthy cocktail of underestimated costs, overestimated revenues, undervalued environmental impacts and overvalued economic development effects. This results in projects that are extremely risky, but where the risk is concealed from MPs, taxpayers and investors. The authors not only explore the problems but also suggest practical solutions drawing on theory, experience and hard, scientific evidence from the several hundred projects in twenty nations and five continents that illustrate the book. Accessibly written, it will be the standard reference for students, scholars, planners, economists, auditors, politicians and interested citizens for many years to come.

- by Bent Flyvbjerg
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- Critical Theory, Business, Entrepreneurship, Entrepreneurship

In the 1990s, the municipality of Rio de Janeiro initiated a new policy that involved the use of mega sporting events as tools for urban redevelopment and regeneration of the city. This strategy culminated in the hosting of the 2014 Fédération Internationale de Football Association football World Cup and the 2016 summer Olympic Games. Through interviews with experts and bid book analysis, the paper aims to assess the impact of this strategy on Rio de Janeiro and its population, with a specific focus on the 2016 summer Olympic Games and two main Olympic clusters, Maracanã and Barra da Tijuca. Indeed, the 2016 Games were touted as a way to promote sustainable development in the city, and, also, social inclusion. However, the results show a very harmful impact of the Olympics on Rio de Janeiro. First, they increased the physical fragmentation and polarisation of the city; second, they aggravated social and economic inequalities among the local population.

- by Simona Azzali
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- Urban Planning, Mega Sport Events, Urban Design, Rio de Janeiro

The article first describes characteristics of major infrastructure projects. Second, it documents a much neglected topic in economics: that ex ante estimates of costs and benefits are often very different from actual ex post costs and benefits. For large infrastructure projects the consequences are cost overruns, benefit shortfalls, and the systematic underestimation of risks. Third, implications for cost–benefit analysis are described, including that such analysis is not to be trusted for major infrastructure projects. Fourth, the article uncovers the causes of this state of affairs in terms of perverse incentives that encourage promoters to underestimate costs and overestimate benefits in the business cases for their projects. But the projects that are made to look best on paper are the projects that amass the highest cost overruns and benefit shortfalls in reality. The article depicts this situation as ‘survival of the unfittest’. Fifth, the article sets out to explain how the problem may be solved, with a view to arriving at more efficient and more democratic projects, and avoiding the scandals that often accompany major infrastructure investments. Finally, the article identifies current trends in major infrastructure development. It is argued that a rapid increase in stimulus spending, combined with more investments in emerging economies, combined with more spending on information technology is catapulting infrastructure investment from the frying pan into the fire.

- by Bent Flyvbjerg
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- Critical Theory, Business, Entrepreneurship, Organizational Behavior
- by John Horne
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- Globalization, Mega Events, Mega Sport Events, Mega events and legacy

This article provides an answer to what has been called the biggest problem in theorizing and understanding planning: the ambivalence about power found among planning researchers, theorists, and students. The author narrates how he came to work with issues of power and gives an example of how the methodology he developed for power studies—phronetic planning research—may be employed in practice. Phronetic planning research follows the tradition of power studies running from Machiavelli and Nietzsche to Michel Foucault and Pierre Bourdieu. It focuses on four value-rational questions: (1) Where are we going with planning? (2) Who gains and who loses, and by which mechanisms of power? (3) Is this development desirable? (4) What should be done? These questions are exemplified for a specific instance of Scandinavian urban planning. The author finds that the questions, and their answers, make a difference to planning in practice. They make planning research matter.

- by Bent Flyvbjerg
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- Critical Theory, Business, Entrepreneurship, Organizational Behavior

As megaprojects have become ubiquitous, their real benefits and costs have come under increased scrutiny. We interviewed Bent Flyvbjerg, who has extensively studied megaproject development. Flyvbjerg has found systematic problems in the development process: by intentionally misrepresenting information and deliberately disregarding risks, proponents instigate projects that result in fewer benefits and higher costs than promised.

- by Renia Ehrenfeucht
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- Critical Theory, Business, Entrepreneurship, Organizational Behavior

This conceptual paper argues for a broader view of the role of events in social systems. When analysed as social phenomena, events can be seen as social actors that have the potential to both sustain and transform social systems. The maintenance of social systems is often reliant on iterative events, regularly occurring celebrations that tend to confirm social structures. In contrast, pulsar events have the potential to transform social structures. In this sense events can be seen as actors that have important influences on social systems, particularly in linking localised small world networks with the global space of flows. These ideas are explored through the case of Barcelona, which illustrates the interplay between these different types of events in their total portfolio, and how the extension of ritual in the sense of Collins (2004) can also contribute to the generation of new relationships and practices in the contemporary network society. Barcelona is examined as an eventful city in which the alternation of continuity through iterative events and change through pulsar events contributes to increasing the network effects of events.

The Supplementary Green Book Guidance on Optimism Bias (HM Treasury 2003) with reference to the Review of Large Public Procurement in the UK (Mott MacDonald 2002) notes that there is a demonstrated, systematic, tendency for project appraisers to be overly optimistic and that to redress this tendency appraisers should make explicit, empirically based adjustments to the estimates of a project’s costs, benefits, and duration. HM Treasury recommends that these adjustments be based on data from past projects or similar projects elsewhere, and adjusted for the unique characteristics of the project in hand. In the absence of a more specific evidence base, HM Treasury has encouraged departments to collect data to inform future estimates of optimism, and in the meantime use the best available data. In response to this, the Department for Transport (henceforth DfT), has contracted Bent Flyvbjerg in association with COWI to undertake the consultancy assignment "Procedures for dealing with Optimism Bias in Transport Planning". The present Guidance Document is the result of this assignment.

- by Bent Flyvbjerg
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- Critical Theory, Business, Entrepreneurship, Organizational Behavior
- by Sercan BENLİ
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- Mega Sport Events, Sports and Events Management, Hallmark Events

"Over budget, over time, over and over again" appears to be an appropriate slogan for large, complex infrastructure projects. This article explains why cost, benefits, and time forecasts for such projects are systematically over-optimistic in the planning phase. The underlying reasons for forecasting errors are grouped into three categories: delusions or honest mistakes; deceptions or strategic manipulation of information or processes; or bad luck. Delusion and deception have each been addressed in the management literature before, but here they are jointly considered for the first time. They are specifically applied to infrastructure problems in a manner that allows both academics and practitioners to understand and implement the suggested corrective procedures. The article provides a framework for analyzing the relative explanatory power of delusion and deception. It also suggests a simplified framework for analyzing the complex principal-agent relationships that are involved in the approval and construction of large infrastructure projects, which can be used to improve forecasts. Finally, the article illustrates reference class forecasting, an outside view de-biasing technique that has proven successful in overcoming both delusion and deception in private and public investment decisions.

- by Bent Flyvbjerg
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- Critical Theory, Business, Entrepreneurship, Organizational Behavior

Niccolò Machiavelli, the founder of modern political and administrative thought, made clear that an understanding of politics requires distinguishing between formal politics and what later, with Ludwig von Rochau, would become known as Realpolitik. No such distinction has been employed in the study of rationality. Yet I will argue that distinguishing between formal rationality and real rationality is as important for the understanding of rationality and planning as the distinction between formal politics and Realpolitik has been for understanding politics.

- by Bent Flyvbjerg
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- Critical Theory, Business, Entrepreneurship, Organizational Behavior

The purpose of the present chapter is to demonstrate how social scientists may engage with mass media to have their research impact public deliberation, policy and practice. Communicating research to practice is part and parcel of applied phronesis and not something external to it. Even in Aristotle's original definition of phronesis, laid down more than two millennia ago, the knowledge–action relationship is clear. A defining characteristic of phronesis is, in Aristotle's words, that it is ‘reason capable of action’ (The Nicomachean Ethics, 1976: Bk VI, 1140a24–1140b12). Phronetic research results (‘reason’) are therefore results only to the extent they have an impact on practice (‘action’). In public affairs, reason is made capable of action by effectively having reason enter the public sphere and public deliberation. It is reason times exposure in the public sphere that matters, not reason alone. Today, mass media dominate the public sphere in liberal democracies. The relationship of research with media therefore needs to be reflected. However, to my knowledge no study exists that describes in detail this aspect of phronetic research. Even in social science as a whole, studies of how scholars work with mass media to secure public impact of their research seem rare (Bagdikian 2004; McCombs 2004; Bryant and Oliver 2009). This, then, is the purpose of the present chapter: to begin to close this gap in our knowledge of social science and phronesis. Because the field is underexplored, it was found to be prudent to start with a phenomenological case study. The study shows how a group of phronetic social scientists, including the author, engaged with media, including world-leading titles such as The New York Times, in order to place their research results on the public agenda and initiate change in their chosen field of interest: megaproject policy and management.

- by Bent Flyvbjerg
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- Critical Theory, Business, Entrepreneurship, Organizational Behavior

En una edición anterior de Cuadernos del Mundial (2014), Simoni Lahud Guedes y Pablo Alabarces propusieron un juego de espejos sobre las narrativas brasileñas y argentinas en torno al Mundial de Fútbol (de varones) en Brasil. Hablaron de "estilos nacionales", comunidades imaginadas y... varones. En el presente artículo, retomaremos el ejercicio de pensar las patrias futboleras comparativamente sin nacioncentrismos mediantes; pero nos distanciaremos de nuestrxs maestrxs al hablar sobre las prohibiciones, invisibilidades, escamoteos y luchas de... mujeres. Al calor de la 8ª Copa Mundial Femenina de Fútbol en Francia, proponemos una historia mínima y comparada de las futboleras argentinas y brasileñas.

- by Nemesia Hijós
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- History, Sociology, Sociology of Sport, Gender Studies

This article presents results from the first statistically significant study of traffic forecasts in transportation infrastructure projects. The sample used is the largest of its kind, covering 210 projects in 14 nations worth U.S.$59 billion. The study shows with very high statistical significance that forecasters generally do a poor job of estimating the demand for transportation infrastructure projects. For 9 out of 10 rail projects, passenger forecasts are overestimated; the average overestimation is 106%. For half of all road projects, the difference between actual and forecasted traffic is more than ±20%. The result is substantial financial risks, which are typically ignored or downplayed by planners and decision makers to the detriment of social and economic welfare. Our data also show that forecasts have not become more accurate over the 30-year period studied, despite claims to the contrary by forecasters. The causes of inaccuracy in forecasts are different for rail and road projects, with political causes playing a larger role for rail than for road. The cure is transparency, accountability, and new forecasting methods. The challenge is to change the governance structures for forecasting and project development. Our article shows how planners may help achieve this.

- by Bent Flyvbjerg
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- Critical Theory, Business, Entrepreneurship, Organizational Behavior

Significant economic development has been experienced by Brazilian society in the past 10 years, leading to important changes in the social structures found in this country. Parallel to the economic improvements, Brazil has also been successful in attracting sport mega-events, with media increasingly portraying this to be the “sport decade” for Brazilian society. This paper intends to contribute to the understanding of the changes happening in Brazilian society within the context of mass investments in sport mega-events. In particular, we discuss how the Brazilian Government has been delivering sport and physical activity opportunities for low socio-economic groups in Brazil, and how people living in a marginalised community have benefited (or not) from the current scenario of massive sport investments. In order to do this, we analysed sport and physical activity projects and programmes supported by the Brazilian Federal Government in the community of Cidade de Deus. Cidade de Deus is one of the most populated favelas in Rio de Janeiro and is in close proximity to the 2016 Olympic Park, which will host the Olympic Village, Media Village and most of the competitions of the 2016 Rio de Janeiro Olympic Games. It is therefore a community that will likely be impacted significantly, positively or negatively, by the hosting of the event. The results of the investigation provide insights into the developments that have occurred in the provision of sport and physical activity opportunities to this marginalised community and the role public policies play in facilitating access to sport and physical activity.

- by Arianne Reis
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- Mega Events As Catalysts For Regeneration, Brazil, Sport Policy, Mega Events

Do different types of megaprojects have different cost overruns? This apparently simple question is at the heart of research at the University of Oxford aimed at understanding the characteristics of megaprojects, particularly in terms of how they are established, run and concluded. In this study, we set out to investigate cost overruns in the Olympic Games. To do so, we examined the costs of the Games over half a century, including both summer and winter Olympics. We looked at the evolution of final reported costs and compared these to the costs established in the Games bids, submitted to the International Olympic Committee (IOC) up to seven years before the Games occurred. In so doing we established the largest dataset of its kind, and documented for the first time in a consistent fashion the costs and cost overruns for the Olympic Games, from 1960 to 2012. We discovered that the Games stand out in two distinct ways compared to other megaprojects: (1) The Games overrun with 100 per cent consistency. No other type of megaproject is this consistent regarding cost overrun. Other project types are typically on budget from time to time, but not the Olympics. (2) With an average cost overrun in real terms of 179 per cent – and 324 per cent in nominal terms – overruns in the Games have historically been significantly larger than for other types of megaprojects, including infrastructure, construction, ICT, and dams. The data thus show that for a city and nation to decide to host the Olympic Games is to take on one of the most financially risky type of megaproject that exists, something that many cities and nations have learned to their peril. For the London 2012 Games, we find that: (1) With sports-related real costs currently estimated at USD14.8 billion, London is on track to become the most costly Olympics ever. (2) With a projected cost overrun of 101 per cent in real terms, overrun for London is below the historical average for the Games, but not significantly so. (3) The London cost overrun is, however, significantly higher than overruns for recent Games since 1999. London therefore is reversing a positive trend of falling cost overruns for the Games.

- by Bent Flyvbjerg
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- Critical Theory, Business, Entrepreneurship, Organizational Behavior

Taken together, the works of Jurgen Habermas and Michel Foucault highlight an essential tension in modernity. This is the tension between the normative and the real, between what should be done and what is actually done. Understanding this tension is crucial to understanding modern democracy, what it is and what it could be. It has been argued that an effective way of making democracy stronger is to strengthen civil society. This article contains a comparative analysis of the central ideas of Habermas and Foucault as they pertain to the question of democracy and civil society. More specifically, the discourse ethics of Habermas is contrasted with the power analytics and ethics of Foucault evaluating their usefulness for those interested in understanding, and bringing about, democratic social change.

- by Bent Flyvbjerg
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- Critical Theory, Business, Entrepreneurship, Organizational Behavior
- by Kiyoshi Abe
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- Human Geography, Urban Geography, Security, Security Studies

- by Bent Flyvbjerg
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- Critical Theory, Business, Entrepreneurship, Organizational Behavior

If we want to empower and re-enchant organization research, we need to do three things. First, we must drop all pretence, however indirect, at emulating the success of the natural sciences in producing cumulative and predictive theory, for their approach simply does not work in organization research or any of the social sciences (for the full argument, see Flyvbjerg 2001). Second, we must address problems that matter to groups in the local, national, and global communities in which we live, and we must do it in ways that matter; we must focus on issues of context, values, and power, as advocated by great social scientists from Aristotle and Machiavelli to Max Weber and Pierre Bourdieu. Finally, we must effectively and dialogically communicate the results of our research to our fellow citizens and carefully listen to their feedback. If we do this – focus on specific values and interests in the context of particular power relations – we may successfully transform organization research into an activity performed in public for organizational publics, sometimes to clarify, sometimes to intervene, sometimes to generate new perspectives, and always to serve as eyes and ears in ongoing efforts to understand the present and to deliberate about the future. We may, in short, arrive at organization research that matters.

- by Bent Flyvbjerg
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- Critical Theory, Business, Entrepreneurship, Organizational Behavior
- by Brian Hay
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- Management, Engineering, Tourism Studies, Globalization

Global sports events are rarely far from the public eye. Such mega-events are about much more than the sporting competitions themselves. They entail global
exposure and intense struggles by different stakeholders. This is the first book to examine sports mega-events from a mobilities perspective. It analyses the ‘mobile construction’ of global sports mega-events and the role this plays in managing labour, imaginaries, policies and legacies. In particular, the book focuses on the tension between the various mobilities and immobilities that are implied in the process of constructing a mega-event. It seeks to uncover the
ways in which an event is a series of fluid interactions that occur sequentially and simultaneously at multiple scales in diverse spheres of interaction. Contributions
explore the dynamics through which mega-events occur, revealing the textures and nuance of the complex systems that sustain them, and the ways that events
ramify throughout the international system.

- by Noel B. Salazar and +2
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- Critical Theory, Anthropology, Mobility/Mobilities, Migration mobilities