Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to explore how multiple partners could be managed to ensure the successful delivery of the World Masters Games (WMG), 2017. Specifically, its objectives are to understand how event organisers manage relationships with multiple delivery partners, what tools and practices are used to ensure consistency and what risks and benefits exist. Design/methodology/approach – An applied, qualitative, exploratory method used thematic analysis to obtain findings from seven semi-structured interviews of senior managers involved in five international sports event held in Australasia. Findings – Findings were interpreted into nine themes related to event delivery partnerships such as reducing inconsistency, localising delivery through specialists, managing stakeholder relationships, managing workloads and taking an athlete-centred approach. Recommendations include establishing relationship strategies for each partner, determining the degree of control over delivery, crafting contracts appropriate to each partner, creating a suite of tools to aid consistency, recruiting an executive team with Games/mass participation event experience and a senior management team with sport or venue operations experience, centralising knowledge and planning, up-skilling partners as necessary and fully engaging local communities. Research limitations/implications – The sample was restricted to five event organisations and only a small number of participants per organisation were interviewed. This study collected the experiences and opinions from the event organisers’ point of view and did not capture the same from delivery partners. Originality/value – The literature revealed little specifically on operational delivery methods adopted by sport events; therefore this study adds to the conversation on sport event delivery models from an outsourcing perspective.

Rationale/Purpose: The survival of New Zealand's amateur sport clubs is threatened by a range of factors. This study investigated how club partnerships may address sustainability concerns brought about through sport environmental changes. Design/Methodology/Approach:Semi-structured interviews with representatives from five sport clubs explored how partnerships could alter sport clubs' business models for long-term viability. Findings: Partnerships enabled clubs' governing bodies to appeal to a wider cross-section of society through improved strategic focus, direction and resource use. This led to membership growth and diversity, enhanced financial viability, improved governance, greater community connection and improved HRM functions. Practical Implications: The study suggests the RCOV model and RDT helped clubs' pre-partnership sustainability issues. Partnerships created larger clubs, enabling financial stability, retention of members, and resource management to overcome environmental challenges.Research Contribution: This study offers perceptions of club partnership outcomes. Critical success factors are presented as a guide of best practice.

The study examined the independent board structure adopted by New Zealand Cricket (NZC) and issues of board process including board roles, calibre and structure. Data collection consisted of in-depth semi-structured interviews of NZC senior management/board members, supplemented by archival document review and analysis. The findings, although not generalisable across the whole non-profit sport sector, supported the literature on the roles and calibre of board members in an independent board structure. Due to increasingly professional operations and growth of commercialisation in sport, expertise in commercial aspects was noted as required. Given the majority of non-profit sport organisations’ federated structure, collaborative governance theory appears to be an area of future research when evolving from a delegate to independent or hybrid governance model.

Purpose -The purpose of this paper is to investigate athlete selection procedures implemented by 25 provincial and national level coaches in New Zealand. One of the main focuses of the study was the degree to which workplace human resource management (HRM) selection practices were utilised, or could have been beneficial, for athlete selection. As many selection controversies have been caused by unclear or unspecified selection procedures, the study focused on discovering what processes coaches utilised when selecting athletes and, importantly, to what degree these processes were communicated to athletes. Design/methodology/approach -The data were collected via semi-structured interviews and interpreted using thematic analysis which enabled the extraction of the major recurring themes. Findings -Although the majority of coaches supported the use of HRM selection processes, only six reported implementing HRM type practices. Overall, the study found that coaches on the whole did not fully utilise HRM selection practices. Furthermore, although there tended to be some degree of communication of these processes to athletes, this was not always done in a clear and precise way. Research limitations/implications -Core HRM practices, procedures, and terminology are seemingly rarely utilised in the athlete selection processes of amateur team sport. It is argued that future research should focus on determining how best to implement workplace HRM selection processes for team athlete selection. Originality/value -Somewhat surprisingly, very little past research has investigated current athlete selection processes in relation to workplace HRM selection practices. The present research increases the understanding of current team athlete selection and provides discussion of the results in relation to HRM selection best practice.

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