Chen Henry Accepted Version Jan 2015.pdf (361.14 kB)
Evaluating the London 2012 Games’ impact on sport participation in a non-hosting region: a practical application of realist evaluation
journal contribution
posted on 2016-04-08, 12:44 authored by Shushu Chen, Ian HenryIn the literature on Olympic legacies and impacts, there is a dearth of materials that specifically address the issue of Olympic impact for non-hosting regions. The literature tends to deal with impacts at a national level, or at a hosting-city region level, neglecting in large part the degree to which benefits can be leveraged by non-hosting regions. A further limitation identified in the literature is a failure to engage in detailed formal evaluation of policy implementation where assertions of potential policy impact are based on untested assumptions. This study is intended to address both of these concerns. It presents an empirical, ‘bottom-up’ application of a Realist Evaluation framework to assess the impact of a policy initiative – Workplace Challenge – aimed at leveraging enhanced sports participation in a non-hosting region – Leicestershire – in the period leading up to the 2012 Games. In doing so, it seeks to identify which causal mechanisms worked within this particular context to produce the observed outcomes. The evaluation results demonstrate that the programme represented a positive approach to fostering regular engagement with sport and physical activities for some groups in some types of organisations, and that awareness and motivational factors associated with the London 2012 Games are, in this case, linked (albeit weakly) to an increase in sport and physical activity participation for specific groups taking part in the programme in particular organisational contexts.
History
School
- Sport, Exercise and Health Sciences
Published in
Leisure StudiesVolume
35Issue
5Pages
685-707Citation
CHEN, S. and HENRY, I., 2015. Evaluating the London 2012 Games’ impact on sport participation in a non-hosting region: a practical application of realist evaluation. Leisure Studies, 35 (5), pp. 685-707.Publisher
© Taylor & FrancisVersion
- AM (Accepted Manuscript)
Publisher statement
This work is made available according to the conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0) licence. Full details of this licence are available at: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/Acceptance date
2015-01-13Publication date
2015-05-18Copyright date
2016Notes
This is an Accepted Manuscript of an article published by Taylor & Francis in Leisure Studies on 18/05/2015, available online: http://www.tandfonline.com/10.1080/02614367.2015.1040827.ISSN
0261-4367eISSN
1466-4496Publisher version
Language
- en