Innovating Canadian sport policy: towards new public management and public entrepreneurship?

Mitchell McSweeney, Parissa Safai

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

10 Scopus citations

Abstract

Policy scholars, both within and outside of sport, have pointed to trends that emphasise neoliberal and free market orientations within public sector organisations. Given such developments, this paper utilises New Public Management (NPM) and Public Entrepreneurship (PE) to explore the Canadian Sport Policy (CSP). Thematic analysis was employed to compare and analyse the 2002 and 2012 CSP documents and other related CSP texts. Study findings demonstrate that while the CSP has expanded in scope since 2002 to 2012 to be more inclusive of both elite athlete development and sport participation for all, including heightened attention to facilitating sporting opportunities for traditionally underrepresented groups, there has also been intensified adoption of NPM approaches and a turn to promoting PE within Canadian sport policy. The NPM and PE ethos encourages innovation, new ideas, and the broadening of the sport sector in Canada; however, and as raised in the discussion, there are also some troubling implications related to the reproduction of inequality and the NPM and PE emphasis in Canadian sport policy that warrant further critical discussion.

Original languageEnglish (US)
Pages (from-to)405-421
Number of pages17
JournalInternational Journal of Sport Policy and Politics
Volume12
Issue number3
DOIs
StatePublished - Jul 2 2020
Externally publishedYes

Bibliographical note

Publisher Copyright:
© 2020 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group.

Keywords

  • Canada
  • Innovation
  • new public management
  • public entrepreneurship
  • sport policy

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