Gun Annika Viola Bodemar

• Bodemar, Annika (2022). The balancing act of conformity: aspiring leaders’ response to managerial pressure. Sport in Society: Cultures, Commerce, Media, Politics. ISSN 1743-0437. doi: 10.1080/17430437.2022.2115363. Show summary

  This paper explores conformity processes in various sport events’ institutional contexts. More specifically, I examine how conformity evolves for young aspiring leaders in two inaugural major sport events representing different institutional contexts. My study draws upon qualitative data. Cross-comparative analyses reveal three different conformity modes: straight, reflexive, and cynical. My results show how conformity modes depend greatly upon the degree of institutionalization of practices, rules, and power structures within a given event’s organization. I identify strong institutional frameworks and expediency as key drivers. This paper contributes to a more nuanced understanding of the significance of the institutional context and consequences of control regimes in event management. Pressure towards conformity seems to be a fast-paced process. Capturing young people’s reflections is important because sport organizations will benefit from reflexive leaders and managers who can solve current and future challenges in such organizations.

• Bodemar, Annika; Strittmatter, Anna-Maria & Fahlen, Josef (2020). Doomed to fail? A study of how junior managers at a major sport event cope with leadership issues. International Journal of Sport Management and Marketing. ISSN 1475-8962. 20(3-4), p. 271–288. doi: 10.1504/IJSMM.2020.110845. Show summary

  The organising committee at the 2012 World Snowboarding Championships in Oslo experienced major problems such as uncertainty among the junior managers and general chaos. Despite this, in external communications, the event was declared to be a success. This article draws on the works of Parent and Seguin (2007) and Parent et al. (2009) to examine the key leadership and organisational factors that contributed to these problems. The purpose of this study is to investigate how the junior managers coped with uncertainty and solved problems. This study is based on semi-structured interviews, documents, and participant observations. The findings show that a variety of mechanisms caused uncertainty, including some factors that predicted the event's failure. Although the existing literature is focused on explaining events' success or lack thereof via leadership, this case provides an opportunity to understand how an event can succeed despite the presence of factors that typically lead to failure.

• Strittmatter, Anna-Maria; Kilvinger, Boris; Bodemar, Annika; Skille, Eivind & Kurscheidt, Markus (2018). Dual governance structures in action sports: institutionalization processes of professional snowboarding revisited. Sport in Society: Cultures, Commerce, Media, Politics. ISSN 1743-0437. p. 1–19. doi: 10.1080/17430437.2018.1440696. Show summary

  This article examines the current governance structures in international competitive snowboarding and analyses empirically how key actors operate within the diverging logics that shape such structures. We expand upon the existing literature on professional snowboarding by offering a more contemporary understanding of the constantly evolving processes of institutionalization. Qualitative data was gathered from the authors’ first-hand experiences with international snowboarding, based on (1) interviews with system insiders, (2) document analysis, and (3) participant observations. Two dominant and contradicting logics of competitive snowboarding were identified, forming a fragmented, dual institutional structure that we call the industry-based and nation-based governance model. Our findings suggest that recent professionalization processes have led to defragmentation efforts, thus signalling a shift towards a nation-based governance focus. Therefore, we conclude that other action sports that will join the Olympics, such as surfing and skateboarding, are advised to find solutions for mediating inherent contradictions of governance logics to avoid institutional fragmentation at an early stage.

• Bodemar, Annika & Skille, Eivind Åsrum (2016). ‘Stuck in structure’: How young leaders experienced the institutional frames at the Youth Olympic Games in Innsbruck, 2012. International Review for the Sociology of Sport. ISSN 1012-6902. 51(8), p. 940–956. doi: 10.1177/1012690214563198. Show summary

  The aim of this paper is to explore how young leaders within the Innsbruck Youth Olympic Games Organising Committee experienced the degree of freedom within the institutionalized structure of the International Olympic Committee. Employing a theoretical framework of new institutionalism, a qualitative case study including observations and interviews was conducted. The concept of translation provides a framework for analysing institutional change in organizations, where new ideas are combined with existing institutional practices and translated into new practices to varying degrees. The Innsbruck Youth Olympic Games Organising Committee consisted of young people with experiences from the event industry. This resulted in greater pressure to introduce new institutional solutions to the field. Despite being constrained by coercive pressure from the International Olympic Committee, new innovative elements were translated by the young leaders in the Innsbruck Youth Olympic Games Organising Committee into the International Olympic Committee event. However, the innovations were restricted to areas that the International Olympic Committee defined as less important such as sustainability projects as opposed to important areas like marketing.

• Bodemar, Annika & Skille, Eivind Åsrum (2014). Young leadership : an exploration using neo-institutionalism and authentic leadership theory. In Hanstad, Dag Vidar; Parent, Milena & Houlihan, Barrie (Ed.), The Youth Olympic Games. Routledge. ISSN 978-0-415-83987-7. p. 75–90.

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