Complexity Theory as a Practical Management Tool: A Critical Evaluation

Complexity theory is receiving increasing attention in both academic and popular literature as a potential management tool. As momentum gathers surrounding its popularity in practical management, complexity theory is poised to become a management ‘fad’, and potentially an influential paradigm for the future. However, much of the literature concerning complexity theory contains inconsistent terminology and a lack of operationally empirical definitions. This has made it difficult for researchers to specify empirical questions in order to frame complexity research, and for practitioners to acquire the key principles for implementation. It has also opened a Pandora’s Box of commentaries which proclaim that complexity theory is a new management panacea. This paper provides a critical account of the utility of complexity theory as a management tool, and concludes that while a number of metaphors and principles might suggest useful ways of thinking about management, the concept is neither new nor a panacea, and practitioners are urged toward caution

Complexity Theory as a Practical Management Tool: A Critical Evaluation

Complexity theory is receiving increasing attention in both academic and popular literature as a potential management tool. As momentum gathers surrounding its popularity in practical management, complexity theory is poised to become a management ‘fad’, and potentially an influential paradigm for the future. However, much of the literature concerning complexity theory contains inconsistent terminology and a lack of operationally empirical definitions. This has made it difficult for researchers to specify empirical questions in order to frame complexity research, and for practitioners to acquire the key principles for implementation. It has also opened a Pandora’s Box of commentaries which proclaim that complexity theory is a new management panacea. This paper provides a critical account of the utility of complexity theory as a management tool, and concludes that while a number of metaphors and principles might suggest useful ways of thinking about management, the concept is neither new nor a panacea, and practitioners are urged toward caution

Data as capital and ethical implications in digital sport business models

Professional sport has entered the digital economy as organisations adopt data-driven business model innovations. The purpose of this article is to highlight the potential ethical vulnerabilities sport organisations and their leaders face when adopting digital sport business models. Here, we treat data as a species of capital that can be converted into economic capital once it undergoes a computational transformation via a data-driven business model innovation. We argue for two advantages in this approach. First, it helps make transparent the mechanisms through which digital sport business models work. Second, it reveals how the extraction and application of big data exacerbates inequitable power relationships between sport organisations and supporters – the big data divide – that leads to ethical vulnerabilities for sport organisations and their consumers. We suggest that sport consumers might be particularly vulnerable to digital data risk as a consequence of their high levels of brand loyalty and involvement, which tend to encourage trust in the sport properties soliciting, analysing, and monetising their data. Platform broadcasting partnerships, e-ticketing in smart stadiums, and cryptocurrency-based fan tokens are used as examples of data-driven business model innovations based on the conversion of data to capital, demonstrating how sport organisations risk violating the trust of supporters when using digital strategies. The article concludes with directions for future research to deliver an ethically informed data-driven sports industry.</p

Sport management and COVID-19:trends and legacies

One of the enduring questions gripping scholars is the nature of sport’s ubiquity. What makes sport so compelling for so many despite the many tensions surrounding its expression? To make the conundrum more complicated, we have witnessed a seemingly inexhaustible growth in sport’s reach and scope, including as a source of recreational pastime, organised participation, fanatical devotion, and media spectacle. At the same time, sport’s immense entertainment, recreation, and media fringes have exploded, spanning from competitive eating to esports. Sport undoubtedly occupies a non-trivial place in the economic, social, and cultural fabric of almost every part of the globe (Smith et al., Citation2021), as billions discovered when the COVID blackout struck

The challenges of harmonising anti-doping policy implementation

The policy-implementation gap conceptualises how policy intentions and outcomes often differ due to a failure to consider the realities of implementation. The World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) directs Olympic anti-doping policy, seeking to harmonise anti-doping policy globally; however, the realisation of consistent implementation has proven challenging. A major cause of inconsistent policy implementation is inter-signatory variation, but the mechanisms of variation are poorly understood. WADA provides an excellent example to explore why policy gaps occur in international sport governance. Consequently, we aimed to analyse the different types of inter-signatory variation in anti-doping policy and identify practical solutions to address inter-signatory variation in anti-doping. Data were collected from the Regional Anti-Doping Programme (RADO), a group of organisations tasked with increasing the capacity of NADOs globally. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 22 RADO staff and board members who were sampled as key informants to discuss how inter-signatory variation affects anti-doping policy compliance. Following reflexive thematic analysis, we identified four thematic categories explaining inter-signatory variation in anti-doping implementation: (1) socio-geographic, (2) political, (3) organisational, and (4) human resources. Based on our analysis, we theorise why the policy-implementation gap occurs and provide recommendations to improve anti-doping policy implementation.</p

Heritabilities, proportions of heritabilities explained by GWAS findings, and implications of cross-phenotype effects on PR interval

Electrocardiogram (ECG) measurements are a powerful tool for evaluating cardiac function and are widely used for the diagnosis and prediction of a variety of conditions, including myocardial infarction, cardiac arrhythmias, and sudden cardiac death. Recently, genome-wide association studies (GWASs) identified a large number of genes related to ECG parameter variability, specifically for the QT, QRS, and PR intervals. The aims of this study were to establish the heritability of ECG traits, including indices of left ventricular hypertrophy, and to directly assess the proportion of those heritabilities explained by GWAS variants. These analyses were conducted in a large, Dutch family-based cohort study, the Erasmus Rucphen Family study using variance component methods implemented in the SOLAR (Sequential Oligogenic Linkage Analysis Routines) software package. Heritability estimates ranged from 34 % for QRS and Cornell voltage product to 49 % for 12-lead sum. Trait-specific GWAS findings for each trait explained a fraction of their heritability (17 % for QRS, 4 % for QT, 2 % for PR, 3 % for Sokolow–Lyon index, and 4 % for 12-lead sum). The inclusion of all ECG-associated single nucleotide polymorphisms explained an additional 6 % of the heritability of PR. In conclusion, this study shows that, although GWAS explain a portion of ECG trait variability, a large amount of heritability remains to be explained. In addition, larger GWAS for PR are likely to detect loci already identified, particularly those observed for QRS and 12-lead sum

A combined linkage and exome sequencing analysis for electrocardiogram parameters in the Erasmus Rucphen family study

Electrocardiogram (ECG) measurements play a key role in the diagnosis and prediction of cardiac arrhythmias and sudden cardiac death. ECG parameters, such as the PR, QRS, and QT intervals, are known to be heritable and genome-wide association studies of these phenotypes have been successful in identifying common variants; however, a large proportion of the genetic variability of these traits remains to be elucidated. The aim of this study was to discover loci potentially harboring rare variants utilizing variance component linkage analysis in 1547 individuals from a large family-based study, the Erasmus Rucphen Family Study (ERF). Linked regions were further explored using exome sequencing. Five suggestive linkage peaks were identified: two for QT interval (1q24, LOD = 2.63; 2q34, LOD = 2.05), one for QRS interval (1p35, LOD = 2.52) and two for PR interval (9p22, LOD = 2.20; 14q11, LOD = 2.29). Fine-mapping using exome sequence data identified a C > G missense variant (c.713C > G, p.Ser238Cys) in the FCRL2 gene associated with QT (rs74608430; P = 2.8 × 10-4, minor allele frequency = 0.019). Heritability analysis demonstrated that the SNP explained 2.42% of the trait's genetic variability in ERF (P = 0.02). Pathway analysis suggested that the gene is involved in cytosolic Ca2+ levels (P = 3.3 × 10-3) and AMPK stimulated fatty acid oxidat

A combined linkage, microarray and exome analysis suggests MAP3K11 as a candidate gene for left ventricular hypertrophy

Background: Electrocardiographic measures of left ventricular hypertrophy (LVH) are used as predictors of cardiovascular risk. We combined linkage and association analyses to discover novel rare genetic variants involved in three such measures and two principal components derived from them. Methods: The study was conducted among participants from the Erasmus Rucphen Family Study (ERF), a Dutch family-based sample from the southwestern Netherlands. Variance components linkage analyses were performed using Merlin. Regions of interest (LOD > 1.9) were fine-mapped using microarray and exome sequence data. Results: We observed one significant LOD score for the second principal component on chromosome 15 (LOD score = 3.01) and 12 suggestive LOD scores. Several loci contained variants identified in GWAS for these traits; however, these did not explain the linkage peaks, nor did other common variants. Exome sequence data identified two associated variants after multiple testing corrections were applied. Conclusions: We did not find common SNPs explaining these linkage signals. Exome sequencing uncovered a relatively rare variant in MAPK3K11 on chromosome 11 (MAF = 0.01) that helped account for the suggestive linkage peak observed for the first principal component. Conditional analysis revealed a drop in LOD from 2.01 to 0.88 for MAP3K11, suggesting that this variant may partially explain the linkage signal at this chromosomal location. MAP3K11 is related to the JNK pathway and is a pro-apoptotic kinase that plays an important role in the induction of cardiomyocyte apoptosis in various pathologies, including LVH

Twenty-eight genetic loci associated with ST-T-wave amplitudes of the electrocardiogram

The ST-segment and adjacent T-wave (ST-T wave) amplitudes of the electrocardiogram are quantitative characteristics of cardiac repolarization. Repolarization abnormalities have been linked to ventricular arrhythmias and sudden cardiac death. We performed the first genome-wide association meta-analysis of ST-T-wave amplitudes in up to 37 977 individuals identifying 71 robust genotype-phenotype associations clustered within 28 independent loci. Fifty-four genes were prioritized as candidates underlying the phenotypes, including genes with established roles in the cardiac repolarization phase (SCN5A/SCN10A, KCND3, KCNB1, NOS1AP and HEY2) and others with as yet undefined cardiac function. These associations may provide insights in the spatiotemporal contribution of genetic variation influencing cardiac repolarization and provide novel leads for future functional follow-up