Football and corporate social responsibility

Surprisingly few academic articles have been written about football and Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR). A number of themes emerged from a literature review of CSR and sport. For this research, it was decided to concentrate on four key issues: to consider the relevance of institutional isomorphism to football clubs‟ CSR policies; to understand the motivations behind the decisions of football clubs to implement CSR policies; to describe the policies and programmes in detail and define their scope, and to examine how outcomes of schemes are measured. The research would also consider recommendations for improving practice across the areas of investigation. The research was undertaken with the assistance of four professional football clubs: three of the clubs in the Premier League and one in the Championship in season 2011/2012. Face to face interviews were carried out with representatives from the clubs or their community arms. Interviews were also undertaken with the representative of a football club trust with an extensive community programme and a Director of a research organisation with experience in this field to obtain an overview of the issues. The research findings are presented by setting out the backgrounds to the four case study football clubs and then the key issues are developed in the results and discussion sections with relevant quotations. The findings from the research reveal a broadening conception of CSR within football, but with motivations that are not always coherently expressed. The broad conception includes diverse community programmes measured increasingly sophisticatedly, but poorly evaluated wider policies. Many of these findings can be seen as related to institutional isomorphism. The key issues are taken forward into the study's conclusion, which considers the future direction of the CSR programmes of football clubs, limitations of the research and recommendations for further research

How do stakeholders influence stadium-led regeneration?

The use of sports stadiums in regeneration is a recent phenomenon in the UK, with the breadth of literature in this field relatively limited. However, it is an area of growing interest with numerous other sports stadium regeneration projects being proposed. So far there has been very little focus on understanding the stakeholders’ perspective surrounding stadium-led regeneration. The work of Mitchell, et al., (1997) on the salience of legitimacy, power and urgency provided a starting point in seeking to answer the research question: how do stakeholders influence stadium-led regeneration? In this study empirical research involving a wide range of interviews and participant observations with stakeholders were carried out in East Manchester and Tottenham, where stadium-led regeneration projects were at similar early stages of development. Secondary documentation was used to triangulate the findings and CAQDAS software utilised to assist with the analysis of the large amount of rich data that was obtained. Substantial parts of the data fell outside of the earlier typology, which indicated it was too parsimonious to adequately explain the complex array of contexts, triggers, strategies and influences that took place during stadium-led regeneration. This led to the development of a more complete framework that was necessary to understand the process and to answer the research question. The stakeholder influence framework, based on twelve concepts that are analysed in detail, provides an original contribution to knowledge in this field. One of the most significant concepts identified as part of the context was that a perceived lack of power, legitimacy and urgency can become an important trigger for the involvement of stakeholders in trying to influence developments. Limitations over generalisability from the two research sites are discussed, together with opportunities for further research linked to the developed framework

How do stakeholders influence stadium-led regeneration?

The use of sports stadiums in regeneration is a recent phenomenon in the UK, with the breadth of literature in this field relatively limited. However, it is an area of growing interest with numerous other sports stadium regeneration projects being proposed. So far there has been very little focus on understanding the stakeholders’ perspective surrounding stadium-led regeneration. The work of Mitchell, et al., (1997) on the salience of legitimacy, power and urgency provided a starting point in seeking to answer the research question: how do stakeholders influence stadium-led regeneration? In this study empirical research involving a wide range of interviews and participant observations with stakeholders were carried out in East Manchester and Tottenham, where stadium-led regeneration projects were at similar early stages of development. Secondary documentation was used to triangulate the findings and CAQDAS software utilised to assist with the analysis of the large amount of rich data that was obtained. Substantial parts of the data fell outside of the earlier typology, which indicated it was too parsimonious to adequately explain the complex array of contexts, triggers, strategies and influences that took place during stadium-led regeneration. This led to the development of a more complete framework that was necessary to understand the process and to answer the research question. The stakeholder influence framework, based on twelve concepts that are analysed in detail, provides an original contribution to knowledge in this field. One of the most significant concepts identified as part of the context was that a perceived lack of power, legitimacy and urgency can become an important trigger for the involvement of stakeholders in trying to influence developments. Limitations over generalisability from the two research sites are discussed, together with opportunities for further research linked to the developed framework

“It’s just a Trojan horse for gentrification”: austerity and stadium-led regeneration

Austerity was the driving principle behind the UK Coalition Government Comprehensive Spending Review in October 2010, with local government facing a disproportionately high share of the spending cuts. Research has focused on the impact of ‘austerity urbanism’ (Peck, 2012; Watt and Minton, 2016) and urban regeneration (Dillon and Fanning, 2015; Pugalis, 2016), however there is relatively little focus on sports-led regeneration. This article presents case study research of the stadium-led regeneration project involving Tottenham Hotspur FC and the London Borough of Haringey, focusing on the community perceptions of urban regeneration. It has two aims: first, to understand the local authority’s approach to regeneration in the context of the austerity agenda; and second, to understand how this approach was perceived by, and the impact on, those communities living within the geographical locality of the developments. Three themes emerged: first, that austerity led the local authority to adopt a pragmatic approach to regeneration; second, that regeneration in a period of austerity is perceived by local communities as a strategy of gentrification; and third, concerns over the lack of community consultation served as a stimulus for community engagement. Two implications arising from this research are that while community groups in Tottenham had limited success in gaining major changes to the stadium-led regeneration in Tottenham they have arguably been able to slow down the process. Moreover, they have been successful in bringing together diverse groups across the community to share knowledge in order to challenge further proposals from Haringey Council

Corporate social responsibility and social partnerships in professional football

Within the professional football industry one of the most prominent ways to address corporate social responsibility is through a social partnership involving a range of organizations such as a Community Sports Trust (CST), a professional football club, business organizations and local authorities. These partnerships are responsible for the delivery of community initiatives around a range of social issues. This article seeks to understand the managerial aspects of this type of social partnership, and in particular the objectives and motivations for partnering, by drawing on three analytical platforms that take into account how differences between sectors affect social partnerships. Based on a series of interviews, it is shown that organizations get involved in social partnerships for different reasons and perceive the partnerships in different ways; that from an individual organizational perspective it is difficult to perceive a social partnership entirely in the context of one of the theoretical platforms; and that despite what would appear to be a strong sense of homogenization of organizational form across the sector there are significant differences between social partnerships. The article concludes by arguing that further research is needed to better understand the differences between social partnerships

Stakeholder mobilisation and sports stadium regeneration: antecedent factors underpinning the formation of the Our Tottenham community network

Research question: Within sport management, there is a lack of empirical research on the reasons why stakeholders mobilise. This article identifies four antecedent factors underpinning the formation of the Our Tottenham community network: a network formed by community groups in Tottenham to challenge, inter-alia, the stadium-led regeneration scheme. Research methods: The research draws on a longitudinal, qualitative case study, involving interviews, participant observation of community meetings, and analysis of documents. Results and Findings: Four factors underpinned the development of the Our Tottenham community network. The erosion of local democracy and the violation of reciprocity are categorised as reactive forces, in which mobilisation occurred as a response to the behaviour of the Council and the football club. Protecting community interests and increasing salience were driven more by the needs of the community and are categorised as proactive forces underpinning mobilisation. Implications: In the context of this case study, we argue that mobilising efforts occurred due to the presence of both reactive and proactive forces. This helped the Our Tottenham network to build a salient stakeholder coalition. The findings also suggest that focal organisations need to recognise how their behaviour can create the antecedent conditions for stakeholder mobilisation and put in place structures that enable community stakeholders to have a voice during stadium-led regeneration

Off-line signature verification using ensembles of local Radon transform-based HMMs

Thesis (MSc)--Stellenbosch University, 2011.ENGLISH ABSTRACT: An off-line signature verification system attempts to authenticate the identity of an individual by examining his/her handwritten signature, after it has been successfully extracted from, for example, a cheque, a debit or credit card transaction slip, or any other legal document. The questioned signature is typically compared to a model trained from known positive samples, after which the system attempts to label said signature as genuine or fraudulent. Classifier fusion is the process of combining individual classifiers, in order to construct a single classifier that is more accurate, albeit computationally more complex, than its constituent parts. A combined classifier therefore consists of an ensemble of base classifiers that are combined using a specific fusion strategy. In this dissertation a novel off-line signature verification system, using a multi-hypothesis approach and classifier fusion, is proposed. Each base classifier is constructed from a hidden Markov model (HMM) that is trained from features extracted from local regions of the signature (local features), as well as from the signature as a whole (global features). To achieve this, each signature is zoned into a number of overlapping circular retinas, from which said features are extracted by implementing the discrete Radon transform. A global retina, that encompasses the entire signature, is also considered. Since the proposed system attempts to detect high-quality (skilled) forgeries, it is unreasonable to assume that samples of these forgeries will be available for each new writer (client) enrolled into the system. The system is therefore constrained in the sense that only positive training samples, obtained from each writer during enrolment, are available. It is however reasonable to assume that both positive and negative samples are available for a representative subset of so-called guinea-pig writers (for example, bank employees). These signatures constitute a convenient optimisation set that is used to select the most proficient ensemble. A signature, that is claimed to belong to a legitimate client (member of the general public), is therefore rejected or accepted based on the majority vote decision of the base classifiers within the most proficient ensemble. When evaluated on a data set containing high-quality imitations, the inclusion of local features, together with classifier combination, significantly increases system performance. An equal error rate of 8.6% is achieved, which compares favorably to an achieved equal error rate of 12.9% (an improvement of 33.3%) when only global features are considered. Since there is no standard international off-line signature verification data set available, most systems proposed in the literature are evaluated on data sets that differ from the one employed in this dissertation. A direct comparison of results is therefore not possible. However, since the proposed system utilises significantly different features and/or modelling techniques than those employed in the above-mentioned systems, it is very likely that a superior combined system can be obtained by combining the proposed system with any of the aforementioned systems. Furthermore, when evaluated on the same data set, the proposed system is shown to be significantly superior to three other systems recently proposed in the literature.AFRIKAANSE OPSOMMING: Die doel van ’n statiese handtekening-verifikasiestelsel is om die identiteit van ’n individu te bekragtig deur sy/haar handgeskrewe handtekening te analiseer, nadat dit suksesvol vanaf byvoorbeeld ’n tjek,’n debiet- of kredietkaattransaksiestrokie, of enige ander wettige dokument onttrek is. Die bevraagtekende handtekening word tipies vergelyk met ’n model wat afgerig is met bekende positiewe voorbeelde, waarna die stelsel poog om die handtekening as eg of vervals te klassifiseer. Klassifiseerder-fusie is die proses waardeer individuele klassifiseerders gekombineer word, ten einde ’n enkele klassifiseerder te konstrueer, wat meer akkuraat, maar meer berekeningsintensief as sy samestellende dele is. ’n Gekombineerde klassifiseerder bestaan derhalwe uit ’n ensemble van basis-klassifiseerders, wat gekombineer word met behulp van ’n spesifieke fusie-strategie. In hierdie projek word ’n nuwe statiese handtekening-verifikasiestelsel, wat van ’n multi-hipotese benadering en klassifiseerder-fusie gebruik maak, voorgestel. Elke basis-klassifiseerder word vanuit ’n verskuilde Markov-model (HMM) gekonstrueer, wat afgerig word met kenmerke wat vanuit lokale gebiede in die handtekening (lokale kenmerke), sowel as vanuit die handtekening in geheel (globale kenmerke), onttrek is. Ten einde dit te bewerkstellig, word elke handtekening in ’n aantal oorvleulende sirkulêre retinas gesoneer, waaruit kenmerke onttrek word deur die diskrete Radon-transform te implementeer. ’n Globale retina, wat die hele handtekening in beslag neem, word ook beskou. Aangesien die voorgestelde stelsel poog om hoë-kwaliteit vervalsings op te spoor, is dit onredelik om te verwag dat voorbeelde van hierdie handtekeninge beskikbaar sal wees vir elke nuwe skrywer (kliënt) wat vir die stelsel registreer. Die stelsel is derhalwe beperk in die sin dat slegs positiewe afrigvoorbeelde, wat bekom is van elke skrywer tydens registrasie, beskikbaar is. Dit is egter redelik om aan te neem dat beide positiewe en negatiewe voorbeelde beskikbaar sal wees vir ’n verteenwoordigende subversameling van sogenaamde proefkonynskrywers, byvoorbeeld bankpersoneel. Hierdie handtekeninge verteenwoordig ’n gereieflike optimeringstel, wat gebruik kan word om die mees bekwame ensemble te selekteer. ’n Handtekening, wat na bewering aan ’n wettige kliënt (lid van die algemene publiek) behoort, word dus verwerp of aanvaar op grond van die meerderheidstem-besluit van die basis-klassifiseerders in die mees bekwame ensemble. Wanneer die voorgestelde stelsel op ’n datastel, wat hoë-kwaliteit vervalsings bevat, ge-evalueer word, verhoog die insluiting van lokale kenmerke en klassifiseerder-fusie die prestasie van die stelsel beduidend. ’n Gelyke foutkoers van 8.6% word behaal, wat gunstig vergelyk met ’n gelyke foutkoers van 12.9% (’n verbetering van 33.3%) wanneer slegs globale kenmerke gebruik word. Aangesien daar geen standard internasionale statiese handtekening-verifikasiestelsel bestaan nie, word die meeste stelsels, wat in die literatuur voorgestel word, op ander datastelle ge-evalueer as die datastel wat in dié projek gebruik word. ’n Direkte vergelyking van resultate is dus nie moontlik nie. Desnieteenstaande, aangesien die voorgestelde stelsel beduidend ander kenmerke en/of modeleringstegnieke as dié wat in bogenoemde stelsels ingespan word gebruik, is dit hoogs waarskynlik dat ’n superieure gekombineerde stelsel verkry kan word deur die voorgestelde stelsel met enige van bogenoemde stelsels te kombineer. Voorts word aangetoon dat, wanneer op dieselfde datastel geevalueerword, die voorgestelde stelstel beduidend beter vaar as drie ander stelsels wat onlangs in die literatuur voorgestel is

Metabolic Syndrome Increases Risk of Readmission and Complications in Operative Fixation of Pilon Fractures

Background Studies demonstrate that metabolic syndrome (MetS) negatively impacts surgical outcomes. This study sought to identify how metabolic syndrome affects outcomes after open reduction and internal fixation (ORIF) of traumatic pilon fractures. Methods Patients who underwent ORIF for pilon fractures from 2012 to 2019 were identified in the American College of Surgeons National Surgical Quality Improvement Program database. Patients with MetS were compared to non-MetS patients for rates of adverse events, prolonged stay, readmission, discharge location, and operative time in the 30-day postoperative period. All statistical analyses were conducted using SPSS version 26.0 (IBM Corp., Armonk, NY, USA). Paired student t-tests were used to assess continuous variables. Pearson\u27s Chi-square and odds ratios were used for categorical variables. Results A total of 1,915 patients met this study\u27s inclusion criteria, and 127 MetS patients were identified in the cohort. The MetS cohort was older (62.7 vs 49.5 years old, p-value \u3c0.01), with a greater proportion of female patients (59.1% vs 50.2%, p=0.054). MetS patients experienced significantly higher rates of infectious complications (7.9% vs 3.9% OR 2.75 (CI 1.36-5.53), p=0.008), major adverse events (11% vs 4.3%, OR 2.79 (CI 1.53-5.09) p=0.002), and readmissions. MetS patients also had longer lengths of stay (7 days vs 3.8 days, p-value\u3c0.001), and were more likely to be discharged to a non-home location (51.2% vs 19.5%, p-value\u3c0.01, OR 4.32 (CI=3.0-6.24) p\u3c0.001). Conclusion Patients with MetS have an increased risk of 30-day major complications, infection, readmissions, discharge to a non-home location, and prolonged operative time, and therefore warrant additional consideration for perioperative monitoring

The entrepreneurial intention in female university students: an Italian case

The ability to create, develop and manage effective networks is important for academics. Networks can create entrepreneurial and commercialisation opportunities, act as important vehicles for career advancement, help to highlight achievements, and facilitate individuals’ career progression. However, while men’s success in gaining promotion has been attributed to their effective use of networks, women do not appear to have benefitted to the same extent. This chapter draws on qualitative empirical data from the TRIGGER project to explore critically the perceived barriers and potential benefits of networking for women academics. Adopting ecosystems as a theoretical lens, the authors explore the perceived barriers and potential benefits of networking for women academics

Adaptive responses by mouse early embryos to maternal diet protect fetal growth but predispose to adult onset disease

Poor maternal nutrition during pregnancy can alter postnatal phenotype and increase susceptibility to adult cardiovascular and metabolic diseases. However, underlying mechanisms are largely unknown. Here, we show that maternal low protein diet (LPD), fed exclusively during mouse preimplantation development, leads to offspring with increased weight from birth, sustained hypertension, and abnormal anxiety-related behavior, especially in females. These adverse outcomes were interrelated with increased perinatal weight being predictive of later adult overweight and hypertension. Embryo transfer experiments revealed that the increase in perinatal weight was induced within blastocysts responding to preimplantation LPD, independent of subsequent maternal environment during later pregnancy. We further identified the embryo-derived visceral yolk sac endoderm (VYSE) as one mediator of this response. VYSE contributes to fetal growth through endocytosis of maternal proteins, mainly via the multiligand megalin (LRP2) receptor and supply of liberated amino acids. Thus, LPD maintained throughout gestation stimulated VYSE nutrient transport capacity and megalin expression in late pregnancy, with enhanced megalin expression evident even when LPD was limited to the preimplantation period. Our results demonstrate that in a nutrient-restricted environment, the preimplantation embryo activates physiological mechanisms of developmental plasticity to stablize conceptus growth and enhance postnatal fitness. However, activation of such responses may also lead to adult excess growth and cardiovascular and behavioral diseases