Driving and sustaining culture change in professional sport performance teams: A grounded theory

Objectives As part of the recent upsurge of work on management and organizational factors in elite sports teams, researchers have focused on the team management-led creation and regulation of high performing cultures. The purpose of this study was to therefore add to a recently developed model of culture change best practice in Olympic sports teams, as led and perceived by incoming performance directors, and conceptualize culture change best practice in professional sports teams, as led and perceived by incoming team managers. Design and method A pragmatic research philosophy and corresponding grounded theory methodology were used to generate a practically-meaningful model of this culture change process from the perspective of UK-based professional team managers. Results Perceived best practice in team manager-led culture change was found to involve a finite phase of initial evaluation, planning, and impact adjoined to the enduring management of a holistic, integrated, and dynamic social system. With the former process acting as the catalyst for successful change, this model revealed that optimal change was felt to primarily rely on the constant acquisition, negotiation, and alignment of internal and external stakeholder perceptions. Conclusions Based on the model's principles, the optimization of professional team culture is defined by a manager's initial actions and never definitively achieved but rather constantly constructed and re-constructed in complex social and power dynamics. Beyond providing a conceptual backdrop for continued research in this area, the model is also a tool on which the practice of professional team managers and their supporting sport psychologists can be based

The P7 approach to the Olympic challenge: Sharing a practical framework for mission preparation and execution

The Olympic Games represent the biggest and third biggest sporting occasions in the world (Summer and Winter respectively). As such, dealing with the various challenges and optimizing performance at this event has been an important dual focus for team leaders, coaches, performers, and their supporting sport psychologists. In this paper, we share an organizational approach to planning and preparation that, in our experience, provides an effective setup for athletes, coaches, and support teams alike. Specifically, this presented framework enables the focused tasking of support staff and resources to address both individual and specific challenges. To illuminate the route via which this approach delivers its impact, underpinning mechanisms, advantages, and other considerations are also presented

Illuminating and applying “The Dark Side”: Insights from elite team leaders

In contrast to socially desirable behaviors, recent work has suggested that effective elite team leadership also relies on socially undesirable behaviors. Accordingly, this study aimed to further explore the authenticity of dark side leadership behaviors, what they look like, and how they may be best used. Via interviews with 15 leaders, behaviors associated with Machiavellianism/mischievousness, skepticism, social dominance, and performance-focused ruthlessness were found. Moreover, these behaviors were enabled by leaders’ sociopolitical awareness and engineering as well as their adaptive expertise. Findings promote practitioner sensitivity to dark side leadership and, for leader effectiveness, sociopolitical and temporal features of its application

Generators and relations for the unitary group of a skew hermitian form over a local ring

Let $(S,*)$ be an involutive local ring and let $U(2m,S)$ be the unitary group associated to a nondegenerate skew hermitian form defined on a free $S$-module of rank $2m$. A presentation of $U(2m,S)$ is given in terms of Bruhat generators and their relations. This presentation is used to construct an explicit Weil representation of the symplectic group $Sp(2m,R)$ when $S=R$ is commutative and $*$ is the identity. When $S$ is commutative but $*$ is arbitrary with fixed ring $R$, an elementary proof that the special unitary group $SU(2m,S)$ is generated by unitary transvections is given. This is used to prove that the reduction homomorphisms $SU(2m,S)\to SU(2m,\tilde{S})$ and $U(2m,S)\to U(2m,\tilde{S})$ are surjective for any factor ring $\tilde{S}$ of $S$. The corresponding results for the symplectic group $Sp(2m,R)$ are obtained as corollaries when $*$ is the identity

Hermitian and skew hermitian forms over local rings

We study the classification problem of possibly degenerate hermitian and skew hermitian bilinear forms over local rings where 2 is a unit

Driving and sustaining culture change in Olympic sport performance teams: A first exploration and grounded theory

Stimulated by growing interest in the organizational and performance leadership components of Olympic success, sport psychology researchers have identified Performance Director-led culture change as a process of particular theoretical and applied significance. To build on initial work in this area, and develop practically meaningful understanding, a pragmatic research philosophy and grounded theory methodology were engaged to uncover culture change best practice from the perspective of newly appointed Performance Directors. Delivered in complex and contested settings, results revealed that the optimal change process consisted of an initial evaluation, planning, and impact phase adjoined to the immediate and enduring management of a multi-directional, perception- and power-based social system. As the first inquiry of its kind, these findings provide a foundation for the continued theoretical development of culture change in Olympic sport performance teams and a first model on which applied practice can be based

Positive Polynomials on Riesz Spaces

We prove some properties of positive polynomial mappings between Riesz spaces, using finite difference calculus. We establish the polynomial analogue of the classical result that positive, additive mappings are linear. And we prove a polynomial version of the Kantorovich extension theorem.Comment: 12 page