The 'Iron Cage' strengthened? Discretion and digital discipline

Research on changes in public administration associated with the adoption and use of information and communication technologies ('informatization'), almost univocally supports the conclusion that shop floor discretion disappears under their influence. We, however, are ill at ease with this direction in thought about discretion. Our unease is based on the scholarly work about practices, organizational learning and responsiveness. In this article, we test the thesis on the relation between informatization and operational discretion in an empirical research of operational discretion and informatization in two Dutch public agencies, both large and both automated. Our findings show that informatization does not destroy operational discretion, but rather obscures discretion. Based on the work of Argyris, we show that the phenomenon at work is 'participatory boundary practices', the direct personal ties that keep an organization together. ICTs destroy such links and thereby affect organizational learning. © Blackwell Publishing Ltd. 2007

Leveraging the sport participation legacy of the London 2012 Olympics: Senior managers’ perceptions

The purpose of this study was to understand how a sports mega event (SME) was leveraged to try and increase participation, through the investigation of national governing bodies (NGBs) opinions and atti- tudes. Critical realism (CR) was used as a tool to aid understanding of leveraging and legacy conceptualisation, through an empirical investiga- tion. An extensive, mixed method online survey was conducted post London 2012 with senior staff members of NGBs, the main delivery agent chosen to support the participation initiatives associated with the London 2012 Olympics. This research provides valuable findings surrounding the use of CR as a tool to investigate legacy creation, whilst at the same time offering insights to enhance the policy implementation process within the sports development sector. The importance of com- munication, competitive nature of sports system, media, club engage- ment, organisational capacity and monitoring and evaluation were highlighted, which provided useful insights into the multidimensional constructs that can aid future leveraging strategies prior to hosting SMEs