A Bourdieusian Investigation into Reproduction and Transformation in the Field of Disability Cricket

Disability cricket in England and Wales exists within a constant state of change. This thesis is an organizational analysis of how environmental factors foster reproduction and/or transformation within the field of disability cricket. It is important to examine how these factors are translated across multiple levels of analysis; institutional, organizational, and individual. A layered analysis is important because it attempts to overcome the limitations of previous micro- and macro-approaches to change. A reflexive ethnography that involved three years of fieldwork allowed perceptions and meanings of change to be examined in real-time. This approach is novel in studies of institutional and organizational change. Data was collected through formal and informal interviews, active-member observations, and document analysis. The findings reveal a series of structural and cognitive consequences, which included a greater number of playing opportunities for disabled cricketers and the establishment of an economic market for disability cricket which ensured organizational commitment to accepting accountability and managerial pressures. While change occurred, the nature of organizational responses to these environmental factors varied. Drawing on the theoretical insights of Bourdieu (2005) and the institutional theory of translation (Czarniawska & Sevon, 1996), I demonstrate that these responses varied between organizations because of the relationship between the field, the organization’s doxa and the habitus of the individuals employed within. It concludes empirically that the translation of environmental factors is dependent on the interlinking relationships between institutions, organizations and individuals. The use of Bourdieu extends previous institutional analysis in sport management by providing a unique perspective on the role of organizations in reproducing inequality. As this thesis demonstrates institutional change is a recurrent theme in British sport organizations and further work is needed to examine the impact of these changes on the relations between sport organizations and the participants, employees and volunteers within them. As such it reinforces interdisciplinary calls to link sport management and the sociology of sport

Promoting universal accessibility for disabled and older fans to European stadia: A Holistic Journey Sequence Approach (HOPES)

The purpose of this chapter is to reinforce the notion that designing accessible and inclusive sport enviroments can have economic, social, and operational benefits and implicity benefits the whole of society. It is primarily intended for those students who might pursue a professional career in the sport venue industry. It can also be beneficial to sport governing body administrators, public servants and industry practitioners. Considering that universal accessibility is a complex issue, the planning, design, and management of stadia should not be the exclusive concern of architects and engineers as it has been in the past, and they should work closely with key stakeholders such as facility managers, contractors, professional experts like DLOs at club level, groups of fans with different disabilities and local official from the early stages. All of them should be familiar with relevant legislation, best practices of venues at global level, along with knowing the needs and expectations of both segments of consumers and spectator

On the Power and Weakness of Rational Expectations: Logical Fallacies, Periodic Bubbles and Business Cycles

A popular interpretation of the Rational Expectations/Efficient Markets hypothesis states that, if the hypothesis holds, then market valuations must follow a random walk. This postulate has frequently been criticized on the basis of empirical evidence. Yet the assertion itself incurs what we could call 'fallacy of probability diffusion symmetry': although market efficiency does indeed imply that the mean (i.e. expected) path must be a random walk, if the probability diffusion process is asymmetric then the observed path will most closely resemble not the mean but the median, which does not necessarily follow a random walk. To illustrate the implications, this paper develops an efficient markets model where the median path of Tobin's q ratio displays regular cycles of bubbles and crashes reflecting an agency problem between investors and producers. The model is tested against US market data, with results suggesting that such a regular cycle does indeed exist and is statistically significant. The aggregate production function in Gracia (Uncertainty and Capacity Constraints: Reconsidering the Aggregate Production Function, 2011) is then put forward to show how financial fluctuations can drive the business cycle by periodically impacting aggregate productivity and, as a consequence, GDP growth

The atomic simulation environment — a python library for working with atoms

The Atomic Simulation Environment (ASE) is a software package written in the Python programming language with the aim of setting up, steering, and analyzing atomistic simula- tions. In ASE, tasks are fully scripted in Python. The powerful syntax of Python combined with the NumPy array library make it possible to perform very complex simulation tasks. For example, a sequence of calculations may be performed with the use of a simple "for-loop" construction. Calculations of energy, forces, stresses and other quantities are performed through interfaces to many external electronic structure codes or force fields using a uniform interface. On top of this calculator interface, ASE provides modules for performing many standard simulation tasks such as structure optimization, molecular dynamics, handling of constraints and performing nudged elastic band calculations