Journal article publication, in the Events Management journal, by Mark Piekarz
Small management actions matter. Strategic and project management may set the grand vision of what a business wants to achieve, creating the structural architecture, but ultimately it is the multitude of micro-operational decisions, that delivers on the strategy and project. Just like the longest journey needs to begin with a single step, the biggest, most complex long term plans and projects, need to begin as the first item on a managers daily to-do-list.
Mark Piekarz examines these themes in his paper: ‘Why Small actions matter: observations of micro leveraging and event service operations during the Japan 2019 Rugby World Cup’ published in the Journal of Event Management, April 2024 (Volume 28, Number 2).
First known image of rugby in Japan, 1874, between British army and navy men with Mount Fuji in the background, then being reused in contemporary RWC 2019 marketing materials, to help show Japan’s long rugby heritage and association.
The paper examines how sport events are consistently presented as a resource that can bring change and positive improvements to communities, sport organisations and even a country’s international image. Crucially, however, these positive benefits should never be seen as automatically occurring. It is encouraged that a degree of skepticism of these positive event narratives are held, for the critical sport and event manager. Sport and sport events can do good: but they can also just as easily do bad, or indeed, nothing at all. The key to success is how the event is leveraged.
Examples of some impressive outputs achieved from the RWC, but these figures do not mean that outcomes are achieved
Leveraging, simply put, relates to the strategies, tactics and actions taken to try turn outputs (e.g. people watching/attending a sport event) into positive impacts, outcomes and legacies (e.g. behavioral changes, such as people continuing to be involved with rugby post-event, or having a stronger sense of community). Leveraging focuses on the ‘how’ not the ‘what’, whilst the idea of micro-leveraging focuses on specific tactical actions and smaller decision taken, by local stakeholders and decision makers.
Images of devastation for the city of Kamaishi from the 2011 Tsunami (19,000 people in Japan died, with 5,140 (plus 1,114 classed as missing); the city founded on steel, fish & rugby (the local team won 7 league title in a row ), whereby it leveraged the RWC to rebuild infrastructure, create remembrance monuments and to strengthen rugby in the City.
The work elaborates on the concept of micro-leveraging and its integration into operations management and the broader leveraging paradigm, offering a variety of practical examples which can be used by different stakeholders. Whilst the practical, tangible examples of micro-leveraging are more self-obvious in the paper, the paradigm element is more complex. To begin with, this paradigm elaboration has important applied elements, as it relates to how it shapes the cultural mindset for managers and stakeholders alike, when planning and delivering events.
Examples of smaller leveraging actions, that can help increase the impact of visitors, which entails not only sponsoring maps, but also, on the day, having barker signs in relevant languages, which helps direct behavior: signage, however, can also mean that visitors are just directed to sponsored zones, ignoring many local businesses, which in turn can minimizes the economic impacts of the event on the local community.
This cultural mindset or paradigm, has a number of features. Firstly, it acts as a reminder that achieving outputs (e.g., number of participants or visitors to an event) and social outcomes (e.g., develop stronger community bonds) are never automatic. What’s more, whilst outputs are a critical foundation for achieving the less tangible, social objectives and event legacies, they are rarely automatically achieved. In order to achieve both outputs and outcomes, visualization to the intervening leveraging tactics and actions is needed. Secondly, it views the operations process and micro leveraging actions as working in a dynamic, interactive environment, where multiple actions, by multiple stakeholders are necessary if the event is to be effectively leveraged.
Author (middle) feeling small with Canadian team players Kyle Baillie (left), lock, and Tyler Arden (right) ,flanker, at a fundraising event organised by non-affiliated charity, who were leveraging the RWC to help communities who were excluded from some of the direct RWC benefits in Kamaishi
As part of this discussion of the micro, one of the important themes which emerged was the value of having strong, genuine local stakeholder involvement, which builds moral capital and helps shape and add depth to the event experience for all. One of the assertions made is that these multiple micro leveraging actions play a key role in shaping multi-layered emotional experiences for visitors, volunteers and communities, which in turn can become a type of emotional capital, that can act as future fulcrum points to leverage against, to help achieve legacy outcomes.
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The winners and losers of the 2019 RWC.
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