Exploring a ‘bricolage’ approach for entrepreneurship in deprived host communities as part of the Olympic legacy

Mega-sport events (MSEs), like the Olympics represent a golden opportunity for urban development and renewal (Gold and Gold, 2008). Central to the legitimization and justification of hosting mega-events, bidding cities emphasize and attempt to create positive, inclusive local socio-economic development ambitions to maximize the strategic value of hosting (Chalip, 2017). Smith (2012) argues that so-called “Olympic legacies” have become a central feature of MSEs, focusing on the likely things to be 'bequeathed' by host country, city and communities. However, major international policy (e.g. OECD, 2008) and domestic governmental organisations (e.g. House of Lords, 2013) have, and continue to question the uneven and inequitable local developmental outcomes of MSEs. Yet, this contrasts the IOC’s virtuous aim of building “sustainable” communities as extolled in the Olympic 2020 Agenda, and across specific host city candidature bids. Empowering host city communities and fostering a legacy of social and economic growth at the heart of Rio’s 2016 Candidature Bid (2009), and the IOC’s wider Olympic 2020 Agenda. Both IOC and host city developmental objectives, specifically since London 2012, have placed entrepreneurship (including social entrepreneurship (SE)) as a key way to achieve positive regional development legacies. Yet, although we know why building entrepreneurial capacity is vital for leveraging the Olympic opportunity, little to no research examines how locals within specifically targeted host communities can approach entrepreneurship – and be entrepreneurial – in the highly circumscribed, contested and dynamic business environments created by the coming and ‘live staging’ of MSEs. We explore the approach of ‘bricolage’ to explore, specifically, how entrepreneurial individuals and collectives residing within deprived and/or ‘slum’ communities (e.g. favelas in the context of Rio 2016, and areas of East London for London 2012) can utilise a disparate amalgam of local resources and networks to leverage. We argue that a creative, pro-active approach by local entrepreneurs, institutionally supported by external agencies like the IOC, National Olympic Committees (NOCs) and local government and authorities could be vital in ensuring that less-visible host communities prosper from the Games alongside new and established gentrified urban communities and touristic hot spots. By doing so, MSEs may be able to better (re)distributed social and economic benefits back into the development of communities who served to legitimise and justify event policy intervention in the first place (Pappalepore and Duignan, 2016).