How business legacy influences organising body legitimacy in the delivery of mega events: The drift to myth at Rio 2016

Alessandro Merendino; David Bek; Jill Timms

doi:10.1016/j.jbusres.2021.02.038

How business legacy influences organising body legitimacy in the delivery of mega events: The drift to myth at Rio 2016

Alessandro Merendino, David Bek, Jill Timms

Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review

2 Citations (Scopus)

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Abstract

The extent to which mega events, such as the Olympics and World Expos, catalyse meaningful legacies is a contentious issue. However, the organisers of such events go to great lengths to develop business legacy plans in order to gain legitimacy with their wider stakeholders. This process constitutes a critical cornerstone for the overall success of the event, but business legacy plans tend to fade away after the delivery phase. Drawing upon the legitimacy literature, our study investigates this gap between planning and long-term delivery through a case study of the 2016 Rio Olympic Games. Interviews with forty-three directors of Rio 2016 were conducted between February-April 2016, in addition to the collection of field notes and secondary data. We find that Rio 2016 applied a decoupling strategy before and during the event to gain short-term legitimacy via legacy planning. However, a legitimacy drift was identified, whereby legacy delivery was side-lined and positive outcomes were minimal. We argue that the drive for legitimacy tends to be short-lived, and as legitimacy drifts, legacy becomes mythical. This has important implications for literature on legitimacy and legacy, organising bodies and for all businesses involved in event management.

Original language	English
Pages (from-to)	29-42
Number of pages	14
Journal	Journal of Business Research
Volume	129
Early online date	2 Mar 2021
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jbusres.2021.02.038
Publication status	Published - May 2021

Bibliographical note

NOTICE: this is the author’s version of a work that was accepted for publication in Journal of Business Research. Changes resulting from the publishing process, such as peer review, editing, corrections, structural formatting, and other quality control mechanisms may not be reflected in this document. Changes may have been made to this work since it was submitted for publication. A definitive version was subsequently published in Journal of Business Research, 129, (2021) DOI: 10.1016/j.jbusres.2021.02.038

© 2021, Elsevier. Licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/

Funder

This research is funded by the European Union Framework 7 Marie Curie International Research Staff Exchange Scheme Programme.

Keywords

legitimacy
legacy
legacy drift
mega events
Olympic Games
Rio 2016
corporate governance
international business
Mega events
International business
Corporate governance
Legacy drift
Legitimacy

ASJC Scopus subject areas

Marketing

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10.1016/j.jbusres.2021.02.038

Post-PrintAccepted author manuscript, 501 KBLicence: CC BY-NC-ND

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0148296321001284?dgcid=author

Cite this

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title = "How business legacy influences organising body legitimacy in the delivery of mega events: The drift to myth at Rio 2016",

abstract = "The extent to which mega events, such as the Olympics and World Expos, catalyse meaningful legacies is a contentious issue. However, the organisers of such events go to great lengths to develop business legacy plans in order to gain legitimacy with their wider stakeholders. This process constitutes a critical cornerstone for the overall success of the event, but business legacy plans tend to fade away after the delivery phase. Drawing upon the legitimacy literature, our study investigates this gap between planning and long-term delivery through a case study of the 2016 Rio Olympic Games. Interviews with forty-three directors of Rio 2016 were conducted between February-April 2016, in addition to the collection of field notes and secondary data. We find that Rio 2016 applied a decoupling strategy before and during the event to gain short-term legitimacy via legacy planning. However, a legitimacy drift was identified, whereby legacy delivery was side-lined and positive outcomes were minimal. We argue that the drive for legitimacy tends to be short-lived, and as legitimacy drifts, legacy becomes mythical. This has important implications for literature on legitimacy and legacy, organising bodies and for all businesses involved in event management. ",

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author = "Alessandro Merendino and David Bek and Jill Timms",

note = "NOTICE: this is the author{\textquoteright}s version of a work that was accepted for publication in Journal of Business Research. Changes resulting from the publishing process, such as peer review, editing, corrections, structural formatting, and other quality control mechanisms may not be reflected in this document. Changes may have been made to this work since it was submitted for publication. A definitive version was subsequently published in Journal of Business Research, 129, (2021) DOI: 10.1016/j.jbusres.2021.02.038 {\textcopyright} 2021, Elsevier. Licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/ ",

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AU - Bek, David

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How business legacy influences organising body legitimacy in the delivery of mega events: The drift to myth at Rio 2016

Abstract

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Keywords

ASJC Scopus subject areas

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