Impact of austerity measures on National Sport Federations: evidence from Greece

Job and career satisfaction in an austerity environment: the role of job security and passion towards work

“…Job satisfaction and career satisfaction show high scores, whereas job security shows a moderate score; that is, lower than what one would expect from employees in municipal sport organisations, 71.2 per cent of whom were on tenure contracts. The context in which the data was collected -Greek municipal sport organisations -has been affected by economic tensions and drastic socio-economic reforms, which could explain the low levels of job security, as public sector organisations have been forced to adopt austerity measures (Giannoulakis et al, 2017). Nevertheless, the present study shows that harmonious passion has strong relationships with job and career satisfaction.…”

“…On the other hand, these organisations are faced with budget cuts, time constraints and increased pressure to perform at an optimum level with limited resources (Kerwin, 2016), or forced to follow a set of values and beliefs consistent with less professional practices (Papadimitriou, 1998). The latter is perhaps even more evident in countries that have been hit by the recent economic crisis (Giannoulakis et al, 2017).…”

“…Indeed, a recent study that looked at the consequences of austerity measures in the Greek sport federations (perhaps the prime European example of a country undergoing difficult times for almost a decade because of the economic crisis) highlighted a number of operational cost savings (including organisational restructuring, administrative costs, cancelation of sporting events, etc. ), which have had implications on employment in the industry (Giannoulakis et al, 2017). Therefore, job security (or rather, insecurity) may have explanatory power on both job satisfaction and career satisfaction, irrespective of the degree of passion -and for that matter, the type of passion -that administrative employees demonstrate for their job.…”

Sport policy and politics in an era of austerity

“…Ken Roberts (2017) offers a general review challenging whether austerity has stimulated crisis or adaptation in sport. His discussion is focused on spectatorship and participation yet, beyond these issues, there are only limited number of authors and contributions that have attempted to address this topic (see Collins and Haudenhuyse 2015, Parnell et al 2015, Giannoulakis et al 2017, Walker and Hayton 2017. Therefore, articles in this special issue contribute significantly to academic debates.…”

“…Yet this is but one (sizeable) part of the web of sport in Europe. Building on the work of Giannoulakis et al (2017) to further examine the impact of budgetary cuts and changes on elite sport provision is required. This research agenda needs to include the voices of coaches and athletes in order to understand the complex set of management issues that are at stake.…”