The Brighton Declaration on Women and Sport : a management audit of process quality

Abstract

The development of gender mainstreaming programs and proactive work aimed at addressing the historical imbalances of women in all sectors of society have become the staple of most international meetings with a concern for human rights. From a sport perspective, a number of organizations are keeping this critical issue alive at global, regional, international and national levels through policy documents, declarations and calls for action since 1948 to 2008 with the Dead Sea call for action. The Brighton Declaration on Women and Sport signed in 1994 by 250 signatories is universally regarded as the ground-breaking work on Women and Sport. Yet, despite years of campaigning and numerous policy documents, legislation and world conferences on women and sport, a marked gender imbalance in sport still persists. Little or no qualitative evidence could be found of clear process strategies to be followed by signatories of the Brighton Declaration on how to translate strategic intent into quality management processes to attain the envisioned result of the Declaration. Successful implementation of the principles of the Brighton Declaration depends on quality internal organizational processes and standards. The research question for the study was hence formulated as: “Do signatories of the Brighton Declaration have appropriate management processes and standards in place to translate the principles of the Declaration into sustainable practice?” The study was approached from a qualitative perspective as the perceptions of signatories relative to the quality of management processes have been evaluated. A questionnaire (Cronbach’s Alpha Coefficient ∞=0.978) based on ISO 9001-2000 management standards was used as a research instrument and administered to 246 currently existing signatories of the Brighton Declaration. A response rate of 51% (n=125) was attained. Several international and regional organizations emerged as role players in women and sport. The United Nations provided leadership through conventions on human rights, Millennium Development Goals and declaring 2005 as International Year of Sport and Physical Education. The International Olympic Committee took initiative through quadrennial world conferences on women and sport since 1994. From the seminal “Women, Sport and the Challenge of Change” conference in Brighton, England in 1994, flowed three culminating results: the Brighton Declaration on Women and Sport, the International Working Group on Women and Sport and the International Strategy on Women and Sport. The Brighton Declaration signed by 250 signatories, enlarged and coordinated the global debate on women and sport as the first declaration to provide a worldwide ethical frame of reference and paradigm shift in social change for the construct of women in sport and women and sport. The issue of women and sport continuously remains on the agenda of global social change. The convening power of sport makes it a compelling tool for social change provided its potential is harnessed through sustainable management and processes. Social change necessitates an understanding of social change theories, stages of change management, the role of change agents as well as change management models. The major challenge facing women and sport groups is to translate strategic intent into measurable and replicable business process standards. Designing and institutionalizing processes and standards can be the mechanism to realize strategic intent and progress signatories through the stages of change management. Dawson’s (1994) processual model is used as a theoretical framework to conceptualize process management and to build a case for mapping business processes, managing quality of the processes, and continuously auditing processes through replicable standards. ISO 9001-2000 standards were selected as the instrument to audit quality management processes of signatories. Overall results obtained from the research questionnaire indicated an alarming ignorance of the Brighton Declaration as a benchmark of efforts to improve the position of women in sport and second an absence of management processes and standards to guide the process within signatories of the declaration. Only 2.8% of respondents indicated a process management system. Signatories have not institutionalized gender mainstreaming in a sport context. Results confirmed unequivocally H1 set for the study: the quality of management processes followed by signatories of the Brighton Declaration on Women and Sport (1994) to achieve the principles of the stated declaration is unsatisfactory. It was concluded that, in essence, the Brighton Declaration is an initiative to affect social change in the context of sport. Efforts to achieve the desired social change have to be managed and benchmarked according to change management models and processes to retain credibility and attain replicable and repeatable results. The ISO 9001-2000 is deemed a reliable instrument and framework to guide management process design, mapping, documenting, implementing, supporting, monitoring and controlling management processes. The alarming lack of management processes resulted in a significant gap between strategic intent and reality and suggests that the notion of gender mainstreaming feeds on emotion rather than replicable management processes. The Brighton Declaration as a seminal document will not impact substantially on achieving gender mainstreaming in sport as signatories have not succeeded in creating a critical mass necessary to tip the scale. Results also indicated that signatories are locked into the introductory stages of change management because of the lack of organized change. Low levels of competent leadership responsible for managing the change process results in loss of corporate memory regarding the Brighton Declaration. The study is concluded with recommendations and managerial guidelines focusing on building a critical mass, revisiting the significance of the seminal Brighton Declaration. A universal declaration on women and sport is recommended to serve as the nexus for global efforts to improve the position of women in sport. Signatories should adopt a managerial approach to the implementation of the Brighton Declaration rather than a social philanthropic awareness approach to move forward. Implications for further study center around investigating possible performance management systems in order to refine or supplement the recommended ISO 9001-2000 standards for quality management processes, longitudinally audit quality management processes at international and regional levels, and probing the possibility of formulating a universal declaration on women and sport to accelerate critical mass building in the context of women and sport.