Organizational change in the run-up to a major sport event: The case of the European Athletics Championships 2006

Paper in proceeding, 2006

This paper is based on a study of a major sport event organization. Event organisations are interesting to study as they tend to change considerably during their life-time. Their work is also challenging as these organizations often consist of people with different backgrounds that have little or no experience of working together and the execution phase is in most cases very short. The focus of this paper is on organisational change within the Local Organizing Committee (LOC) formed to carry out the European Athletics Championships 2006 (EAC 2006) in Göteborg, Sweden. It focuses on the roles and functions of the people involved as well as the transformation of the organisation from planning to execution mode, in terms of organisational growth and organisational design. By contributing to knowledge within these areas, the development of appropriate organizations for projects with a short execution phase can be facilitated and researchers and project participants can be made aware of a number of potential organizational challenges. The study presented is part of a longitudinal study on the development of the LOC over a three year period.