VISITING GERMANY: MAINZ – CULTURE – THE OLYMPIC IDEA – QUO VADIS? 3rd International Symposium for Olympic Research – Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz

Dear guests, the entire team behind the "Olympic Idea Nowadays" research project  would like to give you a warm welcome.

It is a pleasure to share with you our 3rd  Edition of the International Symposium for Olympic Research, "The Olympic Idea – Quo Vadis?", hosted by Johannes Gutenberg University in Mainz, Germany.

About the Project

The purpose of the symposium is to add knowledge to the multi-step research project “OIN – Olympic Idea Nowadays”.

We aim to investigate the structure of values that are explicitly and implicitly associated with the Olympic Games as perceived in different cultures. During the event in Mainz, it will be assessed whether the Olympic Idea is still in good health present or declining. If the latter, we would like to explore which of the Olympic values are threatened today and which values may just have changed over time..

Results

The following results will be presented and discussed during the symposium:

• “Verifying” the Olympic values via rigorous and state-of-the art empirical studies; values for communication through Olympic Education programs

• Identifying  important implications for Olympic Organizations (IOC, NOCs, OCOGs, and NOA) in  reviving the values of the Olympic Games

• Making a contribution to Agenda 2020 and helping potential bid cities to activate the values among their population

• Helping media corporations and sponsors to identify sponsor-event fit characteristics

• Creating basic knowledge for future Olympic research and the OSC.

Description of the Project

The goal of the research project is to investigate the structure of values that are explicitly and implicitly associated with the Olympic Games. We like to know if the Olympic Idea is withheld, also if and how the perception is changing. Therefore we aim to find out whether some of the Olympic values are threatened today, and which values have changed or remained constant over time. The expected results are a verification of the Olympic values via rigorous and state-of-the art empirical studies, thus mean we update basic knowledge for future Olympic research.

The research project includes several sub-studies which are related and even internally connected to each other.

Methods during the overall research process

For this project a multi-method approach will be used as follows:

 

• Desk research in order to find values in scholarly works; literature review

 • Qualitative research (e.g., essays, expert interviews with open-ended questions)

 • Quantitative research (e.g., Delphi method, consumer survey, Implicit Association Test)

The crucial step in our studies is the identification of the Olympic values that are associated with the Games today. This will be done by cluster analyses and rigorous statistical scale development procedures (i.e., exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses). The resulting scale delivers a conclusive list of items that represent the structure of the Olympic values.

This scale will be evaluated in one country first using an explicit measurement tool (reflecting information that is consciously retrieved by consumers) and an implicit measurement tool (reflecting automatic associations between values and the Olympic brand made by consumers; using the Implicit Association Test).