Towards a Management Model for Sport and Physical Activity Community-based Partnerships

Abstract

Given the increasing popularity of the partnership concept and of sport and physical activity-based programs, this paper integrates the extensive North American and European management, sport management and political science literatures (in both French and English) to develop a partnership model for sport, community-based initiatives. The proposed model includes a three-part feedback loop: the formation of a partnership between two or more organizations (the antecedents), the management of the partnership and the partnership's evaluation, which feeds back into the antecedents and management. The partnership antecedents include the project's purpose, environment, nature of the partners and partnership planning. The partnership management aspects include the attributes of the partnership, communication and decision making. The partnership evaluation components include the type of evaluation and the determination of success/effectiveness. This paper therefore offers a comprehensive analytical framework of sport and physical activity community-based partnerships.