Evaluation of Governance and Ethics in Sport

Evaluation of governance and ethics in sport

The awareness level of ethics is growing that work or competition in the public sphere is much more complex (European Institute of Public Administration, 2011). Proper government involvement or intervention has the potential to accelerate sustained even greater efforts from the private sector, particularly those create incentives that explicitly promote ethical corporate behavior and good governance (Sullivan, 2009). According to Nainawat and Meena(2013), governance refers to convey how the board is constituted and how its role perform and make functions. It emphasizes the issues of board institution and structure, the board’s remit and how it implements framework of the board’s standards of ethics, transparency accountability to its stakeholders. Sheng(n.d.) simply defined that governance means the process of decision-making and the process by which decisions are implemented or not carried out. It can be included and used into various circumstances such as corporate, international and local governance. And Präsidenten and Projekte(2004) have shown that governance is the management of society by people, or as the practice of authority to manage a country's public affairs and scarce resources. On the basis of the synthesis of previous definitions, it can be concluded that governance is a government's ability to do reasonable management of resources and sustainable policy-making so that deliver services to citizen effectively, regardless of whether that government is democratic or not. And good governance can hear voices of the most vulnerable group in society in decision-making and is responsive to the present and future needs of society (Fukuyama, 2013). With the aim to create and produce proper governance, ethics management is a indispensable and integral element as ethically good or acceptable behavior can improve citizens’ obedience to rules, in the meantime, promote the justice and fairness of broader social context (European Institute of Public Administration, 2011). When defined narrowly, ethics is a branch of philosophy that used to learn and imitate correct human behavior and ideal ways of thinking and being in order to decide on the conduct to be taken when faced with a moral problem. In the broader area, ethics is a systematic approach to understanding, analyzing and distinguishing matters of reasonable behaviors or not as it relates to the human well-beings and the relationships among sentient beings. (Rich, n.d.). Basically, ethics, as a concept and as a practice, extends far beyond individual business transactions as it underlies much of daily life as private citizens and it can provide for a basic social need by defining the behaviors people expect and will accept from one another (Allen, 1990). Thus, the importance of ethics can not only be seen in the narrow context, but need to be considered of higher public expectations regarding quality of public services and credibility of public employees (Sullivan, 2009). In sport industry, the good governance and ethical behavior requires the power to manage and cover a wide range of sports athletes around the world. Indeed, according to the fundamental principles set by Olympism, the essential sports organizations or committees within Olympic movement such as International Olympic Committee (IOC) and some supranational institutions are in charge of ensuring that principles of good governance are applied and implemented ethically and sustainably. Additionally, National Governing Bodies of Sport play a vital role in ensuring membership are informed and educated about anti-doping rules, and ensuring the whole environment is drug-free in order to guarantee the fair process and promote the spirit of sport (Chappelet & Mrkonjic, 2012). However, governance debate has been increasingly prescriptive, hence the current global questioned for so-called “good governance”. And Beech and Chadwick (2004) argued that “the practice of governance and ethics in sport is unsatisfactory”. In fact, after the beginning of the 21st century, the “good” governance should be called in question when sports organizations are facing with unethical cases such as FIFA corruption crisis in 2015. The occurrence of such events with multiple frequency increases awareness of the public toward these behavior with violation of regulations (BBC, 2015). As a consequence, this essay will analyze the organizational governance and ethics in current sports industry on the basis of different principles, then, offer reasonable recommendation to decrease the unethical behavior and promote the industry development.