Case study

This thesis is based around the ‘event case study’ of the London 2012 Games, where the primary interest is the ODA’s perspective of implementing and enforcing the new Olympic advertising and trading regulations. The event case study also reflects the views of other bodies in the wider Olympic regulatory constellation; for example, JLARS (a “sectoral regulator operating in the same sector” [Rommel, 2009], Trading Standards (a “sectoral regulator in another sector” [Rommel, 2009), and the UK Government - specifically DCMS and the Cabinet Secretariat for London 2012 (both “general regulators” [Rommel, 2009]).

3.4.3.1 Why case study?

The method of case study was chosen for a number of reasons, including that it is the most common research method employed by other critical realists (Fleetwood, 2013; Easton, 2010; Mutch, 2007; Kitching, et al., 2015) because it is well suited to providing explanations for social phenomena (Madureira, 2007). Yin (2014) also supports the use of case studies as they have a distinct advantage when a how and/or why question is being asked in a context that the researcher has little control over. However, the fact that case study research method is the typical approach used by critical realists does not automatically mean that it is suitable for my research; additional justification is needed.

The use of a case study approach, combined with a CR ontological position when investigating the interactions between organisations (i.e. the ODA and small firms) is supported by Easton (2010, p.123, emphasis added) who notes, “A critical realist case study approach is well suited to relatively clearly bounded, but complex, phenomena such as organisations, interorganisational relationships, or nets of connected organisations”. Furthermore, Yin (2014) argues that a case study approach provides a key opportunity not only to understand a phenomenon in-depth but also to investigate it within its real-life context. Henceforth, considering Yin’s (2014) position, the case study approach fits the overall aim of this thesis which is: to investigate the regulators’ perspective of engagements with small firms when operationalising a new regulatory chain (i.e. rule-making, licensing, monitoring, and enforcement) as seen in the case of the London 2012 Olympic Games. Additionally, the research questions of this thesis, particularly around the implementation (RQ2) and enforcement (RQ3) of the London 2012 advertising and trading regulations can be better understood when articulated using a case study approach which emphasises the influence of social/cultural norms on the actions of individual respondents; thus allowing for the identification and explanation of emergent causal powers that determined the regulatory

relationship with business at London 2012. For example, the research considers formal, legally powerful mechanisms (social structures) such as the LOPGA 2011 against informal mechanisms (e.g. the discretionary actions of the regulatory agents). Furthermore, Easton (2010) notes that the use of a case study approach when answering the research questions of a thesis can better facilitate the identification and discussion of a generative mechanism – a key requirement of CR research.

Understanding the generative mechanism requires detailed empirical data on which to base any argument. An advantage of using the case study research strategy to gather such in-depth data was highlighted by Verschuren (2003) who suggested that the method of case study allows for ‘iterative-parallel research’, i.e. moving back and forth between diverse stages of the research project. Thus, it allowed me to go back and collect more data in order to achieve the necessary saturation of data for the identification of tendencies used to form the generative mechanism (Easton, 2010). This flexibility was one of the major benefits of case study research for this thesis, and is one not shared by other research methods, for example surveys.

3.4.3.2 Why London 2012?

Within the case study of London 2012, the new Olympic advertising and trading regulations were only applicable in the 27 event zones, each one containing at least one sporting venue (e.g. a stadium). The process of mapping out the Olympic event zones occurred during what the ODA organisers (Interviewee #1 and Interviewee #4) called the ‘implementation’ phase, which predominantly occurred between 2010 and early 2012 and involved the detailed planning and design of a set of enforceable regulations tailored to London 201215 _{in line} with the prescriptions of the LOPGA (2006; 2011). The regulations were enforced according

15 _{These new tailored regulations were set out in the ‘Detailed Provisions for Advertising and Trading}

to each zone’s event period, determined by the timing of the relevant sporting events during the Olympics and Paralympics.

The background and specifics of the implementation and enforcement of the regulations have been discussed extensively in the preceding chapters of the thesis: e.g. in the introduction, section 1.4 lays out the context of the Olympics and the relevant regulatory bodies of interest, and in the literature review, section 2.6 lays out the legislative context and relevant formal structures. As a result, to avoid repetition it was deemed more pertinent to discuss why the case of London 2012 was chosen for this research here, rather than lay out a summary case study.

At the onset of this research I identified a lack of understanding of the regulators’ side of the regulator-small firm relationship, as well as the ‘regulation as burden’ rhetoric which was prevalent in academic literature, albeit one-sided sounding (please see literature review, section 2.6). I was interested in finding out more about the interactions between regulators and small firms, and also about the way regulations get implemented and enforced but was constrained by the timescale of a PhD. As a result, choosing the case study that was going to inform my research was a particularly challenging and time consuming aspect of this thesis. I conducted extensive reading around a variety of regulatory contexts (e.g. planning and building regulations, environmental regulations, and food standards) before pinpointing the case of the London 2012 Olympics.

London 2012 was chosen because it yielded the following three advantages. Firstly, because of the velocity of incoming Olympic-related regulation, the regulatory chain and the interactions between agencies in the regulatory constellation - as well as subsequent engagements with small firms - could all be investigated by exploring a period of time that was relatively short (Rommel, 2009; McGillivray and Frew, 2015). Secondly, the speed at

which the new Olympic-related regulation was implemented meant that the temporal dynamics of consultations, policy outputs, amendments, and conflicts between bodies in the regulatory constellation would be more apparent than normal because the time gaps between the events were shorter, helping me understand regulators’ behaviour during the implementation of the new regulations (RQ2). Finally, prior research of advertising and trading regulations at London 2012 exclusively saw these as a strict burden on local businesses, yet none of those studies (e.g. James and Osborn 2011a; 2011b) were followed up on after the event to see what actually happened, nor was any research conducted from the regulators’ perspective of enforcing these new regulations (RQ3).

Additionally, while this research does not engage in discussions outside of the event case study, the choice of London 2012 allowed for perspectives from entities outside of the case study boundary to be considered as they were useful for understanding regulators’ engagements with small firms (both in Olympic and everyday, non-Olympic setting). For example, the research drew on perspectives from members of Trading Standards, a non- Olympic regulator. These perspectives were relevant because the arm of the ODA responsible for implementing and enforcing the Olympic advertising and trading regulations was made up of staff (e.g. senior management and enforcement officers) that almost exclusively had a Trading Standards background and/or were directly seconded from that organisation. The perspectives gained from the interviewed members of trading standards highlighted an important link between how respondents’ everyday experiences of organisational life in trading standards informed their thinking when enforcing the Olympic advertising and trading regulations.