Sport Management
Chris Chard, Ph.D.
Dr. Chris Chard research foci are twofold; the first focus is on the management of sport, specifically considering the brand and customer equity associated with
small to mid-sized sport organiza-tions (i.e. minor hockey, CIS, local gyms, OHL, and golf clubs). Secondly, Dr. Chard focuses on the environ-mental impacts of sport organizations including the carbon
footprints, carbon finance and sustainability of sport (i.e. balanced scorecard, triple-bottom-line, and carbon offsetting).
Laura Cousens, Ph.D.
Over the last 15 years, Dr. Laura Cousens’ program of research has evolved from a focus on marketing and sponsorship, to research designed to enhance our understanding of the role of sport in community development, and inter-organizational relationships in the context of
com-munity sport. Her doctoral research used a historical-comparative ap-proach to explore changes in North America’s professional sport industry between 1970 and 1997. More recently, Dr. Cousens has investigated networks of community sport
provid-ers with a focus on local basketball and swimming clubs in the Niagara Region of Ontario. This research explores the density, centrality, and multiplexity of ties characteristic of community sport networks. Furthermore, this research also seeks to investigate the insti-tutional context that shapes the logics, governance, and values of the leaders of commu-nity sport organizations.
Hilary A. Findlay Ph.D., LL.B.
Dr. Hilary Findlay’s research focuses on the decision-making and re-view functions within both international and national sport systems. In her research work, she pays particular attention to the systems of private sport-specific arbitration of the Court of Arbitration for Sport (internationally) and the Sport Dispute Resolution Centre of Canada (nationally) and the way in
which these processes impact the rights of athletes and how they are viewed by athletes. Dr. Findlay’s research is informed by her continued practice of law within the Canadian sport system.
Craig Hyatt, Ph.D.
Dr. Craig Hyatt’s main research focus is on sport fans. He is inter-ested in fans that do not necessarily fit into the existing theories on fandom as published by other fan researchers. Some of these atypical fans include fans that lost their
favourite team to franchise relocation, fans that grew up within the fan region of a local team and decided to cheer for a distant team in the same league instead, fans who switched loyalties from one team to another and fans that stopped being fans altogether. He has published his work in such journals as
the Journal of Sport Behavior, International Journal of Sport Management and Marketing, European Sport Management Quarterly, and Journal of Sport Management.
Shannon Kerwin, Ph.D.
Dr. Shannon Kerwin’s research follows two main lines of inquiry. The first area of interest rests in management and leadership within sport organizations. Specifically, Dr. Kerwin has looked at how personal and organizational values align in order to en-hance important organizational outcomes, the role of conflict in the effectiveness of volunteer boards of directors, and how leadership is developed and fostered within the context of team/organizational culture. Her doctoral research examined the presence of task and per-sonal related disagreements in provincial sport organization boards, and uncovered the con-flict trigger process that may occur in this setting. Second, Dr. Kerwin has investigated the experiences of event and “career” volunteers through samples
of large (e.g., Canadian Women’s Open [golf]) and small (e.g., 2013 Canoe Niagara) sport volunteer groups. The aim of this research is to evaluate the presence of sense of community that is fostered by sport volunteerism.
Lisa M. Kikulis, Ph.D.
Dr. Lisa Kikulis’ research interests bridge the broad field of policy and organizational studies. Her understanding of sport is that it takes place in a broad social, political, and organizational context and as such, she pursues issues to explore these contexts and their impact on sport policy and its implementation by and through government and non-government organizations. The specific proj-ects Dr. Kikulis is currently involved in are the examination of the Canadian Sport Policy and the Building Tennis Communities Strategy. Both projects enable Dr. Kikulis to explore the role of citizen engagement, community development, and the relation-ship between public and private interests.
Cheryl Mallen, Ed.D.
Dr. Cheryl Mallen focuses her research on sport facility management and sport event management, along with environ-mental sustainability (ES) performance. Through researching these topics, she has generated an ES measurement tool
for sport events, examined best practices, challenges, trends and interpretations of ES by the International Olympic Committee (IOC). In addition, Dr. Mallen is currently studying environmental advances in sport facility renewable energy and is also con-cerned with the advance of ES educational practices within the sport management academy. Specifically, Dr. Mallen is interested in studying the required ES competencies students need for their future. A pivotal element of Dr. Mallen’s research is the development of a framework for debating the future of ES in sport, published in the Sport Management Review. Additionally, her research manuscripts can be found in other sport journals, including the Journal of Sport Management and the European Sport Management Quarterly.
Kevin Mongeon, Ph.D.
Dr. Kevin Mongeon’s research is focused in the areas of sports economics and sports analytics. He has studied a wide range of topics including biased officiating, discrimination, and the production of winning in National Hockey League. Dr. Mon-geon research is quantitative and used both a frequantist and Bayesian approach to problem-solving and hypothesis testing.
Dr. Mongeon is also a principal owner of The Sports Analytics Institute that primarily provides consulting services to profes-sional sporting organizations relating to the development of their sports analytics programs and the evaluation of players.
Kirsty Spence, Ph.D.
Dr. Kirsty Spence is interested in re-search on leadership and leadership development topics. Fascinated by the study of work and those who are in-volved in sport management leadership contexts, Dr. Spence explores the rela-tionship between (effective) leadership
capacity and personal development, using the Leadership Development Framework (LDF) and the Washington University Sentence Completion Test (WUSCT). She also uses Wilber’s All Quadrant All Level (AQAL) Integral theory, as it applies to integral leadership,
experiential learning, and curricular design in trying to understand leadership development. Currently, Dr. Spence is involved in three research streams that involve leadership develop-ment and effectiveness, international sport for developdevelop-ment topics, and charity sport event management contexts. She regularly presents her research at various sport, organizational behaviour and interdisciplinary conferences and publishes research in a variety of sport
Julie Stevens, Ph.D.
Dr. Julie Stevens is the Director of the Centre for Sport Capacity. Her work focuses upon organizational analysis and sport and in projects, she asks the question - what does capacity mean to sport leaders and how do they build capacity in their organizations? She has worked with sport leaders in the field to identify key elements and types of capacity in nonprofit sport organizations. Currently, she is develop-ing a tool for sport managers to assess types of capacity within their organizations. Dr. Stevens is also a leading hockey scholar. Her insight on the history and devel-opment of female hockey in Canada and abroad generated a co-authored
work titled, “Too many men on the ice: Women’s hockey in North Amer-ica”, which is a definitive source about the female game. She explores critical issues facing hockey particularly the community-commercial tensions between professional and minor hockey. She has coached hockey at the Canada Winter Games and played varsity for Queen’s University. Currently, she coaches her son’s Novice AAA hockey team.
Lucie Thibault, Ph.D.
Dr. Lucie Thibault is the 2008 recipient of the Earle F. Zeigler Award and Research Fellow of the North American Society for Sport Management. She was the former Editor of the Journal of Sport Management and is an expert in the fields of sport policy, global issues in the sport industry, intergovernmental relations in sport and leisure, and interorganizational relation-ships between public and nonprofit sport organizations. As well, Dr. Thibault is a specialist in Canadian government involvement in
elite sport, sport development, and active living and the Canadian Sport Policy. Dr. Thibault has been a keynote presenter featuring her research for many conferences around the world (e.g., The Netherlands, Czech Republic, Greece, Australia, and Korea). Dr. Thibault is bilingual (fran-çais and english).
