Milena Parent
Milena M. Parent, PhD., is a Full Professor at the University of Ottawa and Interim Director of the Olympic-Solidarity funded MEMOS (Executive Masters in Sport Organisation Management) programme. She is a North American Society for Sport Management Research Fellow and former Government of Ontario Early Researcher Award holder. She is an expert in sport (event) governance, having published in the top international management and sport management journals. She consults for governments & industry.
Biography
Milena Parent is an Associate Professor in sport management in the School of Human Kinetics at the University of Ottawa, as well as at the Norwegian School of Sport Sciences. She holds a Young Researcher Award from the University of Ottawa (2009) and an Early Researcher Award from the Government of Ontario (2010). She was also named a Research Fellow of the North American Society for Sport Management in 2009. She and one of her doctoral students also won the 2014 Sport Management Association of Australia and New Zealand Best Conference Paper Award.Dr. Parent’s research focuses on organization theory and strategic management, primarily in the context of major sport events (e.g., the Pan American Games, the Games of La Francophonie, FINA World Aquatics Championships, the Youth Olympic Games, and the Olympic Games). She is interested in the governance and management of the relationships between the organizing committee and its various stakeholders. She teaches sport management courses in both official languages at the undergraduate and graduate levels.
She obtained her PhD from the Faculty of Physical Education and Recreation at the University of Alberta. She became interested in sport management because of her background in figure skating, having been a competitive figure skater, coach, volunteer, and administrator. This led to a masters' degree in Sport Administration and a stint as the Technical Officials’ Coordinator for the 2001 Games of La Francophonie. Most recently, she was a protocol and language services manager for the 2010 Vancouver Olympic Winter Games. She has also consulted for the Aquatics Federation of Canada, the Office of the Commissioner of Official Languages, and the International Olympic Committee. She currently sits on the Canadian Sport Policy 2012 Policy Implementation and Monitoring Work Group and is co-chair of the 2015 North American Society for Sport Management Conference.
Dr. Parent’s international research program on sport event governance has garnered her over $1 million in external funding (research grants, operational, and contracts) from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada, governments, and industry as principal investigator or co-investigator.
She has obtained published articles in top management and sport management journals including the Journal of Sport Management, European Sport Management Quarterly, Sport Management Review, Journal of Business Ethics, and Event Management. She is the co-author of Managing Major Sports Events: Theory and Practice (with Sharon Smith-Swan, Routledge, 2013), Understanding Sport Organizations: The Application of Organization Theory (2nd edition, with Trevor Slack, Human Kinetics, 2006), and Key Concepts in Sport Management (with Terri Byers and Trevor Slack, SAGE, 2012). She has co-edited The Routledge Handbook of Sports Event Management (with Jean-Loup Chappelet, Routledge, 2015) and The Youth Olympic Games (with Dag Vidar Hanstad and Barrie Houlihan, Routledge, 2014). She has presented her research at various international management and sport management conferences, including the North American Society for Sport Management, European Association for Sport Management, Sport Management Association of Australia and New Zealand, Administrative Sciences Association of Canada, and Academy of Management conferences.
Education
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PhD, University of Alberta, Edmonton, Canada, 2005
MA, University of Ottawa, Ottawa, Canada, 2001
Areas of Research / Professional Expertise
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Sport management; Sport event management; Organization theory; Strategic management; Stakeholder network management; Governance
Personal Interests
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Good food, good wine, good books, Argentine Tango, and travel
Websites
Books
Articles
The sustainability of the Youth Olympic Games: Stakeholder networks and institut
Published: Jul 04, 2015 by International Review for the Sociology of Sport
Authors: Parent, M. M., Kristiansen, E., Skille, E., Hanstad, D.V.
Subjects:
Business, Management and Accounting, Sports and Leisure
This paper explored the Youth Olympic Games’ (YOG) potential sustainability (survival and success) through an analysis of how actors exert various forms of pressure on the YOG. The stakeholder network analysis revealed three central stakeholders for the YOG’s sustainability: the International Olympic Committee (IOC), the media (press and broadcast), and the athletes’ parents.
'We can do it': Community, resistance, social solidarity, and long-term voluntee
Published: May 01, 2015 by Sport Management Review
Authors: 8. Kristiansen, E., Skirstad, B., Parent, M. M., Waddington, I
Subjects:
Business, Management and Accounting, Sports and Leisure
This study contextualizes the long-term commitment found in a whole community of volunteers and to explain this pattern of collective volunteering not in terms of individual motivations but in terms of broader social processes. Long-term volunteering can be understood in terms of (i) a high level of social integration; (ii) the creation of a collective identity focused around the ski flying hill; and (iii) the maintenance and reinforcement of strong community identity and social solidarity
Urban sportscapes: An environmental deterministic perspective on the management
Published: May 01, 2015 by Sport Management Review
Authors: 9. O'Reilly, N., Berger, I., Hernandez, T., Parent, M.M., Seguin, B
Subjects:
Business, Management and Accounting, Sports and Leisure
This paper examines sport participation from an environmental perspective by considering the dynamic role of the sportscape (built-form and supporting infrastructure) in enabling, facilitating and promoting youth sport participation. The results demonstrate that the geography of sport is not only about where sport venue built-forms are located, but also what types of sport infrastructure are available.
Evolution and issue patterns for major-sport-event organizing committees
Published: Mar 13, 2015 by Journal of Sport Management
Authors: Parent, M.M.
Subjects:
Business, Management and Accounting, Sports and Leisure, Tourism, Hospitality and Events
The purpose of this article is to develop a framework of how organizing committees operationally evolve and the types of issues with which they and their stakeholders must deal.
Athletes' experiences at the Youth Olympic Games
Published: Oct 07, 2014 by Event Management
Authors: Parent, M. M., Kristiansen, E., MacIntosh, E. W.
Subjects:
Sports and Leisure, Tourism, Hospitality and Events
The purpose of this article was to understand young athletes' experiences at a youth sport festival, specifically the Youth Olympic Games (YOG). A mixed methods approach was used, comprising of qualitative and quantitative questionnaires with athletes from Canada and Norway, and observations during the 2012 Winter YOG in Innsbruck, Austria.
The theory and practice of knowledge management and transfer
Published: May 01, 2014 by Sport Management Review
Authors: Parent, M. M., MacDonald, D., Goulet, G.
Subjects:
Business, Management and Accounting, Sports and Leisure, Tourism, Hospitality and Events
The purpose of this paper was to examine the theory and practice of knowledge management processes, using the Olympic Games as the empirical setting and the Olympic Games Organizing Committee and its stakeholders as participants.
Organizational Culture Evolution in Temporary Organizations
Published: Oct 30, 2013 by Canadian Journal of Administrative Sciences
Authors: Parent, M. M., MacIntosh, E. W.
Subjects:
Business, Management and Accounting, Sports and Leisure, Tourism, Hospitality and Events
We examine organizational culture evolution within a temporary organization, specifically the 2010 Olympic Winter Games organizing committee, by exploring aspects of the work environment.
The Youth Olympic Games: The best of the Olympics or a poor copy?
Published: Apr 04, 2013 by European Sport Management Quarterly
Authors: Hanstad, D. V., Parent, M. M., Kristiansen, E.
Subjects:
Business, Management and Accounting, Sports and Leisure, Tourism, Hospitality and Events
This paper explores the new event in the Olympic Movement, the Youth Olympic Games (YOG) in Innsbruck, Austria, in 2012, and examines the similarities and differences between the winter editions of the YOG and the Olympic Games (OG).
The Sustainability of the Youth Olympic Games
Published: Apr 02, 2013 by International Review for the Sociology of Sport
Authors: Parent, M. M., Kristiansen, E., Skille, E., Hanstad, D.V.
Subjects:
Business, Management and Accounting, Sociology & Social Policy, Sports and Leisure, Tourism, Hospitality and Events
This paper explored the Youth Olympic Games’ (YOG) potential sustainability (survival and success) through an analysis of how actors exert various forms of pressure on the YOG.
How to win a bid for major sporting events?
Published: Aug 01, 2012 by Sport Management Review
Authors: Hautbois, C., Parent, M. M., Séguin, B.
Subjects:
Business, Management and Accounting, Sports and Leisure, Tourism, Hospitality and Events
Using the power, legitimacy and urgency framework by Mitchell et al. (1997), we examine the 2018 Olympic Winter Games’ French national bid competition (four candidacies) to analyse the stakeholder relationships, identify their salience and then determine stakeholder-based bid key success factors.