SMAANZ 2019 Industry Award Presentation: Navigating Two Worlds: Pacific Contribution to Leadership within the New Zealand Rugby System
Gaye Bryham (AUT), Prof. Lesley Ferkins (AUT), Mike Hester (New Zealand Rugby) and Tracy Atiga (Pacific Advisory Group)
The Pacific community plays a vital part in New Zealand’s national game of rugby from a community level through to the professional game. This contribution is, however, largely on the playing field and it is not similarly reflected in leadership and governance roles. Rugby in New Zealand may therefore be missing out on the untapped potential of a collective group of people to further develop and enhance aspects of the game. There is growing recognition by global leadership researchers as to the value of a collective, relational and service orientation to leadership, an approach embedded within Pacific culture. Through Navigating Two Worlds, opportunity exists to not only create greater Pacific contribution to non-playing roles within rugby but to also enhance approaches to leadership within rugby.Navigating Two Worlds is a partnership between New Zealand Rugby, Auckland Rugby and AUT and is underpinned by an action research approach where change and learnings offer insight about culture, leadership and institutional practices. Such insights may contribute to changing the way we recognise and cultivate leadership within sport.
How far have we really come? Questions arising from Sport New Zealand’s Women and Girls Strategy
Alida Shanks, Prof. Sarah Leberman, Dr. Geoff Watson, & Dr. Farah Palmer (Massey University)
The New Zealand government introduced its first Women and Girls in Sport and Active Recreation strategy in October 2018. This included the stipulation that, by December 2021, all partner sports receiving over $50,000 a year from Sport New Zealand (SNZ) or High Performance Sport New Zealand (HPSNZ), will need to achieve a minimum of 40 percent gender balance on their boards, the achievement of which may be linked to funding. While the strategy was a fantastic step for women’s sport in New Zealand, it has raised some questions. By reviewing the existing literature and the influence of historical events, we examine how the strategy follows previous government reports showing governance gender targets are not new and not much has changed. In addition, given that the existing organisational structures of national sports organisations are not being challenged, is this strategy a case of ‘symbolic equality’ (Edelman, 2016)?
