SAGE Analysis in Six Major Issues in Youth Sports - Case Study Example

Application of SAGE analysis in six major issues in youth sports. Introduction This project will be focused on applying the SAGE analysis in six major issues in youth. In this document, there will be provision of the SAGE Sequence for ethical decision making in management for each of the issues presented in youth sports. (Sage)The goal of this project will be based on seeing and analyzing the ethical or moral issue, generating the options for managing the ethical or moral issue, and finally evaluating the options given to solve the issue. This project has a lot of potential to deliver strong solutions of how to diminish the issues in youth sports. It will mainly discuss how these issues are generated and why it becomes a conflict for society. (Smith, Smoll and Ptacek)These areas include; 1. Out of control parents 2. Child exploitation 3. Youth sports dropouts 4. Endangering young athletes health 5. Sexual Abuse 6. Violence in youth sports. In spite of the above mentioned problems, the youth sports program is focused and determined to do a great deal of good for families and children in the area. The first thing they have done in order to counter this issues is the mare fact of acknowledging that this issues do exist and everybody in the youth sport fraternity has to confront these problems. (Houlihan)The other strategy is to understand the important role the youth sports play in the society, and identify and understand the powerful psychological pressure these sports exert on families, children, and the community. SAGE analysis in Sport Issues Sport is a freely or a voluntarily chosen activity, that is governed by rules activities that involve competition and physical challenging in a mutual challenge to achieve a goal or excellence. Participants are required to abide by the rules of the sport, and produce excellent results at the end. (Richard Thorpe)Some rules may be manipulated and changed to fit new conditions of the game, or due to introduction of better ways of officiating the sport so as to keep the game challenging, and in a way keep and promote fair play within the bounds of decency as far as the game is concerned. This whole idea of physical challenge and excellence in terms of results leads to a number of issues. Ethics issues are defined as conflicts of rights and responsibilities, conflicts of preferred consequences or conflicts of values. (Houlihan)In sports, they are known as sports ethics issues which mostly arise from sports related moral conflicts. Generally, ethics is the study of values theories and principles that are invoked so as to justify one’s choice over another. Ethical theories display categories of moral relativism and moral absolutism beliefs in explaining the world. (Catherine Marshall)Management may be defined as the operation and organization of a system created to achieve a goal. In management, tools are created to aid in smooth management of the operation; some important tools in this project include the general stakeholder analysis that is the identification of each group or individual affected by a situation and the economic or moral implications they have in that situation, and strategic stakeholder analysis; which is the identification of those factors and stakeholders capable of keeping the organization from achieving its goals or harming the organization. Also in the project, decision making will be a big factor; decision making may be defined as the act of choosing among some options, and selecting it as the one to be undertaken by the organization, and therefore, forsaking the rest of the options. Mostly, this is done by the management, and the process includes framing or identifying the problem, analyzing and gathering information, and lastly formulating probable solutions to solve the problem. The most important part of this project is to identify and show how SAGE can be used by management to overcome the issues youths face in sports. Let’s give a brief account of SAGE, and identify the management method for applying morality and ethics, that will aim at making a better managerial decision concerning this project. (Catherine Marshall)SAGE (Seeing, Analyzing, Generate options and Evaluate) analysis is an all-round criterion of identifying an issue and solving it at the same time. In ‘Seeing’ methodology, one is supposed to know who are the stakeholders and the moral stakes of each stakeholder. A lot of questions are raised here concerning the sociological, economic, and moral stakes of a stakeholder and whoever is determining the stakes. Most of the issues that can be raised at this stage include intrinsic values of a stakeholder, his/her obligations and responsibilities, violation of his or her rights, excusing or mitigating condition of the stakeholder and his or her instrumental values. Secondly, let’s look at ‘Analyzing’ methodology. At this stage most issues and facts about the stakeholder might have been identified, so here, a team will take time to analyze the facts of the moral stakes of the person in discussion. (Luiz Moutinho)Here, in determining the moral stakes that a stakeholder ought to have in a management situation, the following questions arise; are the stakes of the stakeholder justified by an appeal to principles, ethical concepts and theories; in the case of moral stakes, are there alternative accounts of the facts that affect them, with additional of evidence, can the alternative accounts be resolved; and lastly, identification of the most significant moral conflicts. (Richard Thorpe)The third methodology is ‘Generating options’ which is the present way to resolve the moral conflicts creatively. At this stage, the manager or management examines and faces the available options in that current situation to resolve, or stabilize the moral conflicts identified in both ‘seeing’ and ‘analyzing’ phases of SAGE. Then this is followed by the exercise of choosing or creating actions or decisions or a series of actions and decisions that can be used to resolve or prevent the moral conflicts from occurring or recurring. (Sage)Lastly the management goes through a process of seeking what anybody else can do to resolve or stabilize the moral conflict in this situation. The last step is ‘Evaluation’, which involves choosing or selecting the best option based or in relation on the application of sociological, principles, managerial norms or ethical. To get the best option one must show which reasons involving the principles, theory in ethics, or concepts were used to support the options; and in conjunction with that, one must also show or identify reasons involving the theory of ethics, principles, or concepts that might run counter the best option chosen. Also, at this stage it is evoked to select the most important conflicts, as well as, choose the option if one was the manager in this situation. (Catherine Marshall)After one goes through the process of SAGE, then one’s probability of solving an issue is increased and enhanced. Let’s now look how SAGE can be deployed and used or applied to solve the six issues facing youth sports, and in the process keep both sides of the conflict balanced and fair for both the involved parties. (Luiz Moutinho)For a brief introduction; problems in sports today are quite deep and systematic. Some values expressed in the game or sport industry such as ‘winning is everything’, ‘money is everything’, or ‘just do it’ lead to a lot of mistakes and need a critical examining, because these are the core causers of issues in the industry. (Richard Thorpe) Some of these expressions have extended down into the youth sports and has stirred a lot of conflicts as far as the moral ethics are concerned. Let’s have a close look at the six issues stated above; Out-of-control parents This is an ethical issue that brings not only pressure to the child, but also to the officials in the game. Parent in the sideline may make some verbal attacks on the child or referee for making dump mistakes in the field; this causes emotional abuse; and this has become a common behavior. Application of SAGE shows that this is a mistake, because it becomes a habit for pushy parent to blame for the excesses experienced in youth sports. Some of this may be viewed as just as a provision of ego trip, some parents let the pride and emotions get the better part of them, thus leading to this behavior that may be viewed as childish. Also, some parents may act this way because they lose the ability to cope with the sports experience. After an analysis this situation, some options that came up in form of questions are; is it bad for parents to participate in this sports? Is the competition bad for the child? Or is the child old enough to deal with this kind of stress from parents or stress from these competitions? (Smith, Smoll and Ptacek)After evaluation of the situation, it is evident that the management needs to put some rules for parents, and also encourage the parents to control their emotions. Child exploitation Some may limit child exploitation to sports like gymnastics and skating, but exceeds these high-profile sports to the situations where parents get to decide on how to aid a talented child in a sport progress to the next level. Child exploitation is seen and experienced in youngsters’ involvement in high-intensity training programs. Child exploitation may be practiced by parents and officials in the game. After conducting the SAGE analysis in this issue, these questions rose; should parents decide when it comes to talent exploitation? Is having this athletic talent a blessing or just a curse? Or do the young athletes need protection against abuse and exploitation? (Smith, Smoll and Ptacek)This questions lead to a number of options after evaluation such as; parents should let the young talented children decide for themselves what to do, but they have a window to advice the children about this, also protections is advised, and encourage child participation on the sport as it is a blessing to have the talent. Youth sports dropouts This issue affects a lot the sports industry. (Houlihan)It is evident after doing a survey that 35% of youths aged ten and eighteen plan to quit playing the next year, some parents claim that their children quit sports due to lack of interest; some young talented children claim that this happens due to lack of fun in the game, the coach was not good enough, the sport took too much time, and they also cited too much pressure experience in the sport. (Smith, Smoll and Ptacek)After using the SAGE analysis, it is evident that new option functionalities should be introduced to the sports industry. These options include; engage the child more in playing, the coach should learn to understand the players more, and the management should make practice more fun. After evaluation of the options and the situation, some suggestions were made, this include; renovation and reorganization of youth sports programs, also the programs should be run to meet the children needs, and they should make the games more child-centered rather than adult-centered. Endangering young athlete’s health From the step of ‘seeing’ in SAGE analysis, it is evident that youth face health problems when it comes to sports. These problems include; overuse injuries, alcohol abuse, eating disorders, and use of performance enhancing drugs. (Houlihan)These problems are evident in older athletes, but after an analysis it was noticed that this has extended as far as middle school. This raised some few questions such as why use the drugs, why abuse alcohol and other drugs, why overuse an injury. (Houlihan)These questions did not have direct answers, but some options generated include; discourage pressure to perform better from parents and coach, discourage this health issues in the older athletes, or encourage the children that their health is more important than the competition. Sexual abuse The worst violation of sports ethics is abusing young athletes sexually. Although done in secrecy, and hard to state to what extend the problem might be, this can be graded as the worst abuse in youth sport. It might be due to abuse of power by the coaches or seducing the children in one way or the other. (Houlihan)After an analysis of this issue, some options such as watchful eye by the parent on their children, and avoidance of parent from trusting the coach with responsibilities for their child were generated. Violence in youth sports Mostly, they are committed by very close people of the child such as the parents, coaches, relatives and close related fan after or during the game. Some can be noticed in bid games like football and hockey. (Smith, Smoll and Ptacek) This can be sorted out by solutions in the out-of-control parents and fans. In the Evaluation step, the analysis felt that the only solution to this issue is one to take control of the anger and learn to accept results in an open game. Works Cited Catherine Marshall, Gretchen B. Rossman. Designing Qualitative Research. Washington: SAGE, 2010. press. Houlihan, Barrie. "Sporting Excellence, Schools and Sports Development: The Politics of Crowded Policy Spaces." European Physical Education Review (2000): 171-193. press. Luiz Moutinho, Graeme D Hutcheso. The SAGE Dictionary of Quantitative Management Research. Singapore: SAGE, 2011. press. Richard Thorpe, Robin Holt. The SAGE Dictionary of Qualitative Management Research. London: SAGE, 2007. press. Sage, George. "Pursuit of Knowledge in Sociology of Sport: Issues and Prospects." Quest (2012): 255-281. press. Smith, Ronald E., Frank L. Smoll and John T. Ptacek. "Conjunctive moderator variables in vulnerability and resiliency research: Life stress, social support and coping skills, and adolescent sport injuries." Journal of Personality and Social Psychology (1990): 360-370. press. Read More