Organizational capacities and motivations of potential orienteering developers in the Philippines

Abstract

Globally, orienteering is a minor sport without Olympic status. We survey the organizational capacities of orienteering novices to explore their readiness to support the development of the sport in a relatively new market, the Philippines. Our literature review and data suggest a framework for the analysis of the development of a sport based on external factors and organizers’ organizational capacities. We find strong interest in our respondent sample who all are linked to physical education and conclude that opportunities to acquire organizational capacities for the development of orienteering are present in the Philippines. Given the absence of organized orienteering competition activity in the Philippines for over 20 years, this is an encouraging finding for the development of the sport in the country. Further literature analysis of sports histories could be helpful to establish models of factors affecting the diffusion of sports in new markets to guide the analysis of successful vs. failed sports introductions, or to guide developers of sports in new markets.