Compliance by Hong Kong's national sport organizations with the world anti-doping program.

Abstract

The World Anti-Doping Program, developed by the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA), is structured in three levels: a World Anti-Doping Code, international standards, and models of and guidelines for best practices. WADA officials state that one purpose of the World Anti-Doping Program and code is ensure harmonized, coordinated, and effective anti-doping programs at the international and national level with regard to detection, deterrence, and prevention of doping (World Anti-Doping Agency, 2003). We would like to suggest that the program actually can serve two purposes. On the macro level, it can provide various international federations and national anti-doping organizations (NADOs) with a framework for developing anti-doping policies, rules, and regulations. On a micro level, it can guide national sport organizations (NSOs) in carrying out anti-doping functions like educational programming and in adopting appropriate practices to demonstrate compliance with various anti-doping regulations. The World Anti-Doping Code has been in place for over 5 years, so the roles of international federations and NADOs in promoting and monitoring athletes' anti-doping behaviors should be clear to sport organizations and professionals involved in high-level competition (e.g., World Games, Olympics). Those not involved at that level may be less familiar with arrangements, for instance coaches and administrators of NSOs that have not produced athletes qualifying for high-level competitions. Even NSOs with experience in high-level competition may have second- or third-tier athletes lacking the exposure their elite counterparts have had. Given that NSOs play a significant role in communicating anti-doping information to athletes and explaining their role in anti-doping regulations, the evaluation of NSOs' current practices is important. The present study provided such an evaluation, using a case-study approach to determine the extent of Hong Kong NSOs' compliance with the anti-doping program. Specifically, we aimed to assess whether Hong Kong's NSOs were implementing anti-doping functions, as well as to identify constraints on their full compliance. Although the study involved only Hong Kong organizations, knowledge gained should be applicable in countries with similar anti-doping experience, and the study should thus prove useful to international federations, NADOs, and WADA as they direct resources and efforts. Since to an extent NSOs are organizations whose anti-doping compliance or noncompliance can be treated as the adoption of one management practice over another, their anti-doping compliance can be modeled as organizational change. We therefore reviewed such models and chose Prochaska's transtheoretical model (TTM) (Prochaska, 2000) to analyze NSO anti-doping functions. The popular TTM was originally developed to explain behavioral change in individuals (Prochaska, Prochaska, & Levesque, 2001). Central to the TTM are three theoretical constructs related to change: (a) stages of change, (b) decisional balance, and (c) process of change. Intentional change--whether by an individual or an organization--can occur in stages and so can be seen as a series of movements along a continuum. There are six such movements or stages: pre-contemplation, contemplation, preparation, action, maintenance, and termination. The terminology process of change, in contrast, connotes the belief that change is influenced by both overt and covert activities that comprise experiential processes and behavioral processes. Experiential processes characterize the early-stage transition and include consciousness raising, dramatic relief, environmental reevaluation, social liberation, and self-reevaluation. Behavioral processes characterize later-stage transition and include stimulus control, helping relationship, counter conditioning, reinforcement management, and self-liberation. …