Dr.Sc.Soc., Professor S.S. Brazevich¹
PhD D.S. Brazevich²
PhD Zh.S. Safronova^2
1St. Petersburg State University, St. Petersburg
²St. Petersburg National Research University of Information Technologies, Mechanics and Optics, St. Petersburg

Keywords: risk management, social risks, professional athletes, retirement from sports, vocational self-identification.

Background. Retirement from sports is viewed by many sport analysts as one of the most critical periods in any athlete’s lifetime [3]. Many athletes fail to get effectively ready for the retirement and face serious hardships in the attempts to adapt to the social environments [2]. It is the social risk management and due pre- and post-retirement life planning that should help professional athletes successfully cope with challenges of this difficult transitional period.

Objective of the study was to analyze the social and technological espects of the social risk management models applicable in the professional athletes’ post-retirement adaptation and re-socializing period.

Methods and structure of the study. The method applied for the study purposes included systemic analysis of the available literature and study reports on the subject with a special emphasis on the socializing risk management, sport psychology and sociology, and the national and international practical experience of the professional athletes’ post-retirement adaptation and re-socializing initiatives.

Study findings and discussion. Social risk may be described as a genuine factor of any social adaptation activity with the relevant values system and socializing process options that may expose an individual to specific unexpected and undesirable problems. Any human life is associated with some risks since every effort to attain some goal exposes an individual to risk situations that are determined by his/her own actions and associating circumstances; moreover, an individual may be passively exposed to risks when involved into the relevant situation despite being fully or relatively inactive.

Social risk may be interpreted as the secondary (associating systemic) risk [1], with the whole social system or its specific institutions, communities and groups exposed to such a risk. Every social risk implies the probability of some negative event associated with potential losses for the exposed individual, community, group or social institution. In other words, a social risk is indicative of the potential damage to the individual social interests, self-fulfillment, wellbeing and adaptation to the poorly predictable conditions.

Multiple social risks need to be specified, rated and classified for analysis. Of special interest may be an integrated social risk classification system driven by a dichotomous approach [4]. Risk subject means the decision-making (active) individual and/or social group with its decision-driven activity. Risk object means the passive individual or social group exposed to risks of the decisions made by the active subjects. Risk subjects may suffer from their own decisions turning into risk objects in such situations.

Social risk may be quantified by the relevant sociological tools to assess the potential social consequences and losses for the critical interests of the relevant individuals, social groups and communities.

Retirement and post-retirements periods in an athletic career with their social adaptation challenges are associated with special risks due to the following factors:

– The athlete’s habitual high social status is lost, and the efforts to find a new social role and win recognition may take much time and/or fail;

– The athlete becomes socially vulnerable due to the still inefficient legal and regulatory framework for social and legal protection, support and adaptation of the retired professional athletes;

– Little if any experience in the non-sporting businesses, for the professional athletic careers leave no time for progress in other social roles;

– Low educational backgrounds – due to the shortage of time for education;

– Mental distresses and maladjustments, with the athlete feeling unmotivated, lost and misunderstanding how to design and manage his/her own post-retirement life process;

– New challenges in the attempts to start up a new professional career from a scratch, adapt to new social communities and build up new relationships; and

– Proneness to misconducts and addictions in the long-term destructive post-retirement periods, with a high exposure to crime, alcoholism, drug addiction etc. [6].

Every athlete perceives the post-retirement period differently, and it makes sense to classify the relevant negative factors on the individual and common ones. The common post-retirement factors may be listed as follows: no more active training and competitive activity; no more attention and support from the sport federation, club, coaches, physicians, managers and other service personnel. The individual post-retirement factors include lost professional and friendly ties with the team, coaches and managers; mental distresses due to falling apart from the competitions and wins that were the only life drivers before; further mental distresses due to the new career options being far less ambitious than the past; and the lower income level [5].

The above factors may be somewhat mitigated when the pre-retirement period is reasonably phased in many aspects including competitive accomplishments; albeit top-class athletes often prefer to retire from sports on the peak of their competitive accomplishments to leave sports undefeated. They tend to consider it humiliating and unacceptable for them to stay further in sports when their sport accomplishments turn to decline and they have to humbly and increasingly cope with defeats. In the decline periods the athletes are normally increasingly vulnerable to mental distresses and maladjustments and, hence, are in need of special care and attention. It may be summarized that athletes in their pre- and post-retirement periods shall be subject to special social adaptation and risk management technologies to help their self-identification and adaptation, with the relevant risk management technologies being reasonably applied both by the relevant government agencies and teams.

Social risk management/ control system implies the risk management subjects and objects being identified. Risk-management subjects may be defined as (1) the individuals and institutions providing the risk management services i.e. the professional risk management entities; and (2) unprofessional risk management subjects – including each individual that naturally has to take his/her own risk management efforts. Risk management objects may be defined as the multiple risks need to be addressed by the field-specific risk management system. The risk management subjects may pursue a variety of risk management policies including risk mitigation, risk coping, risk optimizing, risk taking and risk avoidance ones.

A social risk management technology may be classified into at least the following four stages: risk identification and rating/ test stage; risk management policy selection and planning stage; risk management policy implementation stage; and risk management policy success rating and analyzing stage. As far as the risk management system hierarchy is concerned, the relevant technologies may be classified into ‘vertical’ and ‘horizontal’ ones; with the vertical technologies implemented by the relevant government (federal, regional, municipal) agencies; and the horizontal risk management technologies applicable by every relevant professional entity within its terms of reference. The social risk management process shall be considered an interactive communication rather than a static process, with the data flow constantly updated, analyzed, applied and revised.

We believe, the key success factors for the pre- and post-retirement social risk management system in application to professional athletes may be listed as follows:

First, a social risk management process shall be put on a systemic basis.

Second, a social risk management system may be efficient enough only in case of a flow of accurate, authentic and full information being provided for the risk management decisions to be grounded enough.

Third, a social risk management system shall contain specific sociological risk management tools, with the toolkit applied to rate the risks i.e. the relevant event probabilities so as to distinguish between the actual and potential risk situations. Every risk situation shall be addressed by the risk management decision with the potential scenarios for the event probability versions. When making a risk management decision, the risk management subject shall give a priority to the scenario/ alternative that offers the highest probability to attain the desired objective. It should be noted that every risk shall be viewed as an integrated value dependent on every decision and its effects. The key objective of a risk management process is to rate the risk prior to making decisions, otherwise the decision may be inefficient.

Fourth, a social risk management system shall be equipped with the social risk management process monitoring and risk management system efficiency rating subsystems. The social risk management process monitoring subsystem shall include: internal/ external risk rating criteria; customizable risk classification and new risk identification subsystem; and risk ranking criteria to support the risk management decision making process.

Fifth, a social risk management system shall be designed to both minimize the negative effects of uncertain risk management decisions and fully benefit from successful risk management decisions.

Conclusion. Sport career is the most dynamic and highly challenging life period, with its own sport-specific crises and social risks that need to be effectively analyzed and addressed in the relevant sociological studies that give the means to identify, classify, analyze and mitigate the risks, with every risk element, risk management decision effects and transformations being taken into account. Analyses of the national and international study reports with concern to the professional athletes’ post-retirement social adaptation issues show that these processes are still underexplored and further research is required.

References

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7. Orekhova A.V. Faktory riska v post-professionalnoy adaptatsii sportsmenov k novomu zhiznennomu tsiklu (po materialam zarubezhnykh issledovaniy) [Risk factors in post-professional adaptation of athletes to new life cycle (based on foreign studies)]. Risk: issledovaniya i sotsialnaya praktika [Risk: research and social practice], Moscow: IS RAN publ., 2011, pp. 244-253.

Corresponding author: brazevichss@bk.ru

Abstract

The study analyzes the social technologies applicable in the social risk management in the re-socializing period upon athletes’ retirement from professional sports, with a special analysis of the notion of social risk viewed as a vulnerable individual social situation faced by a retired professional athlete with the perceived losses in the living standards and incomes; and with an analysis of the negative factors associated with the retirement from sports. The study lists and analyzes the adaptation and re-socializing process risks for the retired professional athletes; gives a special consideration to the relevant ‘vertical’ and ‘horizontal’ social risk management technologies; and spells out and substantiates the key provisions for the social risk management process success in the professional athletes’ post-retirement adaptation and re-socializing processes.