Structure vs culture: Judo’s values through the lens of criminology

This article analyses the organizational structure and culture of competitive Judo in order to examine the impact of emphasising culture on structural vulnerabilities for athlete maltreatment. The structural analysis is guided by Routine Activity Theory, vulnerabilities established in existing literature (imbalance of power, competitiveness, and isolation), and the concepts crime-coercion, crime-facilitation, and crime-resistance from organisational criminology. The qualitative analysis of organizational culture, conducted on a macro-level, looks at publicly available sources by the International Judo Federation and their emphasis on cultural aspects, specifically the core values of Judo. To explain the potentially positive influence of organizational culture on organizational structures, the mechanisms socialisation and selection are examined. This article finds that Judo may be considered a structurally crime-facilitative system. However, through an emphasis on cultural aspects and the aforementioned mechanisms, the International Judo Federation may have created an environment, which counterbalances the sport's structural conditions.