Why Sponsors Should Worry About Corruption As a Mega Sport Event Syndrome
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TECHNISCHE UNIVERSITÄT MÜNCHEN Fakultät für Wirtschaftswissenschaften Lehrstuhl für Sport- und Gesundheitsmanagement The Effects of Sport Organizations’ Communication of Corporate Social Responsibility on Consumers Wojciech Kulczycki Vollständiger Abdruck der von der Fakultät für Wirtschaftswissenschaften der Technischen Universität München zur Erlangung des akademischen Grades eines Doktors der Wirtschaftswissenschaften (Dr. rer. pol.) genehmigten Dissertation. Vorsitzende: Univ.-Prof. Dr. Jutta Roosen Prüfer der Dissertation: 1. Univ.-Prof. Dr. Jörg Königstorfer 2. Univ.-Prof. Dr. Frank-Martin Belz Die Dissertation wurde am 16.06.2016 bei der Technischen Universität München eingereicht und durch die Fakultät für Wirtschaftswissenschaften am 15.07.2016 angenommen. Acknowledgements Finishing this thesis would not have been possible without the help and the support of many different people and right now I would like to use this opportunity to thank them in the following lines. First of all, I would like to express my deepest gratitude to Prof. Dr. Jörg Königstorfer for his continuous support, supervision and encouragement to work on this interesting and challenging research project. Thank you very much for the many opportunities I had during the past few years and for your invaluable contributions and guidance. I would like to express my sincere appreciation to Prof. Dr. Frank-Martin Belz for being the second advisor and Prof. Dr. Jutta Roosen for serving as chairwoman of my examination committee. Further, I want to thank my present and former colleagues at the Chair for Sport and Health Management for the great and inspiring time during this dissertation. Thanks for your support and for the fun times we had in the office but also while working at different great places around the world. Finally, I would like to express my gratitude to my family and friends for their endless encouragement, patience and support during the completion of my dissertation and beyond. Table of Contents Table of Contents I. Summary .................................................................................... III II. List of Figures............................................................................. IV III. Publication and Submission Record ............................................. V 1 Introduction ................................................................................. 1 1.1 Motivation and research question ......................................................... 1 1.2 Structure of the thesis ............................................................................. 7 2 Theoretical Framework .............................................................. 10 2.1 Corporate social responsibility (CSR) .................................................10 2.2 Peculiarities of CSR in the context of sport organizations ..............11 2.3 Consumers’ processing of CSR communication ..............................13 2.3.1 Theoretical framework of how individuals process CSR communication.......................................................................14 2.3.2 Why do sport organizations engage in CSR? Motive attributions as a main driver of consumers’ response to CSR .............................................................................18 2.3.3 Who communicates to consumers? The influence of organizational size on consumers’ response to CSR ...............19 2.3.4 Where to engage in CSR? The relevance of the proximity of the supported cause for consumers’ response to CSR ...........23 2.4 CSR in times of unethical behaviors of sport organizations and related stakeholders...............................................................................24 2.4.1 Corruption on a micro- and macro-economic level ..................25 2.4.2 Consequences of perceived corrupt behaviors .........................27 2.4.3 CSR as a mechanism to reduce negative effects of unethical behaviors .........................................................................28 I Table of Contents 3 Methods .................................................................................... 30 3.1 Overview ..................................................................................................30 3.2 Methodological approach .....................................................................32 3.3 Design and measures ............................................................................34 3.3.1 Paper 1..............................................................................................34 3.3.2 Paper 2..............................................................................................36 3.3.3 Paper 3..............................................................................................37 4 Doing Good in the Right Place: City Residents’ Evaluations of Professional Football Teams’ Local (vs. Distant) Corporate Social Responsibility Activities ................................................... 39 5 Where to Engage in CSR? The Influence of Social Cause Proximity on Attitude towards Small-Sized (vs. Large-Sized) Sporting Goods Retailers ........................................................... 42 6 Why Sponsors Should Worry about Corruption as a Mega Sport Event Syndrome ............................................................... 45 7 Discussion................................................................................. 49 7.1 Summary of the findings .......................................................................49 7.2 Theoretical contribution.........................................................................50 7.3 Managerial implications.........................................................................54 7.4 Limitations and directions for future research ...................................58 8 Conclusions .............................................................................. 61 References ...................................................................................... 62 Appendix ......................................................................................... 76 II Summary I. Summary Abstract The traditional values of sport are undermined by the increasing commercialization and unethical behavior of sport organizations across different contexts (here: professional sport teams, sport-governing bodies and sporting goods retailers). The findings of this thesis provide evidence that corporate social responsibility (CSR) represents a promising instrument for organizations in order to position themselves as socially responsible and to generate more favorable responses among consumers. Moreover, CSR can be used to counter negative effects of sport organizations’ unethical behaviors and reduce the impact on the organizations themselves as well as on their stakeholders. These results are particularly relevant for sport organizations across different situational peculiarities who aim to implement CSR communication strategies in the future. Zusammenfassung Durch die zunehmende Kommerzialisierung und das unethische Verhalten von Sportorganisationen, sei es professionelle Sport Vereine, Sport Verbände oder Sportartikel Einzelhändler, werden die traditionellen Werte des Sports zunehmend untergraben. Die Ergebnisse dieser Dissertation zeigen, dass Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) als ein Instrument genutzt werden kann, um die Organisation zum einen als sozialverantwortlich handelnd darzustellen und zum anderen wohlwollende Konsumentenreaktionen hervorzurufen. CSR bietet Sportorganisationen zudem die Möglichkeit negative Effekte, verursacht durch unethisches Verhalten, auf die Organisation selbst und ihre Stakeholder abzumildern. III List of Tables II. List of Tables Table 1: Structure of the dissertation ........................................................................ 9 Table 2: Overview of the methods used in the Papers 1 to 3 ................................ 31 IV Publication and Submission Record III. Publication and Submission Record This present work is submitted as a cumulative thesis and is based on three research papers which have been accepted (or submitted) for publication: 1. Kulczycki, Wojciech and Joerg Koenigstorfer (2016). Doing Good in the Right Place: City Residents’ Evaluations of Professional Football Teams’ Local (vs. Distant) Corporate Social Responsibility Activities. European Sport Management Quarterly, 16(4). 2. Kulczycki, Wojciech, Santosh Mikas and Joerg Koenigstorfer. Where to Engage in CSR? The Influence of Social Cause Proximity on Attitude Towards Small-Sized (vs. Large-Sized) Sporting Goods Retailers. Sport, Business and Management: An International Journal. (accepted for publication on 03/06/2016). 3. Kulczycki, Wojciech and Joerg Koenigstorfer (forthcoming). Why Sponsors Should Worry About Corruption as a Mega Sport Event Syndrome. European Sport Management Quarterly. (accepted for publication on 23/04/2016). V Introduction 1 Introduction Sport has been claimed to be a powerful instrument to positively influence the world and teach lifelong lessons while supporting the social development (Smith & Westerbeek, 2007). This ideological power has been supported by reports from the United Nations Task Force on Sport for Development and Peace, which articulated a strategy for sport’s contribution to peace, political stability and health (United Nations, 2003). Also, the importance of sport as both an industry and as a vehicle for organizations to support social causes increased significantly (Lera-López & Rapún-Gárate, 2007;