Corporate social responsibility in sport: Stakeholder management in the UK football industry

Abstract

Corporate social responsibility (CSR) has become increasingly significant for a wide range of organisations and for the managers that work within them. This is particularly true in the sport industry, where CSR is now an important area of focus for sport organisations, sport events and individual athletes. This article demonstrates how CSR can inform both theoretical debates and management practice within sport organisations. It does so by focusing on stakeholder theory, which overlaps considerably with CSR. In this article, stakeholder theory is used to examine three major CSR issues: stakeholder definition and salience, firm actions and responses, and stakeholder actions and responses. These three issues are considered in the context of the UK football industry. The article draws on 15 semi-structured qualitative interviews with senior representatives from a number of different organisations. These include the director of a large professional football club; a chief executive of a medium-sized professional football club in addition to the supporter-elected director; and the vice-chairman of a small professional football club. Additional interviews were undertaken with five representatives from national supporter organisations, two board members at two large supporter associations, two representatives from the Football League, one representative from the Independent Football Commission, and a prominent sports journalist. The analysis of the interview data illustrates ways in which CSR can be implemented by sport organisations through stakeholder management strategies. The article concludes that stakeholder theory has both conceptual and empirical value and can be used to illuminate key issues in sport management.

Evaluating the Implementation of a Professional Sport Team’s Corporate Community Involvement Initiative

“…Lau, Makhanya, and Trengrouse (2004) argued that the uniquely important role sports play in the global community has helped give rise to the emerging significance of CSR to sport organizations. Interestingly much of this work focuses on professional sport CSR in North America and Europe and the motivations to engage in these types of actions (Babiak & Wolfe, 2009, Walker & Kent, 2009Walters & Tacon, 2010). A number of activities and practices fall under the umbrella of what is considered to be CSR including philanthropy, cause marketing, cause sponsorship, and corporate community involvement.…”

Perceived corporate social responsibility performance in professional football and its impact on fan-based patronage intentions

“…The crux of their work was that in order for football clubs to enjoy the best possible benefits that CSR implementation can offer, a multiple stakeholder perspective -that is, an outside-in approach -should be more seriously considered (Anagnostopoulos and Shilbury, 2013). A further recommendation by Walters and Tacon (2010) is that this exercise primarily requires the identification of the most salient stakeholders in such considerations.…”

A Case Study of Stakeholder Dialogue in Professional Sport: An Example of CSR Engagement

“…Companies (including professional sport organizations) are implementing corporate social responsibility (CSR) initiatives which involve and benefit both stakeholders and the businesses themselves (Walters and Tacon ). Part of the efforts involved in addressing the demands of CSR is the need to engage with a wide range of stakeholders (e.g., customers, beneficiaries of a program, sponsors, and other partners) by creating opportunities for different forms of dialogue, interaction, and exchange (O'Riordan and Fairbrass ).…”