Inefficient Allocation of Marketing Budgets: Misunderstanding Corporate Sponsorships

This dissertation explored the inefficient allocation of marketing budgets and the misallocation of corporate sponsorships. The researcher opened by discussing the foundation of the study and the underlying lack of understanding and measure of corporate sponsorships in corporate marketing. The study used a flexible multiple-case study design to explore corporate sponsorship allocations and measurements. The researcher provided two research questions to guide the study, along with underlying assumptions, limitations, and delimitations that may impact the study, before concluding the first section with a literature review. The review summarized the current practices of corporations for allocating and measuring sponsorships and revealed gaps in the processes of organizations who render sponsorship. Next, the study transitions to the second section to highlight the researcher’s responsibilities as the sole instrument of the study. The section contains a deeper explanation of why the lack of statistical data for and informal processes in corporate sponsorship require a flexible multiple-case study design. The researcher discusses the purposeful sampling technique used to select information-rich cases from the accessible population before closing the section with the data collection and analysis techniques and the procedures established to ensure transferability, dependability, and confirmability. The dissertation concludes with the third section as the researcher presents the study’s findings after a study overview and predictions. After collecting data from three cases, return and potential need fulfillment, budget reliance, preferred sponsee type, and corporate social responsibility emerged as the primary themes used by firms to make sponsorship decisions and validate them within their budgets. The study revealed a reliance on informal allocation processes and a lack of sponsorship review, and the researcher recommends standardized allocation and measurement processes, more defined corporate policies, and clear sponsorship expectations

Small business sport sponsorship: A case study

Within a reasonably short timeframe sponsorship has morphed from a passive form of marketing that was often philanthropic in nature (Morgan et al., 2014), to a legitimate element of the promotional mix (Segium & O’Reilly, 2007), and a key strategic business partnership initiative (O’Reilly & Horning, 2013). Sport sponsorship has been defined as the provision of assistance by commercial organisations (sponsors), in cash or kind, to a sports property (sponsee), in exchange for the rights to be associated with the sports property for the purpose of gaining a commercial and economic advantage (Triodi, 2001). While substantial research has been directed towards large organisations and corporate sponsorship, little interest has been focussed on the relationship between small businesses and sport sponsorship (Mack, 1999, Jing 2010). Small businesses are extensively involved in the sponsorship of sports organisations, teams, individuals and events (Slack & Bentz, 2010). As more and more local and regional sport organisations look towards sponsorship as a means to financially support their organisations this relationship will continue to grow. Given that 97% of all enterprises in New Zealand are defined as “small” this research aims to address the gap in the literature and to contribute to the advancement of the ‘philanthropic-sponsorship’ continuum. The Waikato Rugby Union (WRU) was selected as the case study due to the nature of the sporting code, its established history, and its strong brand. The research applied a qualitative, exploratory approach in order to explore small business perceptions and experiences with sport sponsorship. A series of in-depth semi-structured interviews were conducted with relevant personnel from selected WRU small business sponsors. Interviews were recorded, transcribed and then analysed using grounded theory coding techniques, allowing for key themes to emerge. The study examined the objectives, practices and perceptions of small businesses related to sponsorship decision making. For the purpose of this study, a small business was defined as any enterprise with less than 20 employees. The research findings contradicted previous small business – sport sponsorship literature. The findings highlighted that there was long-term strategic planning, with 75% of the businesses initiated the first contact with the WRU. While decisions were still predominantly made by one individual, they were clearly based on ‘corporate’ objectives rather than personal preferences and/or a sense of “giving back” to the community. The three top objectives were hospitality, brand awareness and networking. The strength of the WRU brand was also a factor in the decision-making. However, there were little or no formalised internal policies to guide the small business sport sponsorship screening and selection processes in terms of sponsorship opportunities, and limited sponsorship evaluation. As sponsors become more and more a part of the social context that shapes and sustains local and regional sport it is important that both sport organisations and small businesses understand better what motivates, attracts and sustains small business sponsorship. It is unclear is this stage if the findings are a result of the status that Rugby holds in the New Zealand psyche and the professionalisation of the sport, or if this is an evolving trend. Further research into other sporting codes would contribute to the understanding of the small business – sport sponsorship dynamics

Sport marketing in Cyprus - the dynamics of the sport sponsorship context: emergence, development and management practices in the football industry

This thesis investigates the underlying mechanisms and processes that shape sport sponsorship in Cyprus. A systematic review of the international sport sponsorship literature (1980-2009) is undertaken and used as the guide for the qualitative empirical study concentrating on football sponsorship activity undertaken in Cyprus as a developing sport sponsorship market. The systematic review reveals sponsorship management structures, practices, tendencies, and models adopted at a range of national settings, and discloses contrasts that exist in different contexts. The findings of the systematic review highlight the management practices employed by sponsors, such as their motives, decision-making practices, activation and leveraging initiatives, objectives, and evaluation processes. With regard to the empirical investigation, sponsorship activity is viewed and interpreted within the broader social and cultural context in which it takes place. The analysis of the findings is informed by critical realism paradigm, so that the underlying causal mechanisms and structures shaping (or influencing) sponsorship activity in Cyprus are identified and discussed. Specifically, the findings of study, which focused on the top division of the national professional league, revealed the existence of a sponsorship continuum involving four significantly different sponsorship approaches, ranging from purely philanthropic to heavily rational and commercial. Interestingly, the study revealed the interdependence of global and local processes within the sponsorship-related practices, suggesting that sponsorship arrangements in this specific context are marked culturally by processes of glocalisation. Such processes appeared to be vividly expressed in sponsorship-related projects in Cyprus, and involved an amalgamation of several local and cultural factors such as a strong prevalence of localism, nationalism, political clientelism, and reliance on personal relations. Community pressures seemed to have a central role in sponsorship related decision-making, whilst sponsorship activity appeared also to be influenced by the structure of the sponsors industry, the organisational structure and corporate culture, as well as by the structure and local specificity of the football market in Cyprus. More specifically, competitive imbalance of the national league, politicisation of football, the level of competition within a particular industry, and centrality of authority and control (both organisational and cultural), are additional factors that appeared to impact sponsorship activity in the specific market

'Shell is Proud to Present… The Spirit Sings’: Museum Sponsorship and Public Relations in Oil Country

This article re-examines the renowned Canadian exhibition, The Spirit Sings: Artistic Traditions of Canada’s First Peoples (1988) through a lens of corporate, national, and institutional interests. The author positions The Spirit Sings as a productive historical case study for contemporary questions of decolonization and divestment in museums. Using archival and interview findings from her doctoral research, the author highlights the sponsorship and public relations elements of the exhibition, which she argues have been missing from past analyses. Ultimately, the author uses this case study to question the relevance of current debates over oil sponsorship for museums that operate within extractive economies. The article concludes by calling for further critical research around the organizational processes of museums and their participation in corporate legitimation

An Eye-Tracking Investigation of Consumer’s Real-Time Behaviors in Professional Minor League Hockey

Minor league hockey provides a unique setting to investigate consumers’ marketingcontrolled activities in a natural environment. Consumers’ visual attention to sponsorship information has been shown to influence their explicit memory of sponsor brands and their purchase intentions. The current research builds on the sponsorship information processing framework of previous scholars by examining consumers’ real-time behaviors to sponsorship information in a natural setting. To analyze consumers’ behaviors at minor league hockey sporting events, qualitative and quantitative data were collected from 16 participants. The qualitative data related to the patterns and observations of consumers’ visual attention behaviors. The quantitative data measured consumers’ fixation duration, fixation frequency, explicit memory (i.e., recall and recognition), and sponsorship response. Through the utilization of a Structural Equation Model (SEM) analysis, the current study constructed a comprehensive understanding of consumers’ information search processes to sponsorship signage. Results indicated that consumers’ fixation frequency influences their ability to recall and recognize sponsorship information, resulting in a positive sponsorship response. The results of this study provide tangible evidence to sport and corporate marketers, indicating expected consumption outcomes based on consumers’ visual attention in a natural environment. The current study highlights sponsorship strategies for marketers to increase sponsors’ return on investment

Board diversity and performance of microfinance institutions (MFIS): Evidence from an emerging economy

Microfinance Institutions (MFIs) are important service providers of finance for unbanked people and have experienced a high growth over the past decades. Alongside the staggering growth of microfinance around the world, there have been some serious complaints of unfair practices and low transparency in their affairs. Therefore, it is questionable whether microfinance contributes to a true reduction in worldwide poverty in the short or long terms. This study examines the corporate governance practices of microfinance institutions (MFIs) in India and their relationship with both financial performance and outreach for the period 2007 to 2012. Using unbalanced panel data for 575 firm-year observations, we report that the financial performance and outreach of Indian MFIs improves when they have international/donor representation on their board. Independent directors and client representatives on board perform favourably on financial performance but no impact on outreach. However, female directors on the board increases outreach to the poor people but decrease the financial performance. This study significantly contribute to a better understanding of board diversity of microfinance sector by providing empirical evidence from one of the dominant countries in South Asian region

Unfolding the role of marketplace resources in forming entrepreneurial narratives

The narrative perspective has discussed the role of entrepreneurs as mindful actors who contextualise innovation through their relational, temporal, and performative efforts. Although the agency of material elements is recognised in the narrative perspective, the materials’ role is reduced to be controlled and mobilised by entrepreneurs with some existing possibilities of showing resistance. This reductionist approach toward materials has restricted our understanding of the ways materials actively impose their agency, form narratives, and contextualise innovations along with entrepreneurs. This study adopts ANT (Actor-Network Theory) as a lens and explores the role of materials in entrepreneurship process. Specifically, it explores how materials (non-human actors) interact with entrepreneurs, impose their agency, challenge the efforts of entrepreneurs in contextualising innovation, and in turn shape the emerging entrepreneurial narratives

Relationship dynamics in logistics

In recent years, a growing number of organisations have outsourced logistics services to logistics services providers (LSPs). To account for greater interconnection between organisations, supply chain relationship is crucial for achieving successful logistics outsourcing. Because organisations need to continuously change their decision-making in outsourcing, relationships among organisations in outsourcing are dynamic. Further, because logistics outsourcing has created more supply chain relationships (SCRs) among suppliers, LSPs, and customers, managers need to use a network perspective to manage multiple relationships in the process of outsourcing. The triadic relationship is recognised as the smallest network structure. As a result, the primary goal of this research is to study dynamics of supply chain relationships in logistics outsourcing from a view of triadic relationship. This relationship is called a logistics triad and consists of a supplier, a logistics service provider (LSP), and their common customer. The present research was carried out in two stages. The first stage collected triadic cases from LSPs. To improve validity and reliability, the second stage used a deductive process to test findings of the first stage by collecting triadic cases from suppliers and customers. Results of the comparison between the two stages provided verified research findings because the two stages exhibited close similarity. The research outcomes led to the identification of factors that influenced the relationship dynamics in logistics triads. Among these factors, the combined effects of purchasing volumes, resource capability, and focal firm can override influences from other factors to determine stability and dynamics of logistics triads. Overall, this research makes several major contributions to the knowledge of supply chain relationships: developing an integrative model of triadic relationship dynamics, identifying control approaches used by organisations to dominate triads, and demonstrating organisations' mediating effects on dyadic relationships within triads

Sustainability and corporate governance: A comparative evaluation of approach for Dangote Group and Gallagher Group

Sustainability has been resonating within the business community and the academia. Indeed, sustainability has moved from being an ideology to a technique that guarantees business profitability. As corporate social responsibility (CSR) is expanding its frontiers to respond to continued agitation for business to treat the planet and its people with respect, sustainability is no longer optional. This research paper aims to demonstrate the curiosity of the author to develop a project in the area of sustainability and corporate governance; in particular, the correlation between sustainability and corporate governance, with the main objective of embarking on a comparative study of the sustainability approach of two companies from two continents. For this work, the author has in mind to evaluate the sustainability approaches of these companies in their supply chain management. Unlike the conventional approach, an intercontinental perspective on sustainability is rare. Therefore, the primary focus of the research will be to investigate the sustainability practices in the supply chain management of two indigenous companies (Gallagher and Dangote) from two continents. The research will adopt a qualitative method for collecting data and other relevant materials from involved parties and triangulation will be used for the analysis. This investigation could potentially identify similarities and difference in approach to sustainability, which could improve best practices for both companies. The report will highlight areas of advantage for both parties in line with current demand for business to be part of the solution to the problems surrounding people, planet, and profits. The work will conclude with a benchmark document for sustainability

Corporate Censorship

A chapter in a book about censorship in the global contemporary art world edited by Roisin Kennedy, University College Dublin, and Rhiann Coulter, Trinity College Dublin, (to be) published by IB Tauris in 2018, this book was the product of a panel at the Association of Art Historians annual conference. The chapter focuses solely on London so as to avoid potentially misleading and generalised statements about the censorship and contemporary art more globally. London serves as a case study of the specific pressures under which artists practice under neoliberalism and the often-unconscious internalisation of neoliberal values by contemporary artists, including socially-engaged practitioners. The article defines censorship, distinguishing it from the ordinary operations of the art world to include and exclude, and also distinguishing it from the ordinary operations of markets, which reduce diversity in order to rationalise. Both of these have been confused with instances of censorship.Peer reviewe