CSR – A Conceptual Approach
There many different definitions of CSR and many ways to approach and study it. In this study we are going use the official definition of „Corporate Social Responsibility“of the European Union:
“Most definitions of Corporate Social Responsibility describe it as a concept whereby companies integrate social and environmental concerns in their business operations and in their interaction with their stakeholders on a voluntary basis. Being socially responsible means not only fulfilling legal expectations but also going beyond compliance and investing ‘more’ into human capital, the environment and the relations with stakeholders.
The experience with investment in environmentally responsible technologies and business practice suggests that going beyond legal compliance can contribute to a company’s competitiveness. Going beyond basic legal obligations in the social area, e.g. training, working conditions, management-employee relations, can also have a direct impact on productivity. It opens a way of managing change and of reconciling social development with improved competitiveness.”
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According with this definition, CSR Can be interpreted as the company contribution to sustainable improvement of the society and try to define the extent of business responsibility using four key elements (Jenkins, 2006):
• Economic responsibility: to develop your business strategy in harmony with markets, meaning producing what the market needs and want and delivering it at a fair price
• Legal responsibilities: to behave and function within the established law and order.
• Ethical responsibilities: to act in accordance with society expectations expressed by social rules
• Discretionary responsibilities: emanate for the free will of the company manager or owners to give back to the society or community (philanthropy)
CSR and sports
The relationship of CSR and Sports are still in its infancy, as stated by Babiak and Wolfe (2006), 2 decades ago, CSR practices did not have a significant importance in sport management and development. Nowadays we can see and incipient source of scholars and research working on it and how most of the sport organization engage and participate in social responsibility activities.
Based on the research of (Lau, Makhanya, & Trengrouse, 2004) several factors of sport organizations role in the society are responsible for the growing importance of the CSR for sport and the perception in the society.
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1. The global diffusion and the wide reach of sport events and competitions have converted sport organizations in prominent members of the global communities.
Moreover they have transcended the sport borders and become huge companies themselves. In our days, sport industry have become a globalize and profitable business, where sports organizations deals with millions in concepts like merchandising, TV rights, salaries, player trades, and sponsoring.
2. Society is nowadays very aware and cares about the social policies of the corporations and big organizations. Sport organizations, in this information society, are publicly very exposed and it acts and deeds are always broadly broadcasted and have media repercussions all over the word.
3. As many authors avowed, the sport organizations are much embedded into the societies and communities. Sport organizations become identifying symbols of the communities and some of them also possess certain degree of symbolism in some ways, political, ideological or social.
4. CSR initiatives carried out by the sport organizations include among many activities:
athlete volunteerism, educational initiatives, philanthropic/charitable donations, community development, community initiatives, fan appreciation, health-related initiatives, and community-based environmental programs (Walker & Kent, 2009).
Some of these activities are non monetary and some are represent funds spending for the clubs like philanthropy and charitable initiatives. Monetary actions are normally executed by clubs foundations created with this purpose.
12 Football and communities
For some, Football is not just a sport, but an important factor for economic growth and development. Sparvero and Chalip (2007) listed some of the benefits that solid elite football organizations for the communities, considering communities as individuals and cities, are:
• The Creation of multiple jobs, some directly and some indirectly related with the football club.
• The increasing revenue for sales and income taxes.
• The improvement of the city marketing and image as Clubs act as ambassadors and promote the cities excellences.
• Football clubs also favors tourism for cities. People associate football team with cities and football games and stadiums have become landmarks and excuses to visits cities and in some extreme cases, to pilgrimage.
• Area development in terms of accessibility to the city and football facilities and infrastructures.
• Finally it also affect the business environment of the cities and communities by attracting companies willing to sponsors the team and invest in the communities.
The latter can be test out with a report publish by the Chamber of Commerce of the city of Granada (2011), Spain, about the benefits that the promotion of the local football club, Granada CF to the Spanish first division, will bring to the city.
The research estimates that, in total, the economic impact would be, at the end of the year, of 28,356,585 Euros, 16,064,838 of them belong to the so called indirect effect or
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"multiplier" effects from economic transactions. The direct effects accounts for 6,818,584 Euros and finally 2,551,215 Euros for media effect, the impact of advertising of the city.
The direct impacts refers to the impact on the restaurant, accommodation offers of the city, and the local merchants and shops by the supporters of other teams and professional from those teams.
More supporting examples extracted from the Scottish premier league Community report. It mentions a recent study from the University of Liverpool that found that for every ￡1 spent by football clubs, 34 pence remains within the local economy. Regarding the Scottish League, The Fraser of Allander Institute at the University of Strathclyde found that the biggest and famous Scottish clubs alone, Celtic FC and Rangers FC, were considered to have made a direct contribution to Scottish GDP of ￡80.3 million, with Old Firm (this is the name of the classic match that they perform together four times a season) associated spending add up ￡ 204 million, with ￡ 11.4 million coming from overseas.
The study recorded a total net positive impact of Celtic and Rangers on the Scottish economy as being an additional ￡118 million to Scottish GDP and additional employment of over 3,000 jobs.
For these reasons it is not rare to see that frequent times local authorities help football club through taxes reductions, financial aids, facilities grants or developing public services for them.
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