Research framework and purpose
First section consists on Qualitative content analysis defined as “a research method for the subjective interpretation of the content of text data through the systematic classification process of coding and identifying themes or patterns” (Hsieh & Shannon, 2005, p.1278), that consist on studying and analyzing professional papers and articles about CSR, and more specifically about CSR in the sport world and in football. The aim of this section is to understand the concept of CSR, it relationship with the sports and it benefits for sports organizations, and finally with the purpose of developing a framework for our study.
The next step consists of gathering data and information about the CSR programs carried out by the Premier League and La Liga clubs and to classify the data according to our study framework. A final analysis will try to identity patterns, trends and make a comparison between the two countries. Finally suggestions and further study recommendation will be given.
Data resources and collection
The data of this article will be secondary data mainly extracted from the websites of football clubs, football organization and football clubs foundations. We believe this information has high Validity and academic value because 3 reasons:
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1. It’s a steady official source of first hand information and websites conveniently communicate the organization's understandings and recognition of social reporting and how it is applied to their associated activities (Brietbarth & Harris, 2008).
2. A second reason supporting the use of official websites is that the kind of information that they serve, according to Esrock & Liechty, 1998, these websites offer data for active seeking information audiences rather than information for passive audiences that normally is conveyed via traditional mass media. This offer the sport club a chance to “set the agenda”
on public policy and other social issues.
3. Websites offers the opportunity to study organization and its deeds remotely, independent of their location, being nationally or transitionally (Walker & Parent, 2010).
A minor source of data will be online soccer and general newspapers that are very prolific in football information and some of them are even devoted to inform about a particular team. Some important clubs also own periodic magazines that will be subjected to revision too.
The limitation of collecting data is that even a lot of news are generated and consumed about football clubs daily in the general media, ie, newspapers, TV, radio, etc, not much of it is CSR information.
It is also a limitation the layout and style of the websites is obviously not homogeneous and every search or surfing is a different endeavor.
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Research methodology and data analysis
The methodology used in this research consists in Qualitative content analysis conducted on wide ranging review of secondary sources and internal football clubs and football organization with the aim of qualitative data reduction and sense-making effort in attempts to identify core consistencies and meanings.
The information will be from the year 2010 until the present 2012 and the two main football leagues in the world will be analyzed, premier league and la liga. Each league has 20 clubs competing every year at the same level. As mention before, both have implemented the relegation – promotion system at the end of every year. This means that the last 3 team in the classification table at the end of every season will be relegated to the second division and substituted by the first three teams of this second division. This means 46 football teams will be object of our study.
In order to classify and categorize the CSR activities carried out by football clubs we have studied various classifications proposed by several academics. The social implication of sports clubs was brilliantly classified by Walker & Parent (2010) in different types of programs. CSR activities for professional sport:
1) Philanthropy
2) Community involvement 3) Youth educational initiatives 4) Youth health initiatives.
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Based on this work, other researchers created their own classifications. Vlad Rosca (2011) used for the following framework for his researches:
1) Educational Programs, 2) Sport Programs
3) Social Inclusion Programs 4) Cultural Integration Programs 5) Family Programs
6) Health Programs 7) Charity Programs.
Their work was definitively helpful for this author of this research on designing his own classification system and categories.
1) Educational and cultural Programs 2) Sport Programs
3) Social Inclusion Programs
4) Cultural Integration and anti racism Programs 5) Gender equality programs
6) Health Programs 7) Charity Programs.
8) Environmental programs 9) Poverty reduction programs 10) Employment
considering the big number of studied clubs and the diverse form in which CSR programs can be depicted or presented, this research opted for a broad classification with many
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categories. This classification is inspired from the Walker & Parent (2010) one, and it takes as well, some elements from the structure proposed by Vlad Rosca (2011). From the latter, this research eliminates the family programs category, for being those programs, sometimes, diffuse and difficult to categorize. Apart for a category devoted to the poverty reduction programs, this study, wanted to assure that there is a category for Environmental, gender equality, and Employment programs, both cause of great concern and having enormous importance in the current European societies. The presentation of the categories and it content will be run in the next chapter. Finally two subcategories will be added. Fist it will be studied of the clubs activities also have international reach or repercussion. Secondly the CSR actions and plans will be divided into Programs and initiatives. Programs are well established, organized, funded and normally steady in the time actions, and initiatives are little actions that are not repeated in time and are not very demanding in terms of resources or infrastructures. An illustrative example of programs is the “Disability Football” program performed by the British club West Bromwich Albion and that that includes a FA Blind Football Centre of Excellence, Power chair Football A & B Teams & Development Squad, Visually Impaired Football & PAN Disability Juniors & Seniors. Another very illustrative example is FC Barcelona giving 1.5 million per year to UNICEF (7) implementation of joint projects. For Initiatives, in the other hand we could have a football club sending players as official ambassadors to hospital for delivering toys for kids in deprived homes during the Christmas day, both initiatives, very common for Spanish clubs. Nevertheless should be said that sometimes, border are thin, information not enough and it is difficult whether to categorize an action as an initiatives or a programs, consequently both are equality considered and gathered in this report.
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