Hidden agenda in sport sponsorship – The influence of managers’ personal objectives on sport sponsorship decisions

Jan Schönberner, Herbert Woratschek and Guido Ellert

Sport Management Review, 2021, vol. 24, issue 2, 204-225

Abstract: Despite companies spending billions of dollars on sport sponsorship every year, little is known about how sponsoring companies make sponsorship decisions. Sponsors are expected to enter into sponsorship agreements strategically, so as to achieve corporate objectives. However, managers who make sponsorship decisions could also be motivated by their own personal interests. As soon as managers’ personal objectives manifest themselves to influence their sponsorship decision-making, we speak of a hidden agenda. In our empirical study, we investigated corporate objectives and managers’ personal objectives, and their respective influence on sport sponsorship decisions. We conducted a three-round qualitative Delphi study with 18 participants employed at sponsor organisations, sport clubs, and sport marketing agencies. The results of our study contribute to our understanding of corporate objectives in the sport sponsorship literature. We reveal 12 different personal objectives of managers underlying sponsorship decision-making. In addition, we develop the steps and stages of the sponsorship decision-making process from a sponsor perspective. We reveal the existence of a hidden agenda in sponsorship decisions. Due to divergences in objectives, a hidden agenda leads to agency effects between the shareholders/owners of the sponsoring company (principal) and the managers (agent). The emerging agency effects can have either negative or positive effects for the sponsor. We derive a model showing the decision-making in sport sponsorship, considering managers’ hidden agendas. Managerial implications are discussed.Updates and extends work on corporate sponsorship objectives.Identifies managers’ personal objectives in sport sponsorship decisions.Reveals managers’ hidden agendas in sport sponsorship decisions.Analyses effects of company size as a contextual factor in sponsorship decisions.Explores sponsorship decision-making process from a sponsor perspective.

Date: 2021
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
http://hdl.handle.net/10.1016/j.smr.2020.07.001 (text/html)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:taf:rsmrxx:v:24:y:2021:i:2:p:204-225

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.tandfonline.com/pricing/journal/rsmr20

DOI: 10.1016/j.smr.2020.07.001

Access Statistics for this article

Sport Management Review is currently edited by Sheranne Fairley

More articles in Sport Management Review from Taylor & Francis Journals
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Chris Longhurst ().