Sustainability communications via sponsorship: Potential, characteristics and managerial challenges

Stefan Walzel, Christopher Dick, Maximilian Brill and Gerhard Nowak

Sustainable Development, 2024, vol. 32, issue 4, 4284-4296

Abstract: Sustainability communications have become a key issue for organisations. While most studies have focused on sustainability reporting and green advertising, other communication tools such as sponsorship are under‐researched. The present study addresses this void by exploring the potential and identifying key characteristics and challenges of sustainable sponsorships, theoretically conceptualised as a social contract between sponsorship contractors and society. As such, it is the first to identify the potential and key characteristics of sponsorship for sustainability communications. The authors took an explorative, qualitative research approach, conducting 13 in‐depth interviews. The interviewees highlighted eight characteristics that determined sustainable sponsorships across all three sustainability dimensions. Sustainability was identified as a key driver in managing sponsorship effectively. In light of the study's findings, it is recommended that sponsors and sponsees should adapt their sponsorship management to incorporate sustainability. Measuring the outcome and success of sustainable sponsorships could be a subject for future research.

Date: 2024
References: View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://doi.org/10.1002/sd.2904

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:wly:sustdv:v:32:y:2024:i:4:p:4284-4296

Access Statistics for this article

Sustainable Development is currently edited by Richard Welford

More articles in Sustainable Development from John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Wiley Content Delivery ().