روش هزینه معامله در اسپانسر مالی ورزش

Sport sponsorship is an evolving area of interest to both academics and business practitioners. Despite recent advances, scholarly reviews of sponsorship attest to a lack of underlying theories and conceptual foundations on which to base empirical enquiries. This paper draws from the economics literature to provide an overview of Transaction Cost Theory – an approach that draws attention to the costs involved in negotiating, retaining and monitoring sponsorship exchanges. The term “costs” refers to those characteristics or dimensions of a sponsorship transaction that make exchange problematic. From the perspective of sport organisations, three sources of sponsorship costs are outlined relating to the need for: (1) planning and safeguarding, (2) adapting and servicing, and (3) monitoring and evaluating. Transaction cost theory introduces implications for sponsorship relations, particularly with respect to the possibility for costs to expand over time, the consequences of sponsor-specific investments and the choices of governing mechanisms used to manage costs. Critiques of the approach are discussed, followed by recommendations for empirical research and methodological considerations using transaction cost theory.

Sport sponsorship is an evolving area of interest to both academics and business practitioners. This reflects sponsorship’s central importance to the organisation of sport in general but more particularly its significance as a conceptual link with aspects of marketing (Farrelly & Quester, 2003a), strategic planning (Amis, Pant, & Slack, 1997) and ethics (McDaniel, Kinney, & Chalip, 2001). As with any burgeoning field of interest, research into sport sponsorship demonstrates a range of perspectives. The emerging models have enabled analyses of elements as diverse as sponsors’ motivations for decisions (Thwaites & Carruthers, 1998), their strategies to leverage sponsorship returns (Amis, Slack, & Berrett, 1999), the effectiveness of sponsors in developing brand awareness (Irwin, Lachowetz, Cornwell, & Clark, 2003) and the nature of environmental pressures helping or hindering sponsoring relationships (Berrett & Slack, 1999). Despite these advances, scholarly reviews of the sponsorship literature attest to a lack of underlying theories and conceptual foundations on which to base empirical enquiries (Cornwell & Maignan, 1998; Olkkonen, 1999). Indeed, while certain areas of sponsorship gain much attention (e.g., sponsorship effects), some notable conceptual gaps exist, particularly with respect to the trade-offs and cost considerations that inherently arise from sponsorship activity. Indeed, there have been few approaches available to address the intricacies of securing, maintaining and evaluating sport sponsorship relations. This paper draws from the economics literature to discuss a theoretical framework for the study of sport sponsorship. Transaction Cost Theory (TCT) represents an approach that draws attention to the costs involved in negotiating, developing and monitoring sponsorship exchanges. Here the term “costs” refers broadly to those characteristics or dimensions of a sponsorship transaction that make exchange problematic (Jones, 1987). The purpose of this paper is twofold. The primary aim is to provide an overview of this approach as it relates to sport sponsorship and to identify sources of related costs. Secondly, a discussion of TCT’s applications for future empirical enquiry is presented, taking note of methodological considerations and limitations. The primary focus is on sponsorship from the perspective of the “sponsored” (i.e., the sport organisation or event) for two related reasons. First, while the presence of costs to both parties in sponsorship relations is acknowledged, there is already a significant body of research examining corporate activities aimed at leveraging sponsorship that, while not described as costs per se, could easily be adapted into a transaction cost framework (Thwaites, 1995). By contrast, there is a paucity of sponsorship literature that takes into account the perspective of sport organisations and the activities they engage in as part of the sponsorship relationship. Indeed, scholars observe that the bulk of existing sponsorship research tends to emphasise the sponsoring company’s viewpoint (Olkonnen, Tikkanen, & Aladjoutsijärvi, 2000a).The importance of considering costs (i.e., those characteristics or dimensions of a transaction that make exchange problematic) stems from sponsorship’s marketing discipline and the increasing scrutiny to which it has recently been subjected (Hastings & Saren, 2003). For instance, with the value of sponsorship becoming more frequently questioned by corporations (Harvey, 2001), sport organisations and events may arguably have to devote more resources to monitoring spectator behaviour or alternately, may have to expend more on hospitality and other sponsor benefits. There has also been increasing scrutiny of sponsorship relationships in recent years relating to wider issues such as tobacco use, alcohol consumption and the exploitation of workers in Third-World countries. Insofar as these issues are problematic to the sponsorship environment, their inclusion in a framework of sponsorship relations seems increasingly relevant. In response to this attention, the study of sport sponsorship has become considerably more sophisticated in recent years. Yet in many cases, aspects of sport sponsorship are viewed as two sides of an equation focusing inevitably on narrow conceptions of inputs and outputs (Cornwell & Maignan, 1998). This is not to downplay the importance of antecedent conditions (e.g., levels of media exposure) or the outcomes and effects of these (e.g., effectiveness in developing brand awareness). Rather, it simply points out that recent work in the area is directed towards viewing sponsorship as an inter-organisational process (Cousens & Slack, 1996; Olkkonen, 2001), where the standard neoclassical sponsorship transaction as a perfect and stable exchange is no longer used as a template from which to evaluate these activities. Instead, there is an increasing appreciation for the complexity of the process, including the acknowledgement that sponsors’ decisions do not always meet our conception of logical strategic management (Shaw & Amis, 2001). Such observed case variations suggest considerable nuances to sponsorship exchanges that were previously described in relatively straightforward terms. Because TCT is inherently concerned with managing costs, some rarely analysed activities, such as those aimed at securing sponsorship agreements, can be brought to light. By extension, the systems of rules or practices under which organisations agree to interact with each other (in the form of contracts, monitoring or evaluation procedures) are profoundly related to aspects of governance (see Williamson, 1979). Thus, one of TCT’s applications is that it has been used to prescribe particular management or governance structures (Williamson, 1999). In this way, TCT has provided the basis for a body of marketing research looking at distribution channel structure (Heide, 1994) as well as buyer-supplier relationships (Heide & John, 1992). This paper proceeds on four fronts. First, an overview of neoclassical perspectives on exchange is provided in order to compare and contrast their assumptions with those proposed in TCT. The second section briefly outlines the key elements of TCT and relates them to sponsorship. In the third section, three broad sources of related costs are outlined. Implications and limitations of the TCT framework are then briefly presented, concluding with a discussion of methodological considerations and possible avenues for future research.

All models of sport sponsorship (including the one described here) are either explicitly or implicitly based on exchange theory. The principles and tenets of exchange theory are useful to sponsorship frameworks because they ultimately highlight the distribution of rewards, benefits and resources in sponsorship relationships (McCarville & Copeland, 1994). Transaction cost theory helps to expand on these principles, ultimately taking into consideration the distribution of planning, safeguarding and monitoring costs in sponsorship relationships. With sponsorship research accused at times of lacking theory development (Olkkonen, 2001), this paper has attempted to provide a broader understanding of the complex relationship that sport organisations enter into with their sponsors. The aim here is not to diminish the benefits that sport organisations receive from their sponsorship relationship, but rather to encourage an alternate theoretical view of a broadening subject area. Despite TCT’s critics, the new economics approach still has value to both researchers and managers interested in sponsorship. With respect to scholarly research, Williamson’s work on TCT is touted as an empirical success story and is the most frequently cited source in organisation theory (Swedberg, 2003). With sponsorship relations increasingly viewed as dynamic processes, TCT helps to focus attention on some of the underlying difficulties inherent in sponsorship relations such as information disparities and opportunistic behaviours. Furthermore, these underlying challenges draw attention to a range of governing mechanisms including some of the institutionally prescribed practices of sponsorship relation building (e.g., providing hospitality, evaluating outcomes). From a more applied standpoint, the authors agree that many sport managers are likely have a tacit understanding of sponsorship costs and the governance activities derived from them. Experienced sport managers may also be aware on some level that demands for sponsorship servicing have increased in the last decade, reflecting a shift from sponsors’ philanthropic to corporate investment rationales. Thus along similar lines as Olkkonen’s (2001) defence of a network approach , it is suggested that the role of TCT research is perhaps best used to sensitise managers to cost considerations and broaden practitioners’ views regarding the context in which they operate.