مدل ترکیبی SWOT وAHP برای برون سپاری بازاریابی ورزشی با استفاده از یک مورد ورزش بین دانشکده ای

Given the importance and prevalence of commercialization in intercollegiate sport, outsourcing sport marketing functions has become a popular business decision with the possibility of becoming more popular in the future. Yet, there is a lack of research about outsourcing in sport marketing with respect to decision making factors when determining whether or not to outsource some aspects of an organization's marketing functions. Thus, the purpose of this case study is to examine sport marketing outsourcing decision-making factors using a SWOT and AHP combined model. These results indicate that decision makers at this institution consider strengths, or potential positive outcomes, more importantly than weaknesses, opportunities, and threats. Specifically, financial return is the most important decision making factor for decision makers whereas cost minimization is not as important.

During the several past decades, outsourcing has become one of the most popular and influential business strategies across various industries. According to Real-Time Technology Solutions (2007), approximately 95% of Fortune 1000 companies have adopted outsourcing functions. Busi (2008) simply defined outsourcing as “the strategic decision of a business to stop carrying out an activity in-house (p. 8)”. Specifically, outsourcing is a practice in which an organization contracts out one of its in-house operations that the organization does not or cannot concentrate on anymore to the hired third party specialized in that operation (Kumar & Eickhoff, 2006). The sport industry is one in particular which is actively adopting outsourcing strategies (e.g., Lee, 2010 and Li and Burden, 2002). For example, in sport many organizations will hire other companies to commonly handle their merchandising, concessions, sales and customer service functions. Whereas outsourcing as a subject matter has been frequently examined in various academic areas, there is only a limited amount of research about outsourcing in sport marketing (e.g., Burden and Li, 2005, Burden and Li, 2009, Burden et al., 2006, Li and Burden, 2002 and Li and Burden, 2004). In spite of previous studies about outsourcing in a sport marketing context, scientific knowledge about outsourcing decisions may be still in an early stage. Accordingly, the purpose of this study is to investigate sport marketing outsourcing decision making factors in intercollegiate sport. This study will employ a SWOT (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats) and Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) hybrid model to identify the decision making factors that intercollegiate sport administrators employ when determining if they should outsource their sport marketing functions.

This case study was the first in the sport marketing literature to empirically test what factors decision makers at an intercollegiate athletic department consider when determining if they will outsource one of their marketing functions. The results indicate that the potential positive outcomes, specifically the financial return, are the most important considerations. The study also utilized a method which has yet to be used to examine sport marketing outsourcing decisions. This case study provided some evidence that the SWOT and AHP combined model is beneficial to use to in sport literature as it quantifies, and provides a measure of importance to factors of a SWOT analysis. Future research should further utilize this method with additional institutions in order to produce generalizable results.