Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) and Sports

There is no common understanding of corporate social responsibility (CSR) and how it should be implemented and managed, either in the sport industry or in other industries. The roots of CSR activities are perceived to be the philanthropic actions of individual business people as well as social responsibility focused on corporate managers. However, since Carroll’s work, the focus has increasingly been on the organisation as an institution and has not been limited only to companies but also to organisations in general, regardless of their legal form. There is a consensus that CSR predominantly focuses on three pillars: society (people), ecology (planet), and economy (profit) and is voluntary by nature. CSR research in the sport context has gained increasing attention in the last two decades. There are two fundamental approaches: CSR in sport, which includes CSR activities by sport organisations, and CSR through sport, in which non-sport organisations use sports as a vehicle for their CSR programmes. Due to the increasing number of cases of organisational misconduct (often referred to as corporate social irresponsibility), hypocrisy and scepticism have evolved with regard to CSR activities and have manifested in terms such as white-, green-, and sports-washing. The perceived CSR fit, the attributed motives for CSR activities, and CSR communication are strong predictors of the success or failure of CSR efforts on organisational outcome variables.