Towards a Community Centred Approach to Corporate Community Involvement in the Sporting Events Agenda
Laura Misener
Faculty of Human Kinetics, University of Windsor
Daniel Mason
Faculty of Physical Education and Recreation, University of Alberta
PP: 494 - 513
Abstract
The purpose of this paper was to examine ways that corporations can make a greater contribution to civic and community development through strategic ties to a city's development agenda surrounding the hosting of sporting events. Using the perspective of Corporate Community Involvement (CCI), we draw upon data collected as part of a larger study on sporting events and community development to explore how cities and corporations can make socially responsible contributions to communities. The guiding principles of community involvement in decision making, full public disclosure and transparency, and grassroots legacy planning underscore the importance of community based strategies for CCI. We offer three related strategies: comprehensive social and community impact assessments, facilitation of local knowledge capital and providers, and cross-sectoral management event programming as ways for corporations to begin to engage in CCI activities related to events. These strategies offer opportunities for organisation to use sport to make a valuable contribution to communities and community development activities.
Article Text
Sporting events have become a highly sought after development strategy designed to market and promote cities and regions. Rationales such as stimulating tourism (Gibson, Wilson & Holdnak 2003), improving destination image (Chalip & Costa 2006), fostering economic development (Chalkley & Essex 1999), job creation (Roche 1994), and encouraging business activity in a city or region (French & Disher 1997; Spilling 1996) have been employed to justify the widespread use of sport event hosting in many cities. However, economic justifications are not the only means of engendering public support for events or providing benefits to communities. There are numerous other social, psychological, and political benefits for businesses and communities alike associated with such events (Preuss & Solberg 2006). The creation of other intangible benefits -such as social and community benefits - has gained prominence in cities seeking to get an edge in the competitive world of hosting events. Despite this increasing emphasis, little is understood about how businesses, cities and regions can leverage events to positively influence social outcomes such as community development. In fact, Chalip and Leyns (2002) have argued that local businesses typically are ill-prepared and do little to leverage events which may offer important appreciable outcomes.
Much of the research on sporting events suggests that events benefit only select groups within a city or region (Burbank, Andranovich, & Heying 2001; Whitson & Horne 2006); however there is a growing interest in how sporting events can be used to serve the needs and interests of other groups within the community, in particular socially excluded or disadvantaged populations. Some scholars such as Kidd (1992) and Hiller (2000) have argued that cities interested in bidding for large scale sporting events should be required to undertake social and environmental impact assessments. Moreover, Kidd (1992) has suggested that "the decision to bid [for an event] should be made in the context of full public information and widespread consultation" (164) in order to ensure that communities benefit from events. However, beyond the few critical calls for changes to the ways that cities and the supporting businesses develop and structure sporting events to be more attentive to social and community concerns (e.g. Hiller 2000; Horne & Manzenreiter 2006; Kidd 1992; Misener & Mason 2008), little research has focused on the ways in which these changes can be facilitated. Given the substantial investment required in human, financial, and physical capital from communities that stage large-scale sporting events (Whitson 2004), events should be subject to greater public scrutiny and be more accountable to the communities that host them. In response, scholars have recently begun to focus on identifying and capitalising on leverageable assets of events as a means to foster lasting social and economic benefits (Chalip 2006; Kellett, Hede, & Chalip 2008). This perspective shifts focus away from evaluating event outcomes such as social and economic impact, and begins to develop strategies aimed at achieving these outcomes. It also focuses attention on what local businesses can do to position themselves within the context of more socially responsible, sustainable legacy planning for events.
With this in mind, we consider in this paper ways in which sporting events can and should make a socially responsible contribution to civic and community development. In order to do so, we draw upon the concept of Corporate Community Involvement (CCI) to suggest the ways in which organizing committees and corporations might develop programs and activities surrounding events to foster positive social impacts. CCI is one the largest and most prominent facets of Corporate Social Responsibility (Chapple & Moon 2005). As corporations have increasingly been faced with heightened societal expectations of the role they play in the community (Muthuri 2007), CCI has emerged as a means for corporations to support the community by providing financial, material, or human skills through modes such as corporate donations, strategic philanthropy, employee volunteering, and community driven development (Moon & Muthuri 2006).
CSR is growing in popularity for academics studying sport, as demonstrated by this special issue and a forthcoming special issue on CSR in the Journal of Sport Management. However for the most part, research has addressed the instrumental actions or outcomes of engaging in CSR activities (see Babiak & Wolfe 2006; Breitbarth & Harris 2008; Smith & Westerbeek 2007). Little scholarly attention has been paid to how both sport and non sporting organisations can develop socially responsible programs in concert with event hosting. The following offers a brief review of literature on sport and corporate social responsibility, and introduces the concept of corporate community investment. Next, drawing upon data collected as part of a broader study on sporting events and community development, we explore mechanisms developed in two cities - Manchester, UK, and Melbourne, AU - that help to ensure positive links between the sporting events agenda and community development. Employing document analyses, site visits, and interviews, we use examples from these two cities to suggest specific ways that cities and corporations in general can develop socially responsible activities surrounding events for the betterment of communities. In particular, we argue that event organisers and companies associated with events have a unique opportunity to foster community development activities and actively engage citizens in responsible and sustainable development activities. Our central concern is to develop mechanisms for ensuring community collaboration and the maximisation of positive benefits for local communities. Finally, we will conclude by offering potential avenues for future research to explore and develop critical analyses of these connections.
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