The Corporate Social Responsibility Sport Model: Grounded Theory Approach

Abstract

A key feature of Iranian sporting clubs is the increased focus on the concept of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR). A large number of Iranian sporting clubs are employing CSR initiatives to support specific stakeholders and to leverage their societal positions. Nevertheless, there is limited research that has examined CSR in Iranian sports to guide policy and practice associated with CSR initiatives. Therefore, the aim of the present study was to examine CSR in the Iranian sports industry so as to support the advancement and evaluation of CSR initiatives in clubs. A developmental orientation was adopted in this qualitative research. Participants were selected using a combination of purposeful and snowball sampling methods. A total of 30 participants were involved including executive managers, university faculty members, and coaches of the Iranian Premier League clubs of Football, Volleyball, Basketball, Futsal, and Handball, as well as members of university sport management faculties. One-on-one, semi-structured interviews were used to generate data. Data analysis procedures were conducted in line with the principles of grounded theory and involved open coding, axial coding, and selective coding. In this study, 64 open source codes were identified. Further, the use of the grounded theoretical approach led to the creation of a theoretical model comprised of causal conditions (five categories), contextual conditions (two categories), intervening conditions (six categories), strategies (two categories), and consequences (four categories) that describe the phenomenon of CSR in Iranian sport. Particular attention is given to the five key causal categories that were cultural, social, economic, policy, and institutional in nature. CSR activities were found to have the capacity to impact the promotion of the club through a number of concepts and categories, including fostering trust amongst the public, promoting ethical dimensions through sport, discovering and creating new markets, and attracting supporters. This analysis situated in the Middle East provides a way of considering CSR that is an alternative to the dominant Western approaches.