ABSTRACT

Research question: Despite increasing global sponsorship expenditures, research on sponsorship decision-making remains limited. Sponsors are considered holistically as organisations that make sponsorship decisions. However, sponsorship decisions are usually group decisions on which several individuals collaborate. Although the industrial marketing literature introduced the concept of buying centres for analysing group decisions, sponsorship decision-making as group decision-making is underresearched. The purpose of the study is to address this gap in the sport management literature by examining the roles of individuals involved in sponsorship decision-making and their power bases.

Research methods: The study uses a qualitative Delphi technique with three rounds and two samples of sponsorship managers (N₁=18, N₂=13) from Germany and Austria.

Results and Findings: The results show that the sponsors’ buying centre (SBC) comprises eight different roles: deciders, users, coordinators, experts, signatories, negotiators, initiators, and networkers. The findings also reveal that individuals occupying the various roles fulfil different tasks and rely on different power bases. The SBC is influenced by organisational and environmental factors. The study further demonstrates that sponsors can outsource roles to external partners.

Implications: This study is the first to investigate the SBC empirically by taking the characteristics of the sponsorship context into account. This article, thereby, contributes to our theoretical understanding of sponsorship decision-making by examining the individuals’ roles in the SBC, the external and internal influences, and the involvement of external partners. Finally, the results have managerial implications for both sponsors and sponsees.

摘要

研究问题：尽管全球赞助支出不断增加，但对赞助决策的研究仍然有限。赞助商被整体视为做出赞助决定的组织。然而，赞助决策通常是几个人合作的集体决策。尽管工业营销文献引入了购买中心的概念来分析群体决策，但作为群体决策的赞助决策却没有得到充分研究。该研究的目的是通过检查参与赞助决策的个人的角色及其权力基础来解决体育管理文献中的这一差距。

研究方法：该研究采用定性德尔菲技术，对来自德国和奥地利的赞助经理（N ₁ =18，N ₂ =13）进行了三轮和两个样本。

结果和发现：结果表明，发起人的采购中心 (SBC) 包括八个不同的角色：决策者、用户、协调者、专家、签署者、谈判者、发起者和网络者。研究结果还表明，担任不同角色的个人完成不同的任务并依赖不同的权力基础。SBC 受组织和环境因素的影响。该研究进一步表明，赞助商可以将角色外包给外部合作伙伴。

启示：这项研究是第一个通过考虑赞助背景的特征对 SBC 进行实证研究的研究。因此，本文通过考察个人在 SBC 中的角色、外部和内部影响以及外部合作伙伴的参与，有助于我们对赞助决策的理论理解。最后，结果对赞助商和赞助商都有管理意义。