ABSTRACT

In this chapter, the authors suggest that the nature of a professional sport organisation's Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) efforts depends upon the organisation's focus on external pressures and/or internal resources. Their CSR framework was developed through studying the specific context of professional sport. Their first step in building a framework that would have broad practical and scholarly impact was to scan and review CSR theories and approaches in the academic literature. The authors consider various theoretical perspectives evident in the literature to explain and extend knowledge generated about CSR. In developing their framework, the authors conducted a qualitative study to explore what forces sport practitioners deem central to the adoption and integration of CSR efforts in their organisations. Other extensions and applications of their framing are evident in the work of S. Hamil and S. Morrow, who examined the context and motivation of CSR in the Scottish Premier League.