Sponsorship programmes and corruption in sport: management responses to a growing threat

Abstract

Sponsorship programmes are increasingly being exposed to the threat of corruption in sport. Several recent notable cases of corruption have exposed sponsors and their investments to significant perceived pressures including negative consumer associations with athletes, teams and officials that have been found guilty of engaging in corrupt activity. How sponsors respond to such instances of corruption in sport forms the basis of this paper. Drawing from an analysis of corruption cases (n = 2089), the paper initially examines the nature of corruption in sport. Through interview data (n = 21), it subsequently identifies key factors that sponsors should take into consideration when deciding upon a course of action to mitigate any potential effects of corrupt activity by a sporting property they are associated with. Finally, the paper discusses those courses of action.     

Gordon Boyce. Over Half a Million Careful Owners: A 75-year history of PSIS, 1928-2003. Wellington, NZ: Dunmore Publishing, 2005. 326 pp. ISBN 0-476-0129-29, NZ$29.95 (paper).

Gordon Boyce traces the history of New Zealand’s PSIS,the Public Service Investment Society, in a book commissionedby the company. Boyce, now Professor of International Businessat Queensland University of Technology after thirteen yearsof teaching business and economic history at Victoria Universityof Wellington, is well qualified for the project. His recentpublications include Co-operative Structures in Global Business(2002). Boyce fulfills his commission well, narrating an engagingstory. "Vignettes" provide personal and anecdotal details thatformer staff     

Attitudes towards Uniform Accounting: Cultural or Economic Phenomena?

The existing literature suggests that uniformity versus flexibility is a key dimension of differentiation in cross-national financial reporting practices. However, the issue of what drives attitudes towards uniformity has not been explored. Drawing upon a variety of existing studies, this study explores the attitudes of Big 6 auditors in 23 countries towards rules mandating a single treatment across 14 issues. The study finds that auditors are in favor of a single mandated treatment in the majority of cases and that support for such rules is affected by both culture and the importance of the domestic stock market to the country. These results hold true even after the influence of extant practice or the level of uniformity of current practice is controlled for. Relatively higher levels of uniformity in de facto financial reporting practices and relatively stronger support for increased uniformity were both found in many of those countries which are traditionally thought of as having more flexible financial accounting systems.     

Conceptualizing Professionalism

A bstract The main argument presented here is that economics provides a necessary but not sufficient analysis of professionalism. A sufficient analysis can only be generated by recognizing the sociological significance of professionals, and in particular the institutionalization of a professional ethic. In this way we suggest that economics needs sociology to provide an effective conceptualization of professionalism as a form of organization and as a mode of behavior. Equally, however, sociology needs economics, because while the sociological context provides an explanation of the way power is institutionalized, an economic focus is necessary to maintain a role for individual agency. These arguments are illustrated with a discussion of the historical and institutional complexities of professional organization; we look particularly at nursing and certain routinized areas of legal work and accountancy.     

Generation Y’s Ethical Ideology and Its Potential Workplace Implications

Generation Y is a cohort of the population larger than the baby boom generation. Consisting of approximately 80 million people born between 1981 and 2000, Generation Y is the most recent cohort to enter the workforce. Workplaces are being redefined and organizations are being pressed to adapt as this new wave of workers is infused into business environments. One critical aspect of this phenomenon not receiving sufficient research attention is the impact of Gen Y ethical beliefs and ethical conduct in workplace contexts. It is widely accepted that distinct generational experiences shape ethical ideologies and ethical ideologies in turn affect the way people function in the workplace. Thus, Gen Y’s unique cohort experiences are likely to shape their ethical ideologies and consequent workplace judgments and actions. In this article, we examine Gen Y’s ethical ideology and study its impact on workplace functioning regarding leadership style, teamwork, and judgments about ethical violations. Our analyses indicate that Gen Y’ers tend toward situationalism (high idealism and high relativism), and their socially connected orientation produces more lenient judgments of collaborative vs. unilateral ethical violations. However, Gen Y’ers do exhibit individual variation. Relativist Gen Y’ers are more tolerant of ethical violations, whereas, Gen Y Idealists are less tolerant of ethical violations. High Idealists also show stronger teamwork and leadership characteristics. In addition, Gen Y’ers possessing servant leader traits exhibit incrementally better teamwork, and greater perceived unacceptability of ethical violations. We conclude by discussing implications of these findings for managing ethical climates and conduct.     

The role of the U.S. medical complex and the media in value transformation: The case of viable organ transplant

This paper examines the unintended consequences of marketing a specific technology— viable organ transplantation. A content analysis of print media is conducted to compare accounts of the world's first heart transplant (1967) with accounts of subsequent local transplants in a southwestern city. Results of this analysis suggest that “objective” coverage of transplant incidents convey changes in the construction of the self the authors associate with the interdependence of culture, technology, and marketing practice.     

Moral Reasoning in Computer-Based Task Environments: Exploring the Interplay between Cognitive and Technological Factors on Individuals’ Propensity to Break Rules

This study examines the relationship between cognitive moral development (CMD), productivity features of information technology (IT) and unethical behavior or misconduct. Using an experimental design that randomly assigns subjects to one of four unique technology conditions, we assess the relationship between a subjects?? predominant level of CMD and ethical misconduct on IT-oriented work tasks. Our results show that both higher levels of CMD and increased levels of IT productivity features at one??s disposal have a significant role to play in explaining observed behavior in our sample. We find that CMD as measured by the Defining Issues Test??s P-score is negatively related to task misconduct. Conversely, IT productivity features such as copy-and-paste are positively related to task misconduct. In addition, the CMD??misconduct relationship is significantly diminished by the introduction of IT productivity features. Lastly, a series of hazard analyses are conducted to explore the boundaries of our principal findings. These results demonstrate the significant role of technology in enabling negative behavior and the relative inability of subjects?? use of principled moral reasoning to overcome it. Implications of these findings for academics and business managers are offered, as well as recommendations for mitigating misconduct in both academic and workplace environments.     

Foreign Direct Investment,Transactions Linkages,and the Performance of the Domestic Sector

Using data from the UK Census of Production, including foreign ownership data, and information from UK industry input-output tables, this paper examines whether the intensity of transactions linkages between foreign and domestic firms affects productivity growth in domestic manufacturing industries. The implications of the findings for policies promoting linkages between multinational and domestic firms in the UK economy are outlined.