Abstract
As competitiveness increases in professional sport industry (Hill and
Green, 2000; Robinson, 2006) sponsoring in the field has also been
raised recently (Biscaia et al., 2013). While the impact of sponsorship
activities on different aspects of branding is now well clarified, the
impacts of those activities have on the brand loyalty hasn’t received
much attention (Mazodier and Merunka, 2012). This preprint aims to
report on the association between team trust, team identification and
both types of loyalty, attitudinal loyalty and behavioural loyalty. The
conceptual model is derived from TRA “the theory of reasoned action”
and SITS “the social identity theory”. This study sheds some light on
the Egyptian fans and what drives them in order to provide some help to
different football clubs and sponsors of these clubs alike which could
be reflected to the sport industry as a whole in the country in the end.
Keywords : Team Trust; Team Identification; Sponsor’s Brand;
Sports Marketing; Egypt
Introduction
As a result of the increased competitiveness in the sports and events
industries (Hill and Green, 2000; Robinson, 2006), providers of these
events are trying hard to have more customers to attend matches and to
buy different related services (Theodorakis et al., 2009). Therefore, we
can see that sponsoring in the sports field has been rising in the past
few years (Biscaia et al., 2013). Thus, the goal now is to get more
spectators to follow the games (Theodorakis et al., 2009). As the
International Events Group (IEG, 2012) showed that 68% of money
invested in sponsorship worldwide is now directed toward sports, this
can be explained with the fact that sport sponsorship has been perceived
now as a vital income tool for both corporate sponsors and sport teams
(Bühler et al., 2007). However, the impact of sponsorship activities on
different aspects of branding (e.g. brand awareness and brand image) is
now well clarified unlike the impacts of those activities have on the
brand loyalty itself (Mazodier and Merunka, 2012). While Berry (2000)
mentioned that the significant gains from a brand that can give to its
customer is trust, Wu et al. (2012) suggested that trust is the base of
establishing fan loyalty.
In the same line, studies indicated that team identification can help in
facilitating the attendance and consumption process of games and
matches-related services (Wann et al., 2001). As for this suggested
linkage between team identification and the consumption of
sports-related services, much research argued that raising team
identification is now a main goal for sport teams (Fink, Trail, &
Anderson, 2002a).
As a consequence some research questions can be raised here: (1) can the
fan trust lead to attitudinal or behavioural loyalty toward sponsor’s
products and services (1) would the fan trust lead to higher team
identification, (2) does team identification impact the fan loyalty
toward the sponsor’s brands, and (3) can the team identification have
different impacts on both attitudinal and behavioural loyalty.
There is paucity of literature on team trust, identification, and
attitudinal and behavioural loyalty toward sponsor’s products and
services links, especially in Arab and emerging markets such as Egypt.
Arab and emerging economies are under researched contexts in the
marketing field in general and in the sports marketing field in specific
(Khattab and Mahrous, 2016; Gupta et al. 2018; Mahrous, 2013; Mohsen et
al. 2018; Shazly and Mahrous, 2017; Marzouk and Mahrous, 2017; Mahrous
and Kotb, 2014; Adel et al., 2018; Adel and Mahrous, 2018). Therefore,
this paper is a part of a multifaceted project that aims to (1)
conceptually build a research framework that identify the links between
team trust, team identification and loyalty to sponsors brand; and (2)
empirically investigate those identified relationships.
The paper proceeds as follow: first, the constructs of the study and the
development of the hypotheses are identified. Finally, a discussion of
the expected contribution and implications of the study is presented.
Background
Trust
Trust has not been under much consideration in previous literature;
however, the developments and emerging trend in marketing literature
concerning relational orientation brought it into focus (e.g. Morgan and
Hunt, 1994). However, there hasn’t been one definition of trust, O’Boyle
& Shilbury (2016) mentioned that most previous research on trust
discuss common aspects such as expectations, taking risk, vulnerability,
and honesty (Klijn et al., 2010). Trust can be critical when uncertainty
is present (O’Boyle and Shilbury, 2016). In sport literature, and even
though this concept is more complicated for the unique features of the
sport service, it has not yet gained much attention (Tsiotsou, 2013)
Team Identification
Team identification has attracted a huge attention in the past few years
(Theodorakis et al., 2012). Team Identification is fans or audiences’
involvement and commitment to a certain sport organization (Sutton et
al., 2012). Raising team identification for individuals has become very
important aim for sport teams due to the strong link between it and the
consumption of sport events (Fink et al., 2002). Fans identification
with the team can be a strong influencer on fans’ activities and
behaviour (Fisher, 1998; Theodorakis et al., 2009).
Loyalty
Oliver (1999) indicated loyalty as “a deeply held commitment to rebuy
or patronize a preferred product or service consistently in the future,
thereby causing repetitive same-brand or same brand-set purchasing,
despite situational influences and marketing efforts having the
potential to cause switching behaviour” (p. 34). Brand Loyalty has
always been associated with repeated purchasing (Yoshida et al., 2015).
Most previous research has agreed that loyalty involves attitudinal and
behavioural dimensions (e.g., Bodet and Bernache-Assollant, 2011). While
Behavioural loyalty refers to actual purchasing behaviour (e.g.,
attending matches and buying merchandise) (Stevens & Rosenberger,
2012), attitudinal loyalty refers to the fan’s inner attachment (Bauer
et al., 2008) and other psychological aspects such as commitment and
personal preference (Kaynak et al, 2008).
Research framework and hypotheses development
In figure (1) we present our conceptual framework where attitudinal and
behavioural loyalty toward sponsor’s products and services are the final
outcome of the relationship with the fan trust to the team.
This paper uses ‘TRA’ to explain the customer loyalty toward certain
items (Dick & Basu, 1994; lin & lin, 2008). According to TRA, the
information that the person has is a main determine of his behaviour and
that this behaviour is affected by two factors; attitude and the
subjective norm (Fishbein, & Ajzen, 1967). TRA helps to predict
consumer behaviour (Donald, & Cooper, 2001).
In addition SIT is used to explain the team identification (Tajfel &
Turner, 1979). The theory suggests that the members of any group try to
build and preserve a positive identity of that group (Reysen et al.,
2012), and that they seek to do that in order to increase their
self-confidence and satisfaction (e.g., Hogg and Turner, 1985).
Identifying with a group, among individuals, can vary. As Gwinner and
Swanson (2003) mentioned that highly identified fans of certain sport,
as a sort of a social group, can be very loyal to their team, and vice
versa.