Sport Sponsorship as an Internal Marketing Tool

While much of the sponsorship literature has focused on analyzing the effects of sponsorship on consumers (e.g., Gwinner, 1997; Madrigal, 2001; Rajaretnam, 1994), research on the internal effects of sponsorship on a sponsor company's workforce has been rare (Grimes & Meenaghan, 1998; Hickman, Lawrence, & Ward, 2005). At the same time, both, sponsorship and internal marketing researchers have recommended further investigation of the use of external marketing tools such as sponsorship for internal marketing purposes (Cornwell & Maignan, 1995; Dolphin, 2003; Lings & Greenley, 2005). The purpose of this study was to assess how sponsorship as a marketing communications tool affects employees' perceptions of an organization's corporate image, their person-organization fit, and organizational identification. Data were collected from employees of a quick service restaurant chain (N=231). After establishing the reliability and validity of the measurement instrument, multiple regression analysis was used to determine the relationship between four different sponsorship factors and the outcome variables. Sponsor-property fit perceptions as well as the perceived sponsor goodwill were most influential on all the outcome factors, while a personal interest in the sport by employees appeared to foster organizational identification. Overall, the study results suggested that attitudes towards sponsorship activities rub off on employees in a similar way as they do on consumers, and supported its use as a potential internal marketing tool.