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Basic research can make the difference between a successful sponsorship association and a significant marketing failure. In this paper, the importance of using benchmarking is discussed in order to help determine the likely success or failure of any particular sponsorship. It is suggested that between one and two per cent of the total sponsorship budget should be spent on research. The value of such research is demonstrated by a case study of Green Flag's sponsorship of the England national soccer team.

This paper aims to present and describe the main actions carried out in six different faculties and common areas such as cultural and research centres and administrative buildings in the Ferrol campus at the University of A Coruña to achieve the second green flag on a Galician University.

A case study describing the steps for implementing a green campus programme in a medium-size, young university campus integrated into a small city. An Environmental Campus Committee was created to assess the main factors that affect environmental footprint, discuss sustainability initiatives and develop a guide to action regarding different goals related to sustainable transport options, energy, water conservation and waste reduction. The actions included several fields such as education, circular economy and healthy life and involved the on and off-campus community.

The programme achieved a decrease in water consumption and electrical energy. An important change in educational values and behaviours regarding sustainability was observed in and out of the campus community. The measurements adopted mainly in waste management, mobility and education led the Ferrol campus to achieve a green campus flag on November 2019.

This experiment can serve as a guide to establish the Green Campus philosophy in other similar university campuses.

State‐based management (SBM) is a specific form of the game‐play methodology (GPM) – an approach to the application of constraints in humanity activity systems. The theory that supports GPM was developed using a team sports model and promotes a coordination of workers’ efforts, without limiting their individual abilities to be creative in support of corporate goals. This paper reports on research undertaken to prove the applicability of GPM to a business environment. The case studies focused on over‐the‐counter (OTC) banking services. The use of game‐play tactics (SBM) in the banking chamber was highly successful. It provided a mechanism for designing constraints that addressed issues of the incomplete and inaccurate system state knowledge usually held by the tellers. Further, the process promoted the development of a team ethos, and this change in attitudes had positive repercussions on the overall working environment

This narrative review explored the efficacy of school-based child sexual abuse prevention programmes between 1990 and 2002. There were 22 efficacy studies that met clear inclusion criteria. Results covered both methodological design and the range of outcome measures. Methodology was analysed through four dimensions (target population, prevention programme implementation, evaluation methodology and cost-effectiveness). Outcomes for children covered nine categories (knowledge, skills, emotion, perception of risk, touch discrimination, reported response to actual threat/abuse, disclosure, negative effects and maintenance of gains). The studies had many methodological limitations. Prevention programmes had a measure of effectiveness in increasing children ' s awareness of child sexual abuse as well as self-protective skills. Beyond minimal disclosure rates, there was no evidence to demonstrate that programmes protected children from intra-familial sexual abuse. For a small number of children prevention programmes produced minimal negative emotional effects. Recommendations for future research, policy and practice, include realistic outcomes for child participants and locating programmes within wider abuse prevention measures.

The discipline of business process management (BPM) is challenged by investigating how work is performed in organizations while simultaneously recognizing preeminent environmental issues. Although organizations have become more open to the ecological impact of business processes through Green BPM, research in this field and guidance for practitioners remains relatively limited. Therefore, this study aims to extend and translate the conventional perspective on business process maturity towards green business process maturity levels.

The authors bridged product-focussed and process-focussed environmental management practices by surveying ecolabels against theoretical capability areas for business process maturity. Since ecolabels are instruments to develop environmental-friendly products and services, the authors looked at the underlying processes to produce such green outcomes. By surveying 89 ecolabel organizations, the authors had indirectly access to an international set of companies, operating in distinct industries and producing a wide variety of green products and services.

The authors statistically uncovered a classification of four groups of ecolabels based on the process capabilities, each representing a distinct green business process maturity level. The four levels are “Green BP immaturity”, “Green BPL maturity”, “Green BPM maturity” and “Green BPO maturity” and align with well-established concepts in the business process literature and profession.

Scholars are encouraged to elaborate on the identified maturity levels in order to build and test a green business process maturity model, whereas practitioner-related advice is provided based on possible green business process maturity journeys towards excellence.

This paper aims to examine how “green” attributes contribute to hotel customers' overall satisfaction.

A qualitative study helped generate a list of the attributes that contribute to overall satisfaction with hotel services. Then a Tetraclasse model, which highlights the four‐fold nature of this contribution, was used. Two hypotheses are posed. First, attributes of hotel service can be divided into four different types according to the way in which they contribute to forming satisfaction. Second, in terms of how they contribute to forming satisfaction, environmental protection initiatives can be considered “plus” attributes.

The first hypothesis is rejected. For the second hypothesis, the results show that the environmental attributes were evaluated as “basic”, which means they were seen as an integral part of the service offer, rather than as differentiating criteria.

The study was based on a relatively restricted sample. Further research is needed to improve the external validity of the research.

It is necessary to maintain a high level of performance for “green” attributes. Moreover, it would be preferable not to inform customers about environmental initiatives in order to limit the risk of being unfavorably evaluated on these attributes. It would seem worthwhile for a company to invest in service attributes that are respectful of the environment, even if they do not promote these attributes directly to the customer. Pro‐environment initiatives may also be introduced for economic reasons.

The paper makes use of the Tetraclasse model methodology.

This study is a micro-level perspective of value co-creation in spectator sport. By examining sport through the value co-creation lens, the dual role of the customer as both a contributor to and a beneficiary of value is acknowledged and the importance of stakeholder interactions is emphasized. This study analyzes the extent to which two theoretically and managerially important factors—attendance frequency (i.e. first-time attendee vs repeat attendee) and resident type (i.e. local resident vs domestic traveler)—impact value creation in the recurring live sporting event setting.

Data were collected from spectators who attended a National Association for Stock Car Auto Racing (NASCAR) sanctioned racing event. Multigroup structural equation modeling was performed to examine the proposed pathways, and multigroup t-tests were used to compare the model across both groups for each moderating variable. Corresponding path coefficients were then compared using Chin's (2004) recommended equations and procedures.

The study found organization-related value propositions to be the more common antecedents of value, while customer appearance had a strong negative association with hedonic value, and attendance frequency and resident type influenced certain value perceptions. Sport organizations should consider the expectations and motivations of various customer groups and provide offerings designed to meet the specific needs of different fan segments based on the spectator's experience with the sport product and the distance traveled to attend the sport event.

This paper advances the authors’ understanding of value creation in sport by showing how customer perceptions of value associated with the sport organization and other customers can be moderated by certain behavioral and geographic factors.

Different models have been adopted in England over time to organise public service delivery. The purpose of this paper is to explore contracting-out, a prevalent model of public service delivery in England, in relation to parks and roads maintenance delivery by examining private contractors’ performance according to local authority stakeholders.

Since the Conservative Government was in power during the 1980s, local authorities have been an arena for experimentation of contracting-out to private and other sectors. This paper provides a review of the academic and grey literature, and findings are presented from a large-scale online questionnaire survey (n=103) which was distributed to the relevant public realm managers in English local authorities.

The paper shows that contracting-out of parks and roads maintenance happens across the country in different ways. By and large, local authorities are satisfied with the performance of contractors, particularly as a response to economic constraints. Responsibilities, particularly for parks, are increasingly shared with non-governmental organisations, including community groups, although this is not reflected in budget distribution.

Despite the efforts, the response rate was relatively low (32 per cent), potentially due to the e-mail communication and online nature of the questionnaire.

The research provides empirical evidence about how contracting-out is currently delivering public services and how it has changed in recent years. The findings suggest that responsibilities (and to a lesser extent, budgets) are increasingly shared in England between different combinations of public, private, third and community sector stakeholders. This marks a shift away from in-house public sector delivery of parks and roads services.

The usefulness of risk disclosures (RDs) to support equity investors’ investment decisions is highly discussed. As prior research criticizes the extensive aggregation of risk information in existing empirical research, this paper aims to provide an attempt to identify disaggregated risk information associated with cumulative abnormal stock returns (CARs).

The sample consists of 2,558 RDs of companies listed in the S&P 500 index. The RDs were filed within 10 K filings between 2011 and 2017. First, this study automatically extracted 35,685 key phrases that occurred in a maximum of 1.5% of the RDs. Second, this study performed stepwise regressions of these key phrases and identified 67 (78) key phrases that show positive (negative) associations with CARs.

The paper finds that investors seem to value most the more common key phrases just below the 1.5% rarest key phrase threshold and business-related key phrases from RDs. Furthermore, investors seem to perceive key phrases that contain words indicating uncertainty (impacts) as a negative (positive) rather than a positive (negative) signal.

The research approach faces limitations mainly due to the selection of the included key phrases, the focus on CARs and the methodological choice of the stepwise regression analysis.

The study reveals the potential for companies to increase the information value of their RDs for equity investors by providing tailored information within RDs instead of universal phrases. In addition, the research indicates that the tailored RDs encouraged by the SEC contain relevant information for investors. Furthermore, the results may guide the attention of equity investors to relevant text passages whose deeper analysis might be useful with regard to investors’ capital market decisions.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the state of sustainable tourism certification in developing countries and to present methodological and practical critiques and improvements.

The study uses methodological refinements of fuzzy logic and comparative analysis based on fieldwork in seven countries.

Sustainable tourism programs should be locally designed with local logos, largely performance‐based, and aggregation should be based on fuzzy logic concepts of necessary and jointly sufficient attributes of sustainable tourism.

The paper uses political science concepts of state capacity and methodological advances of fuzzy logic to provide keys for successful sustainable tourism certification programs in developing countries.