Entrepreneurial Marketing and Airline-Cause Sponsorship Congruence: Passenger Sponsorship Response to US-Based Full-Service Airlines
Abstract
:1. Introduction
2. Literature Review and Hypotheses
2.1. A Prior Understanding of Airline Cause Sponsorship
2.2. Entrepreneurial Marketing and Congruence
2.2.1. Opportunity Vigilance and Sponsorship Congruence
2.2.2. Consumer-Centric Innovativeness and Congruence
2.2.3. Value Creation and Congruence
2.2.4. Risk Management and Congruence
2.3. Brand-Cause Sponsorship Congruence, Favorability toward the Airlilne, and Purchase Intention
3. Method
3.1. Measures
3.2. Data Collection and Sample
4. Results
4.1. Measurement Model
4.2. Hypothesis Testing
5. Discussion
6. Conclusions
6.1. Theoretical Implications
6.2. Practical Implications
6.3. Limitations and Future Research
Author Contributions
Funding
Conflicts of Interest
References and Notes
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Authors | Research Context | Environmental | Social | Key Findings |
---|---|---|---|---|
Fenclova and Coles [33] | A content analysis of 22 European low-fare airlines’ CSR and semi-structured interviews with 11 managers within low-fare airlines. | Environmental charities (e.g., fuel efficiency). | Partnerships with a number of charities intending to deal with illness/disease and afflicted children (e.g., the Peter Pan Holiday Club). | Most of low fares airlines’ charity involvement is called strategic philanthropy, where firms may receive positive benefits (e.g., employee morale). |
Coles, Fenclova, and Dinan [3] | An investigation of CSR practices within low-fare airlines operating between mainland Europe and the UK, based on an analysis of secondary data and in-depth semi-structured interviews. | Limited indication of charity activities. | Fundraising activities for charities (e.g., BBC Children in need, Alzheimer’s society, Cancer research UK). | Reliance on textual data only for low-fare airlines’ CSR practices leads to a fragmented understanding of their CSR activities. |
Cowper-Smith and de Grosbois [32] | A quantitative content analysis of 2019 CSR reports published by 14 airlines affiliated with one of the major alliance networks (i.e., Star Alliance, Oneworld, and Skyteam). | Sponsoring scientific research projects in areas of CO2 emissions, engine washing, and installation of winglets; sponsorship of environmental organizations; sponsoring avoidance of deforestation. | Sponsoring childcare centers; donations to charitable organizations; partnerships with NGOs; onboard charity collection program, transport children for medical treatment. | The analysis of CSR reports revealed that less than 70% of airlines publishing reports become involved in some charity-related activities, such as donations to charitable organizations. |
Truong and Hall [35] | An examination of 14 social marketing programs by tourism businesses. | Airlines’ social marketing programs included cause promotions as follows: “Don’t Mess with Texas”—Southwest Airlines’ anti-littering message distributed to passengers; “Sustainable Holiday Initiative”—TUI Travel airlines’ promotion of environmentally-friendly holiday products. | “Change for Good” is one of the famous examples of corporate cause promotions, which is implemented by numerous airlines in partnership with UNICEF. | Tourism businesses often sponsor public/non-profit organizations, thus helping them implement social marketing programs. |
Characteristics | Categories | Frequency (N) | Percentage (%) |
---|---|---|---|
Gender | Male | 216 | 48.8 |
Female | 227 | 51.2 | |
Age | 19 | 8 | 1.8 |
20–29 | 152 | 34.3 | |
30–39 | 136 | 30.7 | |
40–49 | 68 | 15.4 | |
Older than 50 | 79 | 17.8 | |
Ethnicity | Caucasian | 274 | 61.8 |
Hispanic/Latino | 42 | 9.5 | |
Black/African-American | 72 | 16.3 | |
Asian | 35 | 7.9 | |
Other | 20 | 4.5 | |
Level of Education | Some high school | 9 | 2.0 |
High school graduate | 137 | 31.0 | |
College or university graduate | 257 | 58.0 | |
Post-graduate | 40 | 9.0 | |
Income level (Annual income) | Under $20,000 | 43 | 9.7 |
$20,000–less than $40,000 | 87 | 19.6 | |
$40,000–less than $60,000 | 110 | 24.8 | |
$60,000–less than $80,000 | 92 | 20.8 | |
$80,000–less than $100,000 | 43 | 9.7 | |
Over $100,000 | 68 | 15.4 | |
Current employment | Employed | 318 | 71.8 |
Self-employed | 28 | 6.3 | |
Retired/semi-retired | 32 | 7.2 | |
Homemaker | 26 | 5.9 | |
Other | 39 | 8.8 |
Items | Standardized Loading |
---|---|
Entrepreneurial marketing | |
Opportunity vigilance | |
This airline has a real passion for continually changing the way the products/services are marketed in the business. | 0.716 |
This airline is frequently one of the first in the community to alter its marketing methods. | 0.722 |
This airline consistently monitors and improves the approach to marketing the business. | 0.730 |
This airline regularly pursues untapped market opportunities, regardless of budgetary or staff constraints. | 0.653 |
When new market opportunities arise, this airline very quickly acts on them. | 0.747 |
Consumer-centric innovation | |
This airline spends considerable resources continually trying to learn more about each of its customers. | 0.710 |
This airline’s marketing efforts reflect knowledge of what its customers really want from its products/services. | 0.792 |
Communicating with customers is a great way to identify innovation opportunities in this airline. | 0.693 |
Innovation is the key to achieving competitive advantage in this airline. | 0.737 |
Value creation | |
This airline looks for ways in which business can create more value for customers. | 0.801 |
This airline contributes to ideas to create value for customers. | 0.819 |
This airline continuously tries to find new ways to create value for customers. | 0.809 |
Riskmanagement | |
When this airline decides to pursue a new marketing direction, the company does so in stages rather than all at once to reduce the risk involved. | 0.745 |
This airline’s marketing efforts tend to have a low level of risk for the business. | 0.714 |
This airline typically uses creative, low cost ways to reduce risks associated with new marketing activities. | 0.802 |
Cause sponsorship congruence | |
When I hear about the sponsorship, I can understand this airline better. | 0.825 |
With this sponsorship, I discover a new aspect of this airline. | 0.818 |
I am not surprised that this airline sponsors this cause. | 0.770 |
One would expect this airline to sponsor this cause. | 0.834 |
It was predictable that this airline would sponsor this cause. | 0.737 |
Favorability | |
This airline’s sponsorship makes me feel more favorable toward the airline. | 0.843 |
This airline’s sponsorship would improve my perception of the airline. | 0.851 |
This airline’s sponsorship would make me like the airline more. | 0.832 |
Purchase intentions | |
The likelihood of booking with this airline is high. | 0.803 |
If I am going to book with an airline, I would consider booking with this airline at the price shown. | 0.796 |
The probability that I would consider booking with this airline is high. | 0.885 |
My willingness to book with this airline is high. | 0.825 |
Construct | Mean (SD) | AVE | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
1 | Opportunity vigilance | 3.94 (0.696) | 0.510 | 0.866 a | 0.935 b | 0.855 | 0.795 | 0.794 | 0.703 | 0.622 |
2 | Customer-centric innovation | 4.09 (0.712) | 0.539 | 0.874 c | 0.857 | 0.913 | 0.701 | 0.793 | 0.704 | 0.704 |
3 | Value creation | 4.09 (0.789) | 0.656 | 0.731 | 0.834 | 0.876 | 0.657 | 0.835 | 0.700 | 0.709 |
4 | Risk management | 3.79 (0.795) | 0.569 | 0.632 | 0.491 | 0.432 | 0.817 | 0.720 | 0.612 | 0.508 |
5 | Cause sponsorship congruence | 3.92 (0.731) | 0.636 | 0.630 | 0.629 | 0.697 | 0.518 | 0.911 | 0.908 | 0.737 |
6 | Favorability | 4.05 (0.788) | 0.709 | 0.494 | 0.496 | 0.490 | 0.375 | 0.824 | 0.904 | 0.663 |
7 | Purchase intention | 4.18 (0.804) | 0.686 | 0.389 | 0.496 | 0.503 | 0.258 | 0.543 | 0.439 | 0.911 |
Goodness-of-fit indices: χ2 = 550.403, p < 0.001, χ2/df = 1.829 GFI = 0.918; CFI = 0.967; IFI = 0.967; TLI = 0.961; RMSEA = 0.043 |
Paths | Standardized Estimate | t-Value | Support | ||
---|---|---|---|---|---|
Opportunity vigilance | → | Cause sponsorship congruence | 0.105 | 0.420 | Not support |
Customer-centric innovation | → | Cause sponsorship congruence | 0.053 | 0.184 | Not support |
Value creation | → | Cause sponsorship congruence | 0.524 | 3.447 ** | Support |
Risk management | → | Cause sponsorship congruence | 0.236 | 2.623 ** | Support |
Cause sponsorship congruence | → | Favorability | 0.921 | 16.911 ** | Support |
Favorability | → | Purchase intention | 0.716 | 13.750 ** | Support |
© 2018 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
Share and Cite
Kim, J.J.; Kim, I. Entrepreneurial Marketing and Airline-Cause Sponsorship Congruence: Passenger Sponsorship Response to US-Based Full-Service Airlines. Sustainability 2018, 10, 2359. https://doi.org/10.3390/su10072359
Kim JJ, Kim I. Entrepreneurial Marketing and Airline-Cause Sponsorship Congruence: Passenger Sponsorship Response to US-Based Full-Service Airlines. Sustainability. 2018; 10(7):2359. https://doi.org/10.3390/su10072359
Chicago/Turabian StyleKim, Joonhyeong Joseph, and Insin Kim. 2018. "Entrepreneurial Marketing and Airline-Cause Sponsorship Congruence: Passenger Sponsorship Response to US-Based Full-Service Airlines" Sustainability 10, no. 7: 2359. https://doi.org/10.3390/su10072359