Delivering on social good - corporate social responsibility and professional sport: a systematic quantitative literature review

Given the rising global use of corporate social responsibility (CSR) by professional sport organisations, this paper acts to consolidate the state of scholarly research using a systematic quantitative literature review. Our aim was to critically analyse the literature on CSR and professional sport organisations and in doing so ask, how is the global research at the nexus of sport and CSR poised to deliver social good? Our findings indicate the presence of variability in approaches to investigating CSR in professional sport, and the lack of discrete reporting of target audiences and initiatives evidenced across our sample. We suggest there is potential to learn from other disciplinary approaches to CSR research and to push towards conceptual clarity. Finally, sport organisations can lever sports’ unique qualities to deliver, engage and unite people across a range of boundaries, and to promote and create social value which is even more important as we navigate the post-COVID-19 environment of uncertainty and resource constraints.