Revisión de las Mallas Curriculares (2013 – 2019)

The recognition by some companies that confining sponsorship support to sporting

organisations ignored potential markets was a catalyst for changing patterns of

support. Recognising the strategic importance of what sponsorship delivers, five of

the companies in this study recently made decisions to limit or discontinue support

for sport so as to be able to commit to support the arts. Taken together with those

companies in the sample which do not provide support to sport, it is clear that the

typical company in the sample has a bias away from supporting sport.

5.8 Summary

The purpose of this chapter was to set out the findings arising from the data

generation process. The decision to provide the support to the arts involved the

Board and members of the management team. The contributions of CEOs were not

confined to the strategic decision process: in some instances they made substantial

contributions to operational plans.

The type and term of giving varied and in some instances combined several forms.

It was highlighted that not all support was provided as cash, but could be in-kind

support such as freight, travel or professional expertise. Not all companies were

able to provide services as a part of their support because of the nature of their

business, but for some companies the provision of services was the only means of

The use of grants as a form of support was not popular, in contrast to sponsorship.

Several representatives of the participant companies reported that their company

was new to support for the arts, so their track records are short and commitments

for the long-term were only just being made.

Among those companies who had only recently begun to support the arts, some

identified business benefits for their company whilst others identified that their

sponsorship budgets were finite and to add support for the arts, meant that another

activity had to cease. The use of a corporate foundation was identified as being of

little interest as a method of support to the not-for-profit arts sector. The

participants recognised the social and political benefits from giving, as

demonstrated through the type of organisations supported and the form of the

support.

Government has provided incentives through changes to legislation to ease the

requirements for the creation and running of a foundation as well as providing

resources to link arts groups with like-minded companies. Not all companies have

responded to these initiatives.

For the private philanthropists who participated in the study, the strategy and the

decision for giving was a central tenet of their philanthropic giving that they

considered needed no further justification. There were no restrictions on their

such as brand awareness were not important to private philanthropists, while social

responsibility held some interest but not in a corporate context. Private

philanthropists recognised and valued their freedom to support controversial or

unpopular projects with which a corporation may not want their brand associated,

or may consider commercially unviable, was viewed by the private philanthropists

as providing them with many opportunities to support the arts.

The discussion of the highlights listed above and the results contained in this

findings chapter, are located in Chapter Six. The discussion of the results

incorporates a reflection on the concepts contained in the literature and context

Chapter Six - Discussion

6.1 Introduction

As the literature review in Chapter Two identified, the use of corporate resources

for purposes other than creating shareholder wealth has been a research topic for

some time. That discussion included the types of support and the motives for

support provided by corporations to the not-for-profit sector. In particular, this

study focused on one component of the not-for-profit sector - the arts.

In the literature review the concept of philanthropy and the motivations for

corporate philanthropy and influences that have shaped the behaviours of the

organisation were considered. The influences of political, economic and social

contexts within which the company as an organisation operates were the main

points of the discussion.

The context chapter (Chapter Three) reviewed the model of support for the arts in

Australia. Government resources have been a key component of support, even

during a period in which neo-liberal ideology has engendered a trend away from

such support. An alternate source of support is that of the corporate sector and the

Australian Federal Government has provided some resources to encourage their

participation. Also included in Chapter Three were key components of the way

government and business support the arts in the USA and Britain. Sharing a

global context, the ways in which each country supports the arts show similarities

and highlight differences. The differences could highlight pathways for the future

in Australia and also provide some critical points for a discussion of Australian

models.

The methodology chapter (Chapter Four) stated the problem and the research

question, the philosophy of research methodology and described the method used to

generate and analyse the data. The findings chapter (Chapter Five) describe the

results generated by the data.

This discussion chapter consists of three sections. The first section outlines the

topic, restating the research problem and providing a review of the research

methodology. The second section is a brief summary of the results set out in

Chapter Five; the third section is a discussion of those results, reflecting on the

content of both the literature review and context chapters, drawing out themes

around corporate responsibility, giving and the arts.