While a substantial body of research has emerged examining the affect corporate sponsorship has on consumers, the literature has yet to consider how sponsorship affects business-to-business customers. Grounded in social identity theory, this paper addresses this important gap by proposing and empirically testing a B2B sponsorships effects model. The model is tested utilizing Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) of data collected from 552 active business-to-business customers of an industry supply company. Results suggest B2B customers are attuned to company sponsorship activities and are influenced by these sponsorships. Specifically, corporate sponsorships can influence customer’s loyalty, positive word-of-mouth and purchase decisions by enhancing customer’s level of company identification. Theoretical and managerial implications are discussed.

1. CORPORATE SPONSORSHIP
EFFECTS IN BUSINESS-TO-BUSINESS
MARKETS
Mark Groza – Northern Illinois University
Joe Cobbs – Northern Kentucky University

2. Research Motivation

3. Research Question
How does sponsorship
affect B2B buyers?
Can sponsorship enhance
supportive behaviors (i.e., WOM,
Loyalty, Share of Wallet)?
What does the ‘black-box’ of this
process look like?

4. B2B versus B2C Buying
Process
B2B B2C
 Buyer Behavior
 Professional Buyers
 Experts
 Well Trained, Rational
 Product
 Large Quantities – Volume
Discounts
 Customized solutions
 Promotion
 Salespeople important part of
selling firm’s promotional strategy
 Buyers are engaging venders
later in purchase process
 Buyer Behavior
 Non-Professional Buyers
 Knowledge Gap
 No formal training, Emotional
 Product
 Smaller volumes
 Standardized
 Promotion
 Salespeople not as important to
selling firm’s promotional strategy
 Buyers are engaging venders later
in purchase process

5. B2B Buying Process
 With all that said:
 B2B buyers buy from brands and people they
trust – Relationships are extremely important
(Mudambi 2002)
 “Analyzing data from more than 100,000
business decision makers, Chally discovered
that 39% of B2B Buyers select a vendor
according to the skills of the salesperson
rather than price, quality, or service features.”
– Fogel, Hoffmeister, Rocco and Strunk (2012 HBR)

6. Theoretical Framework
 Social Identity Theory (Tajfel and Turner 1985)
 Customer-Company Identification (CCID)
Bhattacharya and Sen (2003)
 Individuals identify with companies to satisfy
key self-definitional needs. The need for….
 Self-Continuity
 Self-Distinctiveness
 Self-Enhancement

7. Conceptual Model
Customer-
Company
Identification
Perceived Prestige
of Sponsored
Entity
Sincerity of
Sponsorship
Customer
Loyalty
Word-of-
Mouth
H3
H1
H2
H5
Controls
Age
Gender
Tenure
Share-of-
Wallet
H4

8. Sample and Measures
 Customers of a North American industrial
supply company
 552 (992) 56% response rate
 Sample consisted of customers who were aware
of the company’s sponsorship but not directly
engaged (i.e., attending an event) in the
sponsorship

9. Measures
Construct Item
s
Source
Prestige 4 Mael and Ashforth, 1992
Sincerity 5 Speed and Thompson, 2000
CCID 2 Bergami and Bagozzi, 2000
Loyalty 3 Palmatier, Scheer and Steenkamp, 2007
WOM 5 Harrison-Walker, 2001)
Share-of-
1 Lichtenstein, Drumwright and Braig,
2010 Wallet
 CFA (RMSEA = 0.057, CFI = 0. 96, GFI = 0.93, NFI = 0.94)
 Factor Loadings (all above .7, but 1 (.68)
 AVE (all above .60)

10. SEM Results
Hypothesize
d Model
Alternativ
e Model
H1 Prestige  CC-ID .167** .154**
H2 Sincerity  CC-ID .454** .412**
H3 CC-ID Loyalty .814** .761**
H4 CC-ID  WOM .878** .831**
H5 CC-ID  Share-of-Wallet .538** .556**
Controls
Age  CC-ID -.169** -.177**
Gender  CC-ID .015 .015
Tenure  CC-ID -.047 -.049
Direct Effects
Prestige  Loyalty n.s.
Prestige  WOM n.s.
Prestige  Share-of-
n.s.
Wallet
Sincerity  Loyalty .095*
Sincerity  WOM n.s.
Sincerity  Share-of- n.s.

11. Theoretical Implications
 CCID is key driver of B2B supportive
behaviors (opening the black box)
 Affiliated organizations (i.e., sponsored orgs)
can influence a customer’s identification levels
 Linking an inter-organizational relationship to
customer supportive behaviors

12. Practical Implications
 Prestige (def: perceptions that other people
believe the organization is well regarded,
Bergami and Bagozzi 2000) is an important
antecedent
 Sponsors must appear to be sincere
 B2B firms should use sponsorship to build
long-term customer relationship

13. Limitations & Future Research
 Limitations
 Self-report data
 Customers from one firm, one industry, one
sponsorship
 Future Research
 Include additional antecedents
 Use longitudinal data
 Use objective sales data

14. Questions?