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The purpose of this paper is to advance the understanding of how corporate social responsibility (CSR) develops within professional football clubs, along with its organizational implications, phases, drivers and barriers for corporate governance, given that professional football organizations have become particularly strong socio-political business institutions, often home to numerous social and business relationships. Additionally it aims to consider CSR development generally drawing specifically on examples from Scottish professional football while answering two key research questions: what kind of drivers do clubs identify as reasons to develop CSR? and Can developmental phases be identified during this process?

The paper builds on a qualitative case study methodology that draws on primary and secondary data collected across 12 Scottish Premier League (SPL) football clubs. Three stages of data collection were set out including interviews, Web content analysis and annual/CSR reports analysis.

This research highlights internal and external drivers of change in Scottish football clubs along with institutional barriers and organizational (developmental) phases of CSR and corporate governance.

This research is limited on the CSR development across the 12 SPL clubs.

The paper is the first to consider CSR in professional football clubs from a developmental point of view. Six phases of CSR development are identified and defined – volunteering, regulation, socialization, corporatization, separation and integration – and implications for football and general corporate governance are presented.

The purpose of this conceptual paper is to introduce a new governance model based on collaborative co-creation of value that leads to the strategic integration of football clubs and their community trusts. This paper also introduces a new process framework that can be instrumental to practitioners and can be operationalised by researchers.

The paper is underpinned by social strategy literature, the service-dominant (S-D) logic framework of value co-creation, stakeholder thinking and the creating shared value (CSV) framework. The process framework is based on the P.A.S.C.A.L. (perception, analysis, synthesis, choice, action and learning) decision-making process introduced by Goodpaster (1991).

Although the evidence that we have presented shows that some clubs are already applying some of the strategies that are part of our process framework, the paper highlights further opportunities particularly for clubs with less-developed social schemes.

This paper is a conceptual paper based on an ongoing multi-case study of four English Premier League clubs. The evidence we introduce is to bring our proposed process framework to life. As implications for future research, the process framework can be tested empirically. Future studies might also focus on how the international footprint of the community trusts influences their strategic integration with the rest of the club. Lastly, the leader plus team might be used as a new unit of analysis in future research.

This conceptual paper can mitigate the separation fallacy that decouples social schemes from football and commercial objectives. Our process framework illustrates how stakeholder relationships are governed and lead to value creation. The strategies within the CSV framework are a roadmap for expanding social and economic value co-creation.

Our process framework for collaborative value co-creation can guide practitioners on how to develop and implement their social strategies.

The originality of this paper is in the application of the S-D logic and the CSV framework to social strategies in football clubs and the introduction of a process framework that may be operationalised by researchers and applied by practitioners as they develop and implement their social strategies.