Since the early 1990s, tourism companies, mostly hotel facilities, have undertaken different voluntary initiatives to show their commitment to sustainable tourism. Among the voluntary tools applied by the hotel industry, the most common are codes of conduct, best environmental practices, eco-labels, environmental management systems (EMSs) and environmental performance indicators.This article presents the findings of empirical research conducted with Spanish hotels that have adopted one or more of the existing environmental tools. Based on a qualitative exploration of perceptions and experiences of hotel managers applying these instruments, the general understanding of the concept of sustainable tourism is examined, and the practical application of different voluntary environmental instruments is analysed. In an attempt to interpret the facilitators and barriers reported by hotel companies, three interpretative approaches are combined to explain the selective adoption of environmental tools: the perspective of competitive advantages, the perspective of stakeholders' influence and the perspective of the human cognitive process.
This paper attempts to gain a deeper understanding of the firm's ability to integrate stakeholder insights into the process of organizational innovation from a sustainable development viewpoint. Given the early stage of empirical research on the topic, we used an exploratory case study of two Spanish companies that have successfully learned from stakeholder dialogue and have generated innovations that are beneficial both for the company and for sustainable development in general. The evidence from the two case studies suggests the existence of two simple capabilities-stakeholder dialogue and stakeholder knowledge integration-for generating innovations in accordance with stakeholder needs. Whereas stakeholder dialogue leverages organizational resources that promote two-way communication, transparency and appropriate feedback to stakeholders, stakeholder knowledge integration relies on nonhierarchical structures, flexibility and openness to change. The paper sheds some light on the under-researched issue of linking stakeholder dialogue and sustainable innovation, and thus contributes to opening the "black box" of dynamic capabilities and advancing in the understanding of this fundamental organizational concept.
Purpose -The purpose of this paper is to focus on the contribution of stakeholder engagement to firms' innovation orientation within the context of sustainable development. It investigates whether engagement with different stakeholders promotes sustainable innovation. Design/methodology/approach -The empirical analysis is based on an international sample of 656 large companies, drawn from the annual assessment for the Dow Jones Sustainability Indexes. A logistic regression analysis was performed in order to test the hypothesized relationships between stakeholder interaction, knowledge management and sustainable innovation orientation. Findings -Empirical results showed that knowledge sourced from engagement with internal and external stakeholders contributes to a firm's sustainable innovation orientation, but that this knowledge has to be managed by the firm internally in order to be converted into new ideas for innovation.Research limitations/implications -Since the present study represents one of the first attempts to characterize stakeholder-driven innovation in a quantitative way, there are some limitations related to the used database that should be addressed in future research. Practical implications -The results show the importance for companies of connecting the business functions of stakeholder engagement and innovation, and find flexible mechanisms to combine access and transformation of relevant stakeholder information. Originality/value -The main contribution of the present research is to prove quantitatively that engagement with different stakeholders is a valid mechanism for promoting sustainable innovation within firms. This is done with a unique dataset, the SAM Group database. In addition, the present study will advance understanding on firm's sustainable innovation processes by framing this phenomenon as an organizational capability.
This paper aims to shed light on the relationship between the entrepreneurial behaviour of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) and their commitment to sustainable development (SD). In order to analyse the determinants of SD engagement at the organisational level, we draw on the resource-based view of the firm and examine specifically the effects of entrepreneurial orientation and internationalisation, using survey data from Spanish and Mexican SMEs. Our results reveal that entrepreneurial orientation is positively associated with SD engagement, particularly regarding the environment, human resources, and community involvement. However, we could only observe a positive effect of SME internationalisation on SD engagement in Mexican but not in Spanish firms, suggesting that this effect is context-dependent and related to institutional pressures. We discuss the implications of these findings for scholars and practitioners. Copyright As described in Courrent et al. (2016), the SD practices constructs were developed to measure three distinct dimensions of SD, based on the European Commission's (2003) typology and previous literature, and were checked for their construct validity. a Dummy variables were specified to control for industry sectors, comparison group is Services. a Dummy variables were specified to control for industry sectors, comparison group is Services.88
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.
hi@scite.ai
10624 S. Eastern Ave., Ste. A-614
Henderson, NV 89052, USA
Copyright © 2024 scite LLC. All rights reserved.
Made with 💙 for researchers
Part of the Research Solutions Family.