Exploring corporate social responsibility and financial performance through stakeholder theory in the tourism industries

Abstract

The literature examining the relationship between corporate social responsibility (CSR) and corporate financial performance (CFP) in the tourism industries is extensive but it has not verified the relationship unambiguously. This has been attributed to the methodological artefacts used, but also to the lack of a solid theoretical foundation. Based on stakeholder theory, this paper proposes the use of two models that explicitly investigate the relationship between stakeholder management, expressed as CSR activities, firm strategy and CFP. The strategic stakeholder model and the intrinsic stakeholder commitment model are evaluated in terms of their descriptive accuracy in four different tourism-related industries (airlines, casinos, hotels and restaurants) using panel regressions for the years 2005 to 2014. The results provide useful theoretical insights into the way in which CSR interacts with firm strategy and CFP, as well as managerial insights into how tourism practitioners can identify which CSR activities may impact CFP.

Tourism Family-Business Owners’ Risk Perception: Its Impact on Destination Development

“…Lastly, it is normative because stakeholders are accepted as groups having an interest in the organization and vice versa, while they are intrinsically motivated [27]. Regarding research in the tourism field, some results support an instrumental perspective, while the normative perspective is neglected [29].…”

“…In this setting, DMOs are responsible for coordinating firms' communication and strategic orientation [18]. In addition, tourism research emphasizes social and environmental effects [29]. The interaction effects of strategy and corporate social responsibility (CSR) variables, such as selling intensity, community activities, and improving financial performance, while moderating strategy variables and diversity activities, positively influence environmental performance [29].…”

How Does Destination Social Responsibility Impact Residents’ Pro-Tourism Behaviors? The Mediating Role of Place Attachment

“…Corporate social responsibility (CSR) describes firms' discretionary business initiatives that improve societal well-being beyond that which is commanded by law [17,18]. Recently, studies exploring CSR initiatives in the tourism context have emerged and been applied to various tourism-related industries, such as the airline industry [19], the cruise industry [20], the restaurant context [21][22][23], the casino industry [24,25], the hotel industry [26,27], and the tourism-related contexts (i.e., airlines, hotels, restaurants, and casinos) [28,29]. However, the assessment of CSR in the destination context (destination social responsibility) may vary from the previous traditional CSR research.…”

“…On the basis of the stakeholder theory, firms leverage CSR activities to exert an impact on various stakeholders, including tourists, employees, and community residents [30]. The extant tourism CSR research has started to consider CSR actions primarily as connections to shareholders' values [22,29], customers' behavior [31,32], employee-associated outcomes [25,26], and residents' attitudes and support [11,16]. Therefore, the following hypothesized relationship is proposed: Hypothesis 1 (H1).…”

Does Sustainability Engagement Affect Stock Return Volatility? Evidence from the Chinese Financial Market

“…For instance, Harjoto and Jo [7] found that legalized sustainability exposure due to governmental requirements is in favour of the market because the information is more likely to be genuine and less costly to access. Theodoulidis et al [8] indicated that sustainability engagement information increases market confidence as long-run-oriented business strategy eliminates stock market speculators. However, when a company discloses information about sustainability engagement, there are two general arguments among the existing studies about how the market interprets the information.…”