Social responsibility and total quality in the hospitality industry: does gender matter?

ABSTRACT

This empirical study examines the role of gender diversity in top management teams (TMTs) and their impact on corporate social responsibility (CSR), which is an underexplored topic within the hotel sector. Based on stakeholder theory, we argue that the relationship between gender diversity and hotel performance is indirect and mediated by CSR. Our study also analyses how the implementation of total quality management (TQM) and CSR influences hotel stakeholder results, and hence business performance. Using a sample of Spanish hotels, we provide evidence that gender diversity in TMTs increases the level of implementation of CSR within the hotel industry. The results show that the impact of gender diversity on hotel performance is mediated by CSR. The findings also suggest that the adoption of TQM and CSR management philosophies improves the capacity of hotels to benefit their stakeholders, and that this improvement has a positive effect on hotel performance.

KEYWORDS:

• Total quality management
• corporate social responsibility
• hospitality industry
• gender diversity
• stakeholders
• top management teams

Acknowledgments

We gratefully acknowledge the feedback received from participants in the 2nd International Conference on Advances in Management, Economics and Social Sciences MES'15 in Rome (2015), the VI International Conference: Tourism, Economics and Environment in Malaga (2015) and the anonymous referees of earlier versions of this manuscript. This is a study carried out within the Santander Center for Corporate Social Responsibility of the University of Malaga (Spain), which has financial support from Banco Santander. The views in the manuscript are solely the responsibility of the authors.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1. The authors are aware that gender diversity goes beyond the man-woman dichotomy. However, due to the lack of more detailed information on the composition of TMTs, we approach the issue of gender diversity by calculating the proportion of women in TMTs. In fact, a recent study based on the most influential social surveys using national sampling frames in the USA (Westbrook & Saperstein, 2015) suggested that by providing the same two-answer options, “male” and “female”, the surveys considered that these categories cover all possible gender diversity. However, the study suggested introducing changes in the way gender diversity is measured in surveys to be in line with contemporary gender theory. Future research should take into account a broader definition of gender diversity. In this line, there is a growing body of research that has investigated the business case for LGBT-supportive policies and CSR (e.g. Pichler, Blazovich, Cook, Huston, & Strawser, 2016; Shan, Fu, & Zheng, 2016).

2. Spanish firms are required to file their annual financial accounts in the Mercantile Registry, which is thus an important source of reliable data on these firms.

3. Camerdata SA, created in 1985 by the Spanish Chamber of Commerce, is a pioneering company in creating business databases that include the censuses of all Spanish Chambers of Commerce. It also has a permanent programme that ensures that the national census is fully updated at least once a year using data from all Chambers of Commerce. This database is complemented by data from other sources or public media, such as the Mercantile Registry.

4. The value 0 was assigned if the hotel had negative profit (only 16 hotels experienced a loss). This is a common technique for handling negative values when logarithmic transformation is implemented.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Cristina Quintana-García

Cristina Quintana-García has a PhD degree in Economics and Management Sciences, and is professor of Management at the University of Malaga (Spain). She is director of the Andalusian Research and Technological Development Group “Technological Innovation, Quality and Corporate Social Responsibility” (SEJ-414). She is also director of the Santander Center for Corporate Social Responsibility of the University of Malaga. She made a research stay as a Visiting Scholar at Harvard University in 2001, at Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania in 2004, at Sloan School of Management of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 2009 and at London Business School in 2016. She has been director of Quality and Strategic Development at the University of Málaga in the period 2008–2011. She develops many studies regarding technological innovation, social responsibility, gender and quality. The results from her research have been published in international journals and conference proceedings.

Macarena Marchante-Lara

Macarena Marchante-Lara is industrial engineer and holds a master degree in Occupational Health and Safety and a PhD degree from the University of Malaga. She is an assistant professor and a trainee researcher in the Department of Economics and Business Administration at the University of Malaga (Spain). She is a member of the Andalusian Research and Technological Development Group “Technological Innovation, Quality and Corporate Social Responsibility” (SEJ-414). She is research fellow and academic collaborator of the Santander Center for Corporate Social Responsibility of the University of Malaga (Spain). Her research focuses on service sector, especially on quality, gender and social responsibility.

Carlos G. Benavides-Chicón

Carlos G. Benavides-Chicón holds a PhD degree and is graduated in Administration and Business Management (Hons) and in Economics (Hons) from the University of Malaga. He is an assistant professor in the Department of Applied Economics (Economic Structure) in the Faculty of Economics and Business Sciences at the University of Malaga (Spain). He is a member of the Andalusian Research and Technological Development Group “Tourism Economics: Labor Market and Environment” (SEJ-139) and the Santander Center for Corporate Social Responsibility of the University of Malaga (Spain). His research focuses on tourism sector, especially on quality, productivity and social responsibility in the hospitality sector.