ESG themes of the restaurant industry: a comparison between full-service and limited-service restaurants

ABSTRACT

Considering the increasing significance of environmental, social, and governance (ESG) in the corporate world, an exploration of ESG reporting in the hospitality context has received limited attention. Accordingly, based on the stakeholder and institutional theories, this study proposes to reveal the overall and contemporary status of the restaurant industry’s ESG practices and further compare the ESG engagements of full-service restaurants and limited-service restaurants. This study collects data from publicly traded restaurant companies’ ESG reports and employs automated content analysis based on a computer-assisted qualitative data analysis approach. The findings of this study provide value to the ESG literature and practical implications

KEYWORDS:

• Environmental
• Social and governance
• ESG reporting
• Stakeholder theory
• Institutional theory
• Restaurants

Disclosure statement

There are no relevant financial or non-financial competing interests to report

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Yonsei University Research Fund (Yonsei Frontier Lab. Yonsei Frontier Program for Outstanding Scholars) of 2019.