An assessment model of corporate social responsibility practice in the tourism industry

ABSTRACT

Corporate social responsibility (CSR) has gradually become a concern of many companies in the tourism industry. A substantial number of companies have implemented CSR programmes to pursue economic and environmental win–win situations while acting in a socially responsible manner. This study constructs an assessment model of CSR practice in the tourism industry to provide for more effective implementation of CSR. First, the researchers reviewed CSR-related literature and conducted in-depth interviews with industry experts. Based on the literature and the interviews, five dimensions, including Economy, Environment, Society, Culture and Consequence, and 15 criteria were extracted to form the assessment model. Second, the study examined the model's validity and established a consensus among the perspectives of academia, government and industry using the Fuzzy Delphi Method (FDM). Finally, the study adopted the DEMATEL and DEMATEL-based Analytical Network Process (ANP) technique to understand the causal relations and weights among the factors. The results indicated that Environment is the most influential dimension, Consequence is the most important dimension in the assessment model and Sustainable Cultural Inheritance is the most important criterion among all of the CSR practice criteria. Implications for application are discussed at the end of the paper.

KEYWORDS:

• Corporate social responsibility (CSR) practice
• multiple attribute decision-making (MADM)
• influential network relations map (INRM)
• environment
• culture
• sustainable cultural inheritance

Acknowledgments

The authors would like to extend their appreciation to anonymous reviewers for useful suggestions and the Ministry of Science and Technology of Taiwan for financial support [grant number MOST 104-2511-S-228−003-MY3].

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Ministry of Science and Technology, Taiwan [grant number MOST 104-2511-S-228 -003 -MY3].

Notes on contributors

Jeou-Shyan Horng

Jeou-Shyan Horng is a President and professor of Jinwen University of Science & Technology and retired professor of National Taiwan Normal University. She is also the past president of APac-CHRIE and she has a PhD degree from Iowa State University. Her research interests focus mainly on hospitality and tourism management, creativity, ethics, corporate social responsibility, sustainability, and education with those findings published in several international journals and books in this field.

Hsuan Hsu

Hsuan Hsu is a PhD candidate of National Taiwan Normal University. His business experiences include events, exhibitions and conference management in the tourism industry, and cultural and creativity industry. His research interests include competency, service, ethics, corporate social responsibility, aesthetics in the areas of the tourism, hospitality, education with those findings published in several international journals and books in this field.

Chang-Yen Tsai

Chang-Yen Tsai is an associate professor of Department of Hospitality Management, MingDao University. He has a PhD degree from Iowa State University. His research interests focus mainly on human resource management in tourism and hospitality industry and education. He has published papers in several international journals in this field.