Corporate social responsibility and organisational performance in the tourism sector

Abstract

This study tests the bidirectional connections between corporate social responsibility performance and the financial performance of firms within the tourism sector and related industries based on the instrumental stakeholder and slack resources theories. Disaggregated measures of firms’ corporate social responsibility practices and corporate financial performance were considered to avoid compensation effects. This choice also allows for testing of whether separated dimensions of corporate social responsibility have different linkages with corporate financial performance measures. Static and dynamic panel data regression models were implemented for robustness. With a few exceptions, the study found a neutral impact of corporate environmental, social, and governance performance on firms’ financial success. This study therefore recommends that managers of tourism firms should engage in corporate social responsibility practices, which can contribute to different sustainable development goals without sacrificing financial performance. Contradictory to the slack resources theory, with a few exceptions, the higher the financial performance of tourism firms, the lower their commitment to corporate social responsibility issues. Furthermore, tourism firms must communicate their corporate social responsibility initiatives to develop public awareness of their environmental, social, and governance efforts.

Keywords:

• Corporate social responsibility
• corporate financial performance
• tourism firms
• stakeholder theory
• slack resources theory

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Table A1. Sample breakdown by country.

Table A2. Sample breakdown by tourism industry.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by Gobierno de Aragón;Ibercaja Foundation; Spanish Ministry of Education.

Notes on contributors

José M. Moneva

José M. Moneva is Full Professor of Accounting and Finance at the Faculty of Business Administration (University of Zaragoza, Spain). He has directed and participated in different national and international research projects related with sustainability, corporate social responsibility and ethical investment. His research focuses on corporate social, environmental and financial performance; reputational and risk management and sustainable supply chain management. His publications include textbooks and research papers in relevant international journals (www.catedrabsh-uz.es/pdf/CVen-jmmoneva.pdf).

María Jesús Bonilla-Priego

M^a Jesús Bonilla-Priego is Senior Lecturer in the Accounting Department at Rey Juan Carlos University. Her research focuses on environmental management accounting and corporate social reporting for the tourism industry.

Eduardo Ortas

Eduardo Ortas is Senior Lecturer in the Accounting and Finance Department at University of Zaragoza. His research focuses on corporate social, environmental and financial performance, sustainable supply chain management, ethical investment and other topics related with corporate sustainability.