Managing legitimacy in tourism: a novel perspective on how destination social responsibility influences residents’ environmentally responsible behavior

ABSTRACT

Drawing upon legitimacy and signaling theories, this study introduces a novel research framework aimed at elucidating the conditions and mechanisms by which destination social responsibility enhances residents’ environmentally responsible behavior. Leveraging data from two survey waves involving 458 residents situated in scenic locales, we conducted an empirical examination of the proposed model. Our findings reveal a positive association between destination social responsibility and residents’ environmentally responsible behavior, with this relationship being mediated by residents’ perception of destination legitimacy. Moreover, our results underscore the role of residents’ community concern in amplifying the positive link between destination legitimacy and destination social responsibility. Furthermore, employing moderated mediation analysis, we ascertained that the indirect influence of destination social responsibility on residents’ environmentally responsible behavior through destination legitimacy is more pronounced among residents exhibiting high levels of community concern. Our research extends the applicability of legitimacy theory to the context of tourist destinations.

KEYWORDS:

• Destination social responsibility
• destination legitimacy
• environmentally responsible behavior
• community concern
• signaling theory
• legitimacy theory

Acknowledgments

The authors would like to thank all relevant departments of the Leizhou Youth Canal Management Bureau and all the participants of the Crane Land Silver Lake for their strong support and assistance during the data survey of this project.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by Guangdong Philosophy and Social Science Foundation [grant number GD15DL14] and Basic and Applied Basic Research Foundation of Guangdong Province [grant number 2022A1515110539].