Preprint Article Version 1 Preserved in Portico This version is not peer-reviewed

How Contingency Adjusts CSR in Tourism Industry: A Quasi Experiment in China

Hao Wang
,
Tao Zhang
* ORCID logo ,
Xi Wang
,
Jiansong Zheng
ORCID logo ,
You Zhao
,
Rongjiang Cai
ORCID logo ,
Xia Liu
ORCID logo ,
Qiaoran Jia
,
Zehua Zhu
,
Xiaolong Jiang
Version 1 : Received: 30 January 2024 / Approved: 31 January 2024 / Online: 31 January 2024 (10:51:01 CET)

A peer-reviewed article of this Preprint also exists.

Wang, H.; Zhang, T.; Wang, X.; Zheng, J.; Zhao, Y.; Cai, R.; Liu, X.; Jia, Q.; Zhu, Z.; Jiang, X. How Contingency Adjusts Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) in the Tourism Industry: A Quasi-Experiment in China. Systems 2024, 12, 83. Wang, H.; Zhang, T.; Wang, X.; Zheng, J.; Zhao, Y.; Cai, R.; Liu, X.; Jia, Q.; Zhu, Z.; Jiang, X. How Contingency Adjusts Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) in the Tourism Industry: A Quasi-Experiment in China. Systems 2024, 12, 83.

Abstract

Although numerous organizational researchers have acknowledged that COVID-19 shocks reduced the tourism industry’s financial performance, relevant literature remains scarce. Do tourism firms reduce corporate social responsibility (CSR) investments to decrease costs? The answer is unclear. This study fills the gap between stakeholder and cost stickiness theories. Based on a quasi-natural experiment of listed Chinese tourism companies from 2017 to 2021, the study finds that the COVID-19 shock caused tourism firms to increase strategic and decrease responsive CSR. In addition, tourism firms that adopted cost leadership strategies trimmed responsive CSR more than strategic CSR. Tourism firms with differentiated leadership strategies increased strategic and decreased responsive CSR. Tourism firms with higher levels of political connections increased responsive CSR, while tourism firms with higher organizational resilience increased strategic CSR. At the theoretical level, this study reveals the theoretical mechanism of the COVID-19 epidemic’s shock on tourism firms' adjustment of CSR from the perspective of cost stickiness. On a practical level, it helps inform tourism firms’ decision-making regarding CSR adjustments for sustainable development when they face widespread crisis scenarios.

Keywords

COVID-19; CSR; Tourism companies; Cost-leadership strategy; Differentiation-leadership strategy; Political connections; Organizational resilience

Subject

Business, Economics and Management, Business and Management

Copyright: This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

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