Corporate Social Responsibility and Sustainability in a Hospitality Family Business

Ana Paula Fonseca and Sandro Carnicelli
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Ana Paula Fonseca: Strategy and Sustainability, MBA Strategic Project Management and Engineering Management, Edinburgh Napier University, Edinburgh EH14 1DJ, UK
Sandro Carnicelli: Marketing, Events and Tourism Unit, University of the West of Scotland, Paisley PA1 2BE, UK

Sustainability, 2021, vol. 13, issue 13, 1-19

Abstract: The triple bottom line of sustainability has been the foundation to assess the overall performance of organizations in the hospitality sector. Family businesses are operating in a very competitive environment, and their practices are heavily scrutinised by stakeholders. This paper considers the value of action research in the field of family businesses in the hospitality sector through the prism of organizational learning. The focus of the research is to understand how a Scottish family business learns and implements corporate social responsibility and sustainability practices and how they embed the practices in their activities in a bed and breakfast. The family business used in this research is based in Paisley, Scotland. The use of action research enabled this research to follow a recurring spiral learning process of diagnosing, planning, acting, and evaluating to achieve organizational learning. The action learning contributed to re-thinking the communication between actors involved in the Scottish hospitality sector and family businesses to open a dialogue and produce norms and to contribute to knowledge about a new small-business social responsibility orbital framework.

Keywords: corporate social responsibility; sustainability; sustainable tourism; hospitality family business; organizational learning; action research; Scotland (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (4)

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