Anglia Ruskin Research Online (ARRO)
Browse

Corporate social responsibility in small and medium-sized enterprises: a study of small hotels in London

Download (1.63 MB)
thesis
posted on 2023-08-30, 20:24 authored by Maryam Khodaviren
Given the perpetual environmental disasters, economic crises, and unpredictability, it is recognized that businesses of all sizes can have a substantial role in confronting these challenges and boosting social wellbeing. Accordingly, the notion of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) which encapsulates the relationships between organizations and the larger society has gained much attention. However, little research exists regarding CSR perception and practices in Small and Medium-Sized Enterprises (SMEs), despite their numerous and valuable contributions to the wellbeing of society. This study addresses this knowledge gap, in the context of small size London hotels in the UK hospitality industry. Executed through the lens of the hotelier―the SME protagonist―the study adopts a social and capital framework to investigate how CSR is perceived at the individual level and consequently manifested into CSR practices. Multilevel analysis is undertaken to understand institutional, organizational, and individual levels of CSR implementation to gain a holistic view of the functioning of hotels is conducted in the study. To address the gap of limited studies highlighting the individual’s perception, in the small business context, the current study sheds light on the decisive role of hoteliers and individualism as a source of reference for being socially responsible and, therefore, the study focuses on the micro-individual level. The study adopts a social constructionist approach to explore the various CSR perspectives and practices, based on twelve semi-structured interviews with owners/managers of small hotels in London. The findings indicate that CSR conceptualization is largely influenced by the socio-economic conditions, socio-political, and long-term vs. short–term conditions of the organizational level. It includes institutional level factors of demography and the presence of individualism in the society combined with the hotelier’s own cultural background against the big-city cosmopolitan backdrop and ineffective institutional participation which has led to weak reactions towards socially responsible issues. The individual-level factors include hoteliers’ conceptualization of CSR and its adoption in organizational working. The findings of the study identified that CSR adopted by hotels varies hoteliers’ personal and business values, CSR understanding of hoteliers, the strength of stakeholder-hotelier relationship on CSR, constraints, and challenges in CSR implementation–London hotelier perspective, and final adoption of CSR in the hotel.

History

Institution

Anglia Ruskin University

File version

  • Accepted version

Language

  • eng

Thesis name

  • PhD

Thesis type

  • Doctoral

Legacy posted date

2023-01-10

Legacy creation date

2023-01-10

Legacy Faculty/School/Department

Theses from Anglia Ruskin University/Faculty of Business and Law

Usage metrics

    ARU Theses

    Categories

    No categories selected

    Exports

    RefWorks
    BibTeX
    Ref. manager
    Endnote
    DataCite
    NLM
    DC