Drivers and outcomes of corporate sustainability in the Indian hospitality industry

Abstract

Purpose: This study aims to examine corporate sustainability in the hospitality industry as it caters to multiple stakeholders such as society and environment. Further, the researchers have attempted to portray a comprehensive outlook of corporate sustainability by examining the organizational-level and environmental-level drivers and assessing the impact of corporate sustainability on an overarching measure of hotel performance: sustainability balanced scorecard (SBSC). Design/methodology/approach: A three-staged mixed-methods research design was implemented comprising interviews, surveys and a post-hoc analysis to test the comprehensive framework of corporate sustainability. Findings: The authors observed that corporate sustainability positively impacted hotel performance. The results further indicated that in competing environments and presence of slack resources, sampled firms could develop their sustainability strategy to improve performance. Surprisingly, environmental munificence did not significantly influence corporate sustainability but directly increased hotel performance. Interestingly, hotel performance also improved upon having managerial commitment toward sustainability. Practical implications: The study highlights the crucial role of top management in hotels, where their commitment to sustainability can positively impact not just hotel's engagement in corporate sustainability but can also directly enhance hotel's overall performance. Hotel managers can utilize the SBSC developed in this study to comprehensively measure hotel performance which is found to be positively impacted by hotel's engagement toward corporate sustainability. Originality/value: The study contributes to the sustainability literature by examining drivers of corporate sustainability in the Indian hospitality industry from two perspectives: environmental and organizational. With the escalating ambiguity of sustainability–performance relationship, the authors employed a novel technique for operationalizing hotel performance: SBSC.