Corporate social responsibility (CSR) is an important consideration in tourism and hospitality management, yet extensive empirical studies on how it is implemented in developing country’s context are lacking. Using qualitative methodology, this article addresses this knowledge gap by exploring CSR practices among hotels and accommodation providers in Malawi. Our findings demonstrate that a broad-based CSR agenda is slowly being pursued by certain firms although corporate philanthropy remains the major area of focus for most of the considered firms. The article further demonstrates differences in the choice of CSR agenda firms pursue can be influenced by the nature of firm’s ownership. Whereas locally owned and managed firms showed a strong orientation towards philanthropic-based CSR agenda, foreign owner/mangers favoured a broad-based CSR agenda.
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Although critical differences exist between large companies and small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), limited empirical research has been done on human resource (HR)-related corporate social responsibility (CSR). In this paper we study aging workforce management (AWM) as a component of CSR. Our study was conducted in the Netherlands through a randomly distributed online questionnaire. Managers and team leaders of 201 SMEs responded. The data were analyzed using multiple hierarchical regression analysis. Our results are twofold: first, findings suggest that CSR policies in micro organizations with fewer than five employees seem to be strongly associated with AWM; and second, that companies with a focus on integration of older workers in daily activities do not perceive their actions as HR-related. Using AWM as part of CSR helps to give insight into the role of the owner, company size and the nature of implicit CSR practices. Our study demonstrates that the use of AWM in CSR research can lead to valuable insights and therefore, our overarching research question is answered that AWM can be used when studying CSR. © 2012 Blackwell Publishing Ltd.
When corporate social responsibility (CSR) as a sensemaking process is assessed from a corporate governance perspective, this implies that stakeholders do not only influence companies by promoting and enforcing regulations and other corporate guidelines. They also influence companies by promoting regulation on influence pathways, by demanding that companies develop formal mechanisms that allow companies and stakeholders to discuss and in some cases agree on changes to principles and policies. This perspective suggests that regulation is an outcome of power relations and is, as such, a reflection of certain mental models. As such, mental models reveal the political bias in corporate governance perspectives. For this reason, CSR research needs to be clear about the underlying assumptions about corporate governance, and corporate governance research needs to disclose which mental models of CSR influence the outcomes. Taking a governance perspective on the development of mental models of CSR helps to understand the interaction between CSR and processes of sensemaking at the institutional, organizational and individual levels.
