The importance of CSR on corporate reputation : A case study of the hotel industry

Abstract

In the last decades, corporate reputation has beengiven more attention than before (Pruzan, 2001). This is because it is essential for a company’s survival, and additionally, a good corporate reputation will bring along benefits (Fombrun, 2018; Resnick, 2004). Research suggests that the strongest determinant of corporate reputation is corporate social responsibility (Esen, 2013).Accordingly, the study seeks to investigate the relationship between corporate social responsibility and corporate reputation amongst two hotels from a management perspective. The research question of this thesis was “Is CSR instrumental for corporate reputation?”, to enlighten this, we formulated three sub-questions. These sub-questions were used as a basis for developing our interview guide. The literature applied were corporate social responsibility, corporate reputation and stakeholder theory. In addition to the interviews conducted, previous research and scientific literature have been important sources of information. When choosing case companies, we based our choice on both the sustainability and customer barometers where two hotel chains had divergent scores. As we are in the middle of a pandemic and employees are temporarily laid off, we decided to do the study from a management perspective. To answer the research question, we did a qualitative, cross-sectional study of two hotels within the same city in Norway. In short, we found that there is a consensus concerning the importance of having a good corporate reputation amongst the two hotels. Additionally, they define the concept of corporate social responsibility similarly and believe there is a connection between corporate social responsibility and corporate reputation. However, the hotels execute their corporate social responsibility differently. From the hotel managers’ perspective, the most important factor affecting their corporate reputation is whether they provide quality to the guests.